Cool WordPress Themes Sites

Hey

I like wordpress. The idea of having a simple solution for blogging is always appealing. If I would ever start again at blogging I would have chosen wordpress, but as it stands I am currently on blogger. Wordpress gives the advantage of offering unparalleled customization of your template. As well as this it is very popular so there are hundreds of hacks and mods which you can apply. One of the most popular things on wordpress as a blogging platform is themes which you can apply to your site. I have found some cool themes, which will be the topic of this post.

While searching the internet, as I do, I have come across hundreds of websites that offer "premium" themes. A premium theme to me is a design that is quality and not run of the mill. I have found two sites, that I have saved specially for you, that I think offer really good wordpress themes for and affordable price. I think they are top quality designs, you may think differently. The wordpress system has many websites that offer selling templates, the area is very competitive and as a result competition is high.

The first site I would like to mention is Solostream. I have enjoyed the blog posts that they put and as a result have been a follower of there developments. As a result they have released a lot of wordpress themes. If you look through there site there are some designs with fantastic layouts. There are a couple which are not so good. A bit of digging through the site returns some promising templates. They are a tad bit expensive for a couple of them but for the average theme they range in the price of $50 to $70. There are more expensive options if you want to resell etc.



The second site that I want to mention which has really cool themes is elite by design. I mentioned his site a couple of weeks ago. He has for sale his wordpress theme. I find his design really cool and as a result it is on sale. His theme is at $65 which seems to be the going rate for themes.



I just thought I would mention these as I love website design and these two sites seem great quality. I may put my theme up in the next couple of days as I have had a couple of people email about sharing it.

PicLens - An Amazing Firefox Plugin

Hey

I was really impressed when I cam across this plugin for Firefox. I was blown away with what it can do, as well as this amazing design on it. Its called Piclens and it is a plugin for most browsers that offers many cool features to show off images while searching the internet.

In a nutshell it is very similar to the image you see of the AppleTV, this has since changed but you get the general jist of what it is. You can browse through the hundreds of images within a Google search, or from some of the other popular images sites such as flickr. You can see by the image below the amount of images you can see, each is a real image that can take you to the respective website.



You get lots of swooshy effects as you zoom back and forth. You do need broadband other wise your computer will lag behind a bit with the rendering.


You can zoom in by double clicking on an image, this a flickr image (which I think is really cool) you get the full res. It is very Mac like and seems to work really well. Clicking on the the arrow in the top left will take you to the respective image if you want to view it in its context.


It is well worth checking out, have a play and tell me what you think. It will make searching through hundreds of Google images a lot easier. Go to PicLens for more information and links to download.

A Sunday Market

Our vintage website keeps us very busy these days and during the course of a month, we often visit the large International fairs and markets all over the country, sometimes setting off as dawn is breaking (wonderful in the Summer months!) So it was nice to visit a smaller flea market on Sunday, deep in the heart of rural Somerset. This has long been a favourite fair of mine, but in the winter months there are less outside stalls and sometimes none at all if the weather is very bad. But Sunday was a bright and breezy day - albeit a bit chilly - so there was a good spread of hardy stallholders outside! Despite arriving much later than usual (we had decided a long and leisurely breakfast was needed that morning!) and having to park almost outside on the road due to the number of visitors, we did indeed have a very successful day!

I was pleasantly surprised by the wonderful haul of textiles I managed to find. I thought you would like to see a selection of them; as you can see, there is a very Spring-like feel to the collection above, with the delightful violets and fresh, pretty lilac colours.

These wonderful French rosy curtains are just gorgeous - and huge! The pretty boxed pillowcases have never been used.

These beautiful fabrics, including a 1930s print and 1950s barkcloth and chintz are wonderful!

The majority of these will be for sale on the website soon or transformed into something beautiful for our handmade section.

We left the market fairly early as we decided that a leisurely breakfast should really be complemented by a leisurely Sunday lunch, so we set off in search of a country pub - the perfect way to round off a very enjoyable trip!

Have a wonderful week!

Creating A Funky Text Background

Hey

I was messing around in Photoshop again and I came up with a rather cool background for some text. So i've turned it into a cool little tutorial for you to follow. It is basically a small stylized background for some text. The results are really cool. This tutorial does need a piece of paid artwork. I've used the Hoolanders set from Go Media Pack 2. If you scroll down you should be able to find it. It only costs $15 and is a great bargin since the vectors you get are really good quality. You can use any of the hoolanders sets, the newer set 9 looks really cool. If you are cheap you could always try the free pack. That includes a couple of hoolanders for use for free.

Step 1) As always with my tutorial the first step is to create your canvas. For this tutorial pick a rectangular size. I have chosen 1440px x 900px to match my screen resolution. Change the size to suit your needs.

Step 2) Apply a turquoise green background to the background layer as shown in the image below.


Step 3) The next step is to open up you hoolander, this is best done in illustrator, change its colour to a lighter turquoise green.


Step 4) Hide the background layer. Insert the hoolander into Photoshop thru a copy and paste. If you have inserted it from Illustrator the background will all ready have been deleted, otherwise you need to get your eraser tool out and delete the background. Shrink the shape with the transform tool (v).

Step 5) Put a rectangular marquee around the shape, being as tight as possible to the edges.


Step 6) The next step is to turn this into a pattern. The pattern will be used to cover the background. With the shape still selected go to Edit > Define Pattern. Enter a subtable name.

Step 7) Delete the shape layer it is not needed any more.


Step 8) Go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Pattern. Click through the messages and your canvas should now fill with the shape. If you don't like the sizes, go back and redefine the pattern.


Step 9) On a new layer insert a square rounded rectangle with 40px edges. The colour wants to be off white.

Step 10) Select both the new layer and the background layer and press V. In the tool bar at the top select Align Horizontal and Vertical Centers. This will align the shape layer to the center.


Step 11) Add a small drop shape, make the size large and the opacity medium.


Step 12) Going back to the hoolanders in illustrator, select to black vectors and paste them in Photoshop. Select as pixels when prompted. Move and transform them about.

Step 13) Right click on the layers and select clipping mask. Make sure the vectors are about the coloured square. This will cut the edges off as shown below.


Step 14) To finish off a couple of move vectors are going to be added to the background. In Illustrator select a couple of vectors and make them a dark green turquoise. Paste these into Photoshop. I've included an image of the vectors I have used and coloured as reference.


You want the vectors to be partially hidden, just the edges to be shown.


Step 15) The last step is to add some text. I've used Lucida Grande. Add colour and resize text as you would normally.


Looks pretty cool, and could easily be used in a magazine or brochure. If you want more ideas check out this other magazine design I have done.

Amazing Blogger Design

Hey

I like blogger, it is simple, easy to use and very easy to implement designs. Anyway, I was really impressed by this blogger design. Its simple clean and has a couple of cool little features which make it stand out. Anyway if you head over to jackbook, you can check out the details about the "iWork" theme. I like it and I thought I would share.

Go Media Pack 9 Out!

Hey There

You may remember a long time ago that I posted the awesome GoMedia packs and why you should buy them. Anyway to cut a long story short, the team have released another pack. GoMedia Pack 9. In a similar format to the previous packs, pack 9 offers 7 sets of high detail scalable vectors that can be yours for only $52. A bargain. You can, of course, buy any of the packs individually if you don't want to spend that much. Below is a couple of pictures of what you get. The main pack contains, Hooladanders 3, Heraldry 2, Abstract Halftones, The 80s, Western, Signs and Flowers. My favourite is the The 80's pack, it looks so cool. I just need to save up some money. It should go great with the other packs I have bought. Anyway you can check out the main page for all of the sets. A great set to add to any collection.