Web-sites

OK, I have a confession to make. I don't really like computers. I don't really like computers, I can't really make them do what I want and they make me mad. I am married to a computer geek who is really quick to tell me that I shouldn't be doing things how I am but not so quick to give me any useful advice or guidance. His stock phrase is '(random person he knows at work) knows how to do this, I'll ask him' or '(another random person at work) is teaching a course in this at the moment, I really need to sit in and see how it works' or best of all 'I could get one of my students to do that for you for their project'. The last one always fills me with dread.

I got myself a website a while back and just used it as a holding page but as I progressed, got labels made for my bags and got promotional material made, I realised that I really did need to get my act together and sort my web-site out.

Then one day, one of my needle rolls was in Yarn Forward magazine with my web-site as a contact. I was embarrassed about my web-site so was forced into action. After many hours of shouting, swearing and crying at my computer I came up with this....

I faffed around with the photos, adding links to my shops directly off the photos on the front page. It looked OK but I still wasn't happy with it. After a chat with Lynne from the Pirate Pixie Crew and Autonomous Artisans blog, I decided that I really needed a plan of attack. That was weeks ago and it has been niggling at me for ever since. Lynne ever so kindly made me a new logo which I have slowly been rolling out over all of my shops ( I know, I am a shop whore, what can I say..) but still I didn't get my site sorted.

This morning I woke up at 4am. Goodness knows why, I can't even blame children who were fast asleep. In my head, 430am is the time that signifies the start of morning, end of night. If I can't sleep after this time then I tend to get up or read. I blame years of having to get up early for one reason or another. Anyway, I was awake and got thinking about what I could do with my website. 430 came and went and I decided that since the birds were making so much noise outside my window, I would get up and have a go. This is what I came up with.....


Obviously, you can click here to see the site in all of its glory. It isn't finished yet but it is heading in the right direction. The whole site is a lot cleaner and I have managed to get rid of all of the random colours that were all over the place. I've used my MISI widget in the side of the front page and on the 'Buy here and now' page to embed my shop directly into the web-site. I think that makes my site look more 'connected' to where people can buy.

So....what do you think? Do you like the new look Nicsknots? What do I need to add? What don't you like? Be nice to me though, remember, I have been up since 430 ;)