when i made the take my picture skin, i was really enamored of the idea of using handwriting fonts as headers more often. which then got me turned on to the idea of getting my own handwriting made into a font. who doesn't want that? it seems like such an awesome idea! so i set about trying to figure out how to do this for myself, and it's actually really not that difficult.

i figured, since i'd like a little more practice actually making fonts, i should offer to make handwriting fonts for a small number of people before i begin to request a nominal fee for my efforts (because though creating them is easy, it takes a looooooooong time. so if you're interested, check this post out. yes, i'm serious!

the free font service will only be available for a limited time, so if you're really interested, get that stuff printed out and emailed to me asap! ♥

Labels: design, fonts, handwriting

this template is best suited for photoblogs or people who don't really say much. entries look best at 1-2 lines and no labels. picture should be 500px (to best fill the polaroid frame! any smaller will look weird) by about 375px (the sample is 500x333). if you use flickr (which you should because it's amazing!), use the medium size.

the one thing i've always loved about wordpress is the fact that there are so many widgets that you can just press "add" and you're go. no silly fiddling, no difficult configuration. i know blogger was trying to do this too with its "new blogger" system, but instead it just made it 100% harder to code blogger templates.

i found a java script that will supposedly manipulate your blogger archives to look like a calendar, so i'm pretty pumped to try it. hopefully it's just one more small thing that can add to an overall feeling of sophistication and "real" blogginess even if you're writing about something not so serious :)

Labels: calendar, java, site stuff, wordpress

hey. my name is amber. i am a 27 year old ex-high school english teacher, and i'm just looking to keep myself busy until another job comes rolling around for me.

more than anything, i love to cook delicious foods, bake, spin yarn (and sometimes knit it, when i can find the patience), write code, write fiction, journal, and watch movies. i still have a million other hobbies i could list but i don't have that much time in a day.

faith & hope designs used to be myself (faithinpoison.com) and my best friend jessica (in-hope.com), but she dropped out of the designing life a long time ago, and all of her contributions to the site were lost when our old webhost went out of business and didn't tell anyone until suddenly our sites didn't work. i really liked the name we had together so i decided to keep it instead of going with the slightly more sinister sound of my name alone. i'm sticking with creating templates primarily for diaryland because all of the designers who used to do dland templates have mostly quit, but there are a number of us who are still loyal to it. wordpress is nice and everything, and i have warmed up to using it (now on all of my blogs :-)), but for some people, it's just not practical. it's hard to write templates for it if you're not an advanced code writer, templates you can download are sometimes very hard to modify, and it has too many functions and widgets and all kinds of things that intimidate the casual journaller or blogger. dland and its little sister pitas have always remained perfectly simple yet infinitely customizable, and that is why i love them.

i make these templates as a free service to you, the casual person just searching for something to make your simple diary look a little nicer. please be considerate and read the rules before you use anything you find here: leave a comment on the template you take or sign the guestbook if you're just passing through.

♥

Labels: about, site stuff

what a fantastic question. if you're here, you're probably looking to use a template of mine. below are the very simple steps you need to follow to get this template working on your diaryland diary (if you're going to use this on your website, follow the same directions for the most part). these steps are ridiculously detailed and over-explained if you've never done this before. if you think you're some kind of tough guy, you can skip steps 1-3, but wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry?

Read more »

Labels: how-to, site stuff