Sunday, February 12, 2012

A New Look with a bit of Marie Antoinette Style

I'm starting a new vintage fashion plate series in the Marie Antoinette style over on my main blog at EKDuncan.blogspot.com and thought this would be the prefect time to give My Fanciful Muse a bit of a face-lift as well.

This is the "new" look I've come up with for this blog - My Fanciful Muse
 
I've made a slight modification to the last swirled background I created for this page
and I've finally created a title bar for this blog - complete with a
vintage fashion beauty in the style of Marie Antoinette.

She is just one version of a 1770's fashion plate I'll be posting about on my main blog 
in the near future - so don't forget to come and check them out.


I started by finally creating a "title bar" for this blog and making a few
alterations to my background.I liked my original swirl pattern on the
background so I just softened it up a bit, changed the texture in the center
as well as its color to a softer sage green.

(if you want to know what the old background looked like click HERE)







I created my title bar by first choosing my fashion lady in the style of Marie Antoinette.
Yup - she is one of my adaptations from an original 1770's fashion plate.



EKD Dancing Marie #3 - Blue & Green version
I thought this image looked like a Fairy Queen would make a nice topper.
She is just one version of a "Dancing Marie" I'll be posting to my
EKDuncan blog in the near future, so she is just a teaser for now - giggles.



I could not resist using one of my Ackermann Repository images of a "Country Seat"
as the title bar background; and this amazing stately estate just seemed to fit the ticket.

1823 Eaton Hall - West, Front View - Ackermann's Repository
 This and other Regency Era estate landscapes can be found
on my EKDuncan blog post for Country Seats - HERE



My fanciful lady just had that Fairy Queen look to her so I wanted the feel of fairy dust about her.
My hubby says it looks like snow but the rest of us knows it's fairy dust - right? ... wink.

Green Glitter Shimmer Texture - photo taken by me
 I love textures of all kinds and one day I dragged out various glitters,
took my camera and had a blast taking shots from many angles
of various types and colors of glitter.

I used this shimmer texture at a reduced opacity over my title bar
background to get what I think is a "magical" or "dreamy" look.



I used a fun text style and added one of my vintage frames to finish off the look.

One of my favorite frames from my vintage collection
 A bit of adjusting in Photoshop and this frame fit over my Title bar just right.
It takes a bit of playing with in sections so that the side bars are all
the same thickness when your done but it is worth the effort.


My "adjusted" title bar frame



Put it all the elements together and I had a fanciful title bar for my blog




And I think it blends in pretty well with the updated background

Updated background for this blog
If you are wondering about the "faded" portion at the bottom...
I recently discovered on Mac devices when you scroll down on a blog,
the background does not stay constant like it does on a regular computer.
Instead there is a harsh ending between a blog background and the
solid background color for your blog.

I don't know why this happens with iPads and such, I just know it does.
So now when I update a new "look" to my blogs, I grab my hubby's iPad and
keep testing to see if I've "faded" the bottom of the background enough
so this is not an issue for those viewing my blogs on a Mac or iPad/iPhone.

I'm not sure if there is a better way to handle this "issue" but if any
of you know one, please drop me a note in the comments section.
I'd love to know an easy "fix" for this.


*****



Thanks for dropping in and I hope you check out my fun new series
on Marie Antoinette vintage styles at EKDuncan.blogspot.com


May you...

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