Happy New Year & Sorry

I feel like I have missed so much in the blogging world! My cold got worse and then I got tonsilitis which meant I spent most of my days in bed in the lead up to Christmas. I wasn't doing anything interesting apart from watching tv so I didn't have anything to blog about either. Then with Christmas and New Year celebrations I have had no motivation to do anything other than veg out in front of the tv eating rich food. I've not even seen my family yet so I still have christmas presents to receive from them, which will be nice. How was your Christmas and New Year celebrations? I hope everyone had a lovely time. 

I have quite a lot to mention so I apologise for such a sporadic post today. Firstly, I was lucky enough to win Becky May's giveaway over on the The Flower Girl which was a really welcome surprise as I was really wanting some new jewellery, and when I saw the giveaway I instantly fell in love with the necklace. Isn't it beautiful?

I was also mentioned on Kaelah's blog Little Chief Honeybee on her things I love thursday post, which was an honour as I really enjoy reading her blog. It's one of the first blogs I came across and it's one of the few popular ones I've actually carried on reading. She's down to earth, lovely and she has a huge readership but she really does value her readers by replying to tweets/e-mails, mentioning smaller bloggers in posts etc. You can check out her blog here. It has motivated me to start mentioning more bloggers in posts and get more social too. Regardless of popularity, I am amazed that bloggers of any size mention me in posts or put me on their blogroll, so thank you to everyone who has! It makes me feel happy whenever anyone does, and I always try to return the favour by adding bloggers to my 'daily reads' blogroll.

Oh, and another thing. You may have noticed I have changed my blog layout (again!) I sort of redesigned it so that there wasn't lots and lots of clickables to detract from the post/ad swap features. The pages I saw that were generating the most interest are on the left sidebar, and my blogroll is under 'daily reads' at the bottom. I also added two new buttons which are keeping in with the blog's theme, which you can find under 'grab a button'. I feel weird with layouts. I tend to post a variety of things and although I love a layout which is really personal and colourful, I often feel as though some of the photos I publish clash with the background and don't look good, if that makes sense. I'm starting an OU course in February in web design. I might need a few blog volunteers to allow me to redesign their blog (of course, how they want it), for projects etc. I don't know yet but I assume I would. So I'll keep people posted on that! 

I feel like I've just talked and talked today! So I will cut it short. Happy New Year everybody! xo