Valentines Day is almost here! Are you a sucker for chick flicks, boxed chocolates, thoughtful notes from friends and that special person? We sure are! That’s why we are determined to do our part to make your blog reflect your personal style for the holiday of L-O-V-E!

Cupid would be so proud–we’ve created a quiver-full of new blog backgrounds that you can find in the FREE GALLERY! Click right over there and take a look!

And this is just the beginning! Make sure to subscribe and/or follow because you won’t want to miss the fantastic craft and design ideas we have coming up for you!! We think you are going to like them!

So let’s kick off this Valentines Day Party the right way. There’s nothing like a little vintage Beatles to get the party started:

Love,
Kate and Heather

We must really love you! We have several new easy-install blog designs ready for you in the Free Gallery.

Make sure to subscribe and/or follow! We’ve got all kinds of fun things coming up for Valentine’s Day that you won’t want to miss!

There are a few new freebies in the gallery for you all today! If you want to know when we post new things, just follow us (on the right sidebar) and that way you’ll always see our new posts (and be first in line for the new designs!)

Here are a couple of fun finds for you to spend a few minutes (or hours…) playing around on. You can use these tips to give your blog some extra touches! If you are looking for some vintage photos to print or use for anything really, you will love Vintage Printables. Here are just a few of the great prints you can find there:

Aren’t they great? Stick one on your blog’s sidebar for fun, or better yet, have us do some custom blog work with one in a header or background…

Now onto a cool photo trick! Do you ever go to your friends’ blogs and wonder how they get cool effects on their photos? Well even if you don’t have a spiffy SLR camera with all the accessories there are still a few things you can do to dress up your pictures. One favorite of ours is Poladroid which turns your photos into polaroid pictures. Here’s a before and after example:

What sites do you use to add effects to your photos? Or do you use Photoshop and have a favorite place you download effects from? It’s so easy these days to restyle your own photos so take a minute to share your own tips!

Happy Blogging!

One of the things we love about blogs is the in-your-home access to design ideas, home decorating and DIY crafts and projects. You can get so many ideas for how to find the style you love and inexpensive, easy ways to incorporate that into your life. And it’s fun to see what people come up with!

One design blog you might have already visited that has gained quick popularity in the blogging world (and that we can’t get enough of) is Little Green Notebook. Our newest i.smitten template is inspired by her post on Campaign Furniture, which you should definitely take a look at.

{image via Little Green Notebook}

{image via i.smitten}

We’ve also seen the bright green color mixed others found on Cath Kidston’s site (for our UK friends…!) She uses the green along with bright blues, red and pink in her fabrics and it looks amazing together. So if you’re looking for some fabric to do a project you’ll want to check out her stuff (though not sure what the pound to dollar ratio currently is…?)

{image via Cath Kidston}

We based another of our i.smitten templates off her colors–to see it and all other $5 templates, go to our i.smitten collection. If any of our readers have fun design inspiration or requests for what you’d like to see in our i.smitten or free templates, send them our way at smittenblogdesigns@gmail.com, we’d love to hear your ideas!

Back later with a contest and more freebies!

-Kate & Heather

Well we’ve spent the past couple of days un-decorating our houses from Christmas like the rest of you probably have. And now it’s time to do the same to your blog and re-decorate it with a nice new look! (Aren’t blogs fun that way?)

We’ve got a few new designs among hundreds of past designs to browse through in our FREE gallery plus more on the way. We’ve got some exciting design and inspiration posts coming your way too so check back. We hope everyone’s holiday was great and that you’ve blogged all about it!

-Kate & Heather

Hope you all had a great Christmas! Here in Oregon we got a bit of a snowstorm and if anyone knows Portlanders, you know we do not handle snow very well. It was fun but traffic/roads/cars were a little roughed up to say the least. Being snowed in was a good excuse to come up with some new templates for the i.smitten collection (click below)…

And for those who like the freebies, stay tuned for later this week! Happy Blogging!

-Kate & Heather