I love making layouts. Rather, I should say I love coding layouts. I really don't like making images for them. I find it far too time-consuming and boring. The sucky part is that I always have these grand, epic, image-heavy ideas for layouts that would look awesome, but never get around to making them. Oh well. Maybe one of these days I'll start focusing on graphics, instead of semantically correct code.
All my recent layouts are written in validating (X)HTML Transitional, and more recently, Strict, with valid CSS. I'm a web semantics nut - things should validate, work in all reasonable browsers and resolutions, and look decent. The less Javascript and other such sillyness you use, the better. It's a challenge, and a fun one. If you couldn't guess from that, I design my layouts to work in all the browsers and resolutions I have access to, though they are optimized for Firefox 1280x1024.
Sorted oldest to newest. Click the header to see a screenshot.
Layout 1: Blue
My first layout on this site back when it was known as Hwesta's Lair. (My sister made me change it because she had Edonil's Lair and I stole the name because it was cool.) It was frames, with the navigation down the side. This was from before I started dolling, really. Even then, I cared about validation. -happysigh- It's a big step up from my first site, now lost, where I used bmps as images!
Layout 2: Green
Hwesta's Hideaway in it's first real incarnation. This was when it really became a doll site, rather than a personal site, and when I had my first contest. The first one to use div boxes and CSS, with an iframe for the content. Not much to say, really.
Layout 3: Christmas
December 2004-January 2005
My advent/Christmas layout. I was sick of red and green, and went purple instead. Once again, it has div boxes and CSS. I love div boxes and CSS. Really just a reordering of the previous one, but still nice enough. Put up Dec. 6/04?
Layout 4: Sadness
January 2005-March 2005
My sad layout, made shortly after my grandfather's death. Fairly quick to make, but it was getting far past the Christmas season and I needed an update. Almost exactly a clone of the previous one, just with different colors and a new doll. Put up Jan. 29/05.
Layout 5: Red
March 2005-October 2005
My layout celebrating my move to my new host, crazy-girl.org, from geocities. I'd already done a blue, green and purple layout, I needed a different color of the rainbow. So, red was chosen. I planned on doing yellow, orange, black, white, brown and gray, but that hasn't happened. Put up late March 05.
Layout 6: Tea
October 2005-2006?
Originally it was supposed to be my brown layout, but you can see that didn't quite work out. Probably one of my favorite layouts to date, even though it used a stock image and had some scrolling issues. Loved the colors and image. Put up October 13/05.
Layout 7: Chocolate
2006?-August 2008
I'm not entirely sure when I made this one, but it was up for an insanely long time, and not because I liked it that much. I was rather proud of it because I made all the images myself, but it wore out its welcome, and I grew really sick of it. I was so happy to change to a new one.