It's official, Shanni Loves is now blogging under a new name, The Modern Tomato!  How do you like the new digs? I'm pretty excited so I thought I'd do a quick post to show you around the new joint.

First a bit about why I started this blog.  My first blog post was over 4 years ago on Dec 30, 2011.  You can go read it here if you like.  I have to laugh when I read it now.  Some things I said in that post still ring true with me like, I'm always changing my mind.  Go check out my closet link above and count how many times my hairstyle has changed in the past 4 years!  Change is a good thing though.  We may not always like it but we learn to overcome and adapt to it and in the end we become smarter for it.  Like this little update I did for the blog.  It was scary and not the easiest thing to do but I've learned a ton about web design and coding.  I have to say though one of the last things I say in my very first post is just a load crap to me now...practice makes perfect.  Practice is good and makes you better but no one is perfect and no one is ever going to sew the perfect garment.  Striving for perfection is unhealthy.  When the task at hand was to start on the skirt I've wanted to sew for months I instead procrastinated finding anything and everything else to do.  Oh I'm too busy...the house isn't going to clean itself you know!  The fear of not being good enough was paralyzing and perfection was holding me back.  I finally realized how stupid that was.  Practice not for perfection but to learn and become better, to be the best version of yourself.  The fit of the skirt may be all wrong but you learn and do better next time.  Practice makes better, practice makes smarter....but never perfect!  

Ok so I got off on a bit of a tangent there.  What was I talking about anyway? Oh yeah why did I start this blog.  I started sewing and was inspired by other blogs so I thought I'd give it a shot. I've always enjoyed writing and I've always found it easier to write my thoughts down on paper than having to actually say them out loud. So I started Shanni Loves.  My nickname has always been Shanni.  It started at a young age.  My cousins even had a song to go along with it and I'll spare you the lyrics.  I didn't really want to constrict myself to sewing only as I had just started and wasn't even sure if I'd like it.  The loves part kinda kept it wide open for me to talk about all the things I love or like to do.  Flash forward to now.  I still love sewing and want to talk about it.  I've never expanded my topic on much of anything else.  I was never really excited about the name of my blog but here recently I  just felt like I've kinda out grown the name.  Maybe it's the fact I'm reaching 40 and Shanni sounds so juvenile to me.  Friends and family still call me Shanni and that's fine, I just didn't want it to be the name of my blog.  I wanted a more distinctive name.  The Modern Tomato came into play when it was the assigned password on an old wireless router I had bought.  It stuck with me for years.  I thought it was catchy.  

So now here we are, The Modern Tomato.  It's still a work in progress.  I'm currently trying to get all my old comments on Disqus moved over.  That's been a confusing chore.  I went ahead and renewed my old domain for another year so it will keep redirecting to the new domain.  Otherwise had I let it expire eventually anyone trying to visit Shanni Loves would just come to a parked domain.  I'll monitor the hits on the old domain for the next year and do some research on setting up 301 redirects so that when my old domain does expire anyone trying to visit it will be automatically redirected here.  That is the way those work, right?  

Besides the new name I'm really loving my new design.  It was a premade template purchased from Etsy.  What sold me was the navigation menu up top with the social media links.  I think it's a cleaner look.  The closet tab has pics and links to all the clothes I've made.  It's a work in progress as I need to get all the picture sizes uniform and move non clothing makes to the new DIY tab.   There is also the tutorials and contact tab.  My contact information is still the same for now...shanniloves[AT]yaHooDOTcom but that may change.  I haven't decided if I want to get one of those fancy email addresses that is the name of my blog like shannon@themoderntomato.com...ooh I like it.  We'll see.   Under the navigation menu is the slider that I wasn't sure I was going to like.  It's kind of grown on me so I think we'll keep it. **which I noticed is now not working after taking a look after this post was published. argh**   I like how my posts start out with what they are labeled and those labels are listed on the side bar.  I've tried to narrow it down to only a few labels on my main topics.. sewing, handmade/diy, refashions, tutorials, how I wore it, thrifting and we can't forget about Vito...pugsnotdrugs.  Having a bad day? Just visit the blog and click on the label, pugsnotdrugs.  You'll be redirected to all the posts containing Vito's cute little face.  That's sure to brighten your day!  Do you use labels whether it be for your own blog or visiting blogs as a way to search topics?  There is always the search bar to use which is located at top next to the social media icons but I find labels to be helpful too if you want to see all the material on a given topic.   The side bar also showcases my pinterest feed and my instagram feed is all the way at the bottom of the page.  

So there you have it.  I hope this post has reached all of my followers.  Anyone following me on bloglovin should be fine as I just moved you all over to my new name.  I think I have set up my feedburner correctly so that my email followers will get this update post.  Those of you who blog and have email followers do you use feedburner or another format like mail chimp?  I'm trying to decide if there would be any worthwhile benefits to moving over to mail chimp.

Hope you all enjoy the new site.  I'm looking forward to getting busy with regular posting.  I've been kind of stagnant with my posting here the past several months and I'd like to get on a more regular schedule.   My goal is to have a new post up every Monday with the occasional How I Wore It posts in between. I really enjoy doing those kind of posts.  They are quick to photograph and only involve a few sentences.  They also get me thinking of different ways to style my handmades and getting the most versatility out of them.  I'd also like to get some more DIY posts going as well.

Have a great week everyone!  What's one thing your looking forward to this week?