WELCOME!!!!!! Like my new place? Fancy, innit?!

I’m not quite sure when I decided that Dreaming Aloud needed to be reborn…

It wasn’t in my year planner at the end of December 2013! Not at all.

But by the end of January 2014 it was an integral part of the big vision that downloaded into my brain. The first in a multi-step plan which seemed exciting, daunting, out of the blue… and completely obvious.  All at the same time!

Like all great plans it came through fully formed. It was going to turn my work year, our finances and our family’s employment upside down. All it required was my agreement to put it into action. Courage. Money. Shed loads of time and energy.

Oh and LOTS of learning and growth from me in areas from the techie to the soul… and the requirement that I reach out for support.

Ouch. All my buttons in one go…

You know. THAT sort of plan.

So naturally I said yes.

I’m that sorta girl!

And then I began… step by step to bring these massive plans to life.

1. Redesign website
2. Launch Womancraft Publishing
3. Under which I will publish all my own books from now on
4. Create a self publishing e-course to support women practically AND emotionally… ( you’ll have to wait till October for that!)
5. And…….. you’ll have to wait and see!

The first stage required bringing my little Blogger blog up to the next level. It needed to be a credible home for this burgeoning creative empire. I wanted the new Dreaming Aloud it to be less cluttered… With vivid colours… and white space. It had to look handmade… and professional. Personal… and business like. Swish… and authentic.

Demanding? Moi!

Never!

I knew what I wanted… and I knew I was entirely incapable of doing it myself.

So I had to reach out.

I went out trawling the interweb in search of something close to what I wanted… no one had it… but I checked out the web-designers on the sites closest to my vision… and hired the one who wore a funky top hat and promised to be friendly as well as provide super design…

may I introduce you to Toby Duckett at Human Measures. I cannot recommend him highly enough, he is one uber-talented man… and a jolly nice human being to boot.

And so began a creative threesome with myself and two very talented menfolk. What a lucky lady I am!

I began to draw and paint all the graphic elements. I wrote all the text. I curated all the material. I sketched and refined and planned the layout in infinite detail. All whilst feeling so TOTALLY out of my depth.

Then turned all this information over to Toby. I don’t think he knew what hit him! He’d just been Lucy Pearce’d!

Working in different countries, and after just one initial Skype conversation, I sent him the design brief, specifications, graphics, page layout and text… and he built a prototype, I gave feedback for hundreds of tweaks big and small, he built the site, I…. you get the story. Most of the time he did what I asked. To the letter with his techie magic. But many times he created wonderful design solutions – artistic and elegant – intuitively showing a great understanding of the feel I wanted for the site.

I won’t pretend there weren’t moments of impatience or terror on my behalf, as I waited to see the results… once a control freak, always one! Having someone else doing all the fiddling and tweaking is agonising when you’re used to doing everything yourself. But every time I could see we were a little closer to my vision, and that he was creating something a few million times better than I could ever do myself. So I took a few deep breaths and practiced trust.

So to the other man in our delicious cyber menage a trois. The mysterious Mr Dreaming Aloud who is taking on a bigger role in our burgeoning family business – co-running WomanCraft Publishing and Lucent Word, as well as being my photographer, graphic design guru, techie guy on call and creative tantrum controller.

Most of the photographs you see on the new site are his. And all my hand painted graphics were scanned and scrupulously edited by him. The way that we produced the header and logo was entirely his idea… Later in the week I’ll give you a run down on the ins and outs of our design process, so you can see behind the scenes.

My intention for the site is that it is a place which uplifts and inspires. That gives you a dose of clarity… and a vibrant injection of life in your soul. Which showcases my work, is dynamic but simple to navigate… which is friendly to use. It has a shop. It will have e-courses come autumn time. There’s lots of juicy content and resources.

It’s beautiful, sure, but most importantly authentic: you get to see me, real: no make up, no stylists, no words crafted by professional copy writers. Every typo and freckle are mine alone!

No one ever told me that redesigning a website would require QUITE so much soul searching and clarity of vision... it may or may not have produced lots of creative meltdowns, dramas and panic attacks in the making…

But it was worth it. I hope you love it as much as I do. The new, grown-up version of the fledgling Dreaming Aloud which hatched nearly 5 years ago. What a journey we’ve been on together.

So welcome home, Dreamers… do have a good poke around. Let me know if you hit on anything that doesn’t work, broken links etc. Sign up to get your new free ebook if you’re not already on the mailing list… if you are you’ll will have got your own copy already in your inbox.