Hi Emma,
First off, nice work! ?? It’s appealing to the first glance, easy on the eyes and quite clean. Just a couple of quick glitches (perhaps just me, but… this is for the record):
One, I’m not a big fan of scrolling menus – I find them somewhat distracting at best and irksome at worst. I am not sure how useful it is to you, but I would seriously consider keeping that menu fixed on top.
If you really want to, you can make that flag that is in the top-rightish area fixed (by using it as a background image with the background-attachment attribute set to fixed), with everything scrolling under it.
I am not sure if it’s just something with my browser, but none of the blog titles are clickable, although I have a feeling you intend them to be. A further problem that I’m facing is that the entire text on this page seems hyperlinked (again, this could just be something weird with my browser*), and this also appears unintentional.
You might want the search box to get more visibility; I would push it on top.
I’d probably also replace the image adverts with text ones, they do feel a bit… out of place? Maybe if you consider using smaller versions of the image lined up horizontally after the footer; it’ll be more elegant, but this should just be a matter of taste.
I like the text in the left sidebar, by the way.
You may generally want sharper and smaller-radius rounded corners on your pictures. Also slightly thinner borders, maybe – but they look quite good already. And nice pictures too, especially the puppy ??
That’s about all that I could note at a quick glance. Good work, keep at it, and keep us updated!
Best,
Avani
*My browser is Firefox 3.0.6, by the way.
