Enhance Life Gets A Face-Lift; What Do You Think?

As you might have noticed, I have made some drastic changes to the blog template. I am happy to say that I did this all by myself! (Ahem.. Including the graphics!) I plan on writing a series of posts to share my experience. I will reveal how I re-designed the blog template (and did the implementation) myself. Yes, I purposely used the word "myself" multiple times! I had to burn the late night candle on both ends to get this done. So it feels good now that its finally complete. So what do you think? Do you like the new template better than the one I had before?

Changes Made - What I added

#1. Header (Obviously!)

I wanted to add a dash of the web 2.0 look and feel, which gave birth to the glossy header. When you look at it long enough, it sort of looks like candy you want to eat huh? Well, you must understand my mentality. It took me about two months to get the images and the blog design done. No, I didn’t work on this full time.

You can now click on the header image and it will redirect to the main page. (I almost forgot to mention)

#2. New RSS subscription buttons

I changed the subscription buttons in order to match the web 2.0 look of the header. The buttons are positioned on the top right for two main reasons.
1. It is a prominent place. The eye naturally goes to the header.
2. Placing the RSS button in the header meant more room in the side bar.

#3. Navigation Panel

In the old template, the introduction, achieves were all over the sidebars. My intention of adding the navigation panel was to give an area where all these are grouped together.

Changes Made - What I removed

#1. Sponsors (temporary)

There were affiliate links. I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. So I decided to discontinue it, for the time being.

#2. Side bars

I removed a couple of side bars which I thought were not essential.

To Do

This template re-design is far from finish. There are a few important things that I need to add.
1. Search bar
2. Footer
3. More cross browser testing

What I indented to achieve with the re-design

1. A professional design
I hate to admit it, but the previous template did look a bit amateurish.
2. Reduce the clutter
I had so many sidebars and I felt that it takes the focus away from the post content.
3. Better user experience.

I would like to receive your feed back on the blog re-design. Are there things I have overlooked? Any improvements you can suggest to improve this design?

Most importantly, if you come across buttons or links that are not working, please let me know.

Thank you.....
Shamelle