Dabbling in Website Building

One of the projects I do that not many people know about is website building. And yes, I mean building not designing. While the layouts and overall concepts are usually mine, I use Weebly to create the sites and their available tools rather than creating from scratch. Why do I do it this way? I mean I usually make everything from scratch, so why not the sites? 
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Firstly, I never really set out to manage websites for people. I had been dabbling with creating a portfolio for my baked goods and caught the attention of a few friends and family members. Growing up in a self-employed family there were soon several family members asking if I could help them set up websites. I was happy to do so but explained I am not a designer and with the kids being my primary job I was unable to guarantee full time maintenance.

My second main reason for using Weebly, it’s relatively easy to understand. This would make it so I could set them up with something someone with little computer experience could manage. I know it’s crazy in 2019 to think there are still a large group of people with little to no computer experience but living in small rural communities its more common than you think. In order to help my family and friends their websites needed to be very “plug and play” as well as economical (cost being my third main reason). After a lot of research, I found Weebly to be very user friendly and one of the most economical options while still providing nice results.  

Before long I had completed a basic portfolio for Ridgetop Cabinetry. At this point I had disabled my own site as I had other obligations that were pulling me away from cakes and crafts. I later started setting up a site for my mother’s farm, it’s still being adjusted, as well as a few other small 1-page sites. It wasn’t long before I was approached to recreate an outdated website for a local jewelry store. In 2014 John and Frieda, the owners of Stars Fine Jewelry, were looking to revamp their outdated website. The initial idea was that I would create them a new site and they would manage it. It soon changed to a continual project and is something I am still working on with John and Frieda to this day. I have been able to learn a lot and really push the tools Weebly offers with the jewelry site. It was the continual work on the Stars website that made me finally decide to restart a portfolio for my own stuff. Well that and wanting to be able to share recipes and cost saving tricks as well as how I make some of the many projects I do.  

Below are the links to some of the websites I created and or still manage. I hope you take a moment to check out these wonderful small local businesses I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

https://www.starsfinejewelry.com/
http://www.ridgetopcabinetrymaine.com/
​https://www.bayviewcottages.me/
​https://www.coastalbreezelandscaping.com/
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