New name and domain for the new year!

Update - migration now completed! You should be automatically redirected to the new URL www.queenofdarts.com when you type in smoonbeam.blogspot.co.uk. There are still tweaks to be made here and there, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the new site, and thank you for bearing with me when I carry out the changes :)

Hello 2015, and Happy New Year dear readers! I hope 2014 treated you well and that you are looking forward to a brand new year. 

I have some exciting news to announce today. After much deliberation, I have decided to sign up to a custom domain name (i.e. dropping blogspot.co.uk and replace with a .com ending), and have also taken this opportunity to change the blog name altogether! Drastic change indeed! 

Reasons for saying goodbye to Moonbeam

1) Currently the URL doesn't match the name Moonbeam, as the URL starts with an S (short for Sallie) as when I started off, moonbeam.blogspot.com was already registered. I think this is a little confusing, and know that some people have struggled finding my blog in the past because of it.  

2) I feel that I've somewhat outgrown the name Moonbeam. I initially named my Singer 8280 sewing machine Sallie but since then I've bought 3 machines - a vintage Singer 99k, a serger and yet another one this week (it's a computerised one :D), which is another reason why I feel ready to move on.  

3) It makes no reference to sewing/dressmaking. 

4) Since I registered smoonbeam.blogspot.com, Blogger (Google) has changed all the suffix to a country specific one (i.e. .co.uk) which I don't like. This is one of the reasons why I have now registered a custom domain. 

The new name is...

So are you ready? Drum roll please..... 

Queen of Darts

I must admit, I love the name. Yes it's completely different, but it's short and punchy, easy to remember, and makes reference to Alice in Wonderland (a playful tweak of Queen of Hearts), as well as sewing. Credit when it's due - it's all from the hubby, and I am really happy that he was able to contribute more to this blog than taking photos of my new makes every so often. 

That said, please allow me to clarify upfront that as much as I like sewing darts (remember this blouse with 10 darts and 4 tucks?), Queen of Darts is purely a play on words, and I am not trying to claim that I  am the queen of anything :) 

What this means for you

Please note that at this stage, although I have registered the new domain, I have not linked it to this page as yet. I wanted to let you know before updating the links to avoid any confusion to my existing readers, and will let you know once it's all up and running. 

I will attempt to add the new domain to Blogger in the next couple of days, as well as updating the blog content, so there may be a period of time where the blog name/text and URL may not match. 

However, I am expecting little disruption to you, as the existing smoonbeam.blogspot.co.uk URL will continue to work as usual indefinitely, and an automatic redirect will be set-up to take you to the new page as and when it's ready. 

If you are a reader via Bloglovin', again I don't think much will change other than the blog name you will see on your screen. I will get in touch with Bloglovin' to "merge" the two URLs but that shouldn't present any difficulty to my existing readers. 

So the short answer is - you should do nothing, apart from remembering that the blog will have a different name. I am hopeful that all will be taken care of and you can continue to read my blog as usual, and would like to thank you for bearing with me when I deal with the switchover. 

I don't know about you, but I am really excited about the changeover, and think it will be a great new start to this blog! 

Finally, thank you for your support for Moonbeam in the last couple of years. I promise that Queen of Darts will only be more fun and more interesting. 

Any questions/concerns please feel free to ask, and I want to hear from you if you have gone through the same thing - don't be shy!