...what's past is prologue. Shakespeare said so.

don't make many layouts for the Pfenix because I'm not very good at it. There's no natural talent here. And I believe in final layouts--that there's a soulmate of a layout to match each website's personality. Once a website has its soul-layout, I barely touch it--convenient, right? The purpose of this page is document Pfenix's layout transitions and, for the sake of thoroughness, my own webdesigning history.

This current layout is Pfenix's third and final layout. Her soul-layout. I called "Traditional Immortality" at first. It displayed that name proudly on the cloud above, but then on January 27, 2008 I erased that pretentious slogan and wrote in "High-Five, Nature is Alive" (credit to my boyfriend's "poetry" for that one) instead. Anyway, it's similar in structure to the Pfenix's first two layouts - ergo, traditional - and it's probably going to stay up until the domain expires, hence immortality. I adore it with my whole, tender heart. First, I drew a psuedo-pheonix, scanned and colored it in Photoshop; then I spent hours scanning choosing prints for the border. I think the result is rather charming, especially since it survived my insatiable desire to use royal purple, butterflies, and poetry. Thanks Keats! Feel free to email me your comments or criticisms.

I greyscale the screenshot taken on the first day for use as its "current" image. Once the layout finishes its run, another screenshot is taken and left in color.

Simple and Clean (07.18.05 - 06.15.06) was inspired by Utada Hikaru's song by the same name. I was super happy about how fresh and bright it looked in my browser. It was rather fun drawing the phoenix-header in Photoshop but I'm still amused by how I put a huge "pfenix.net" header at the top. A larger screenshot can be found here.

Wonderland (09.26.04 - 07.18.05) used scans I made using Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass's illustrations. (The illustrator's name was John Tenniel.) I can't say I really loved it or anything, but it was a safe and organized first layout. It underwent tons of fiddling over its lifetime; background, font, etc. Appropriately, it was very green.

Alicia of then Splendifirous.Org (we have since lost contact with each other) offered me hosting from February 2004 to September 2004. I owe her greatly for that experience. She taught me the ropes of FTP, offered kindly assistance when she could and just let me go crazy. I learned so much in a few months. Sadly, splendifirous.org died unexpectedly one day. You can see a few layout screenshots here but I'm missing some, including its first three layouts.

The reason I moved HKU to Ching Ching was purely superficial. HKU hadn't been created to become a personal site and since it had, I felt it should be treated like one. "Ching Ching" is what my papa calls me, so I thought: high sentimental value, sure. It's still online, but it's hosted by 20m.com, where pop-up ads show no mercy. All of its layouts can be seen here.

Hello Kitty Universe, otherwise known as HKU, was my first real website. Previous versions included an expage called "Cara's Dynasty" but we don't talk about that. I think HKU was originally created in 2002 as a shrine for Hello Kitty (my favorite character of all time) but as my interest in webdesign grew, it slowly transformed from a page about HK to medium-sized personal site. You can still view it online, though there will be numerous ads popping up all over the place. (20m.com has gone to hell.) And because I know everyone wants to see just how disgusting these are... presenting the very first of my layouts.