About the Website

I was bored one day and decided I wanted a website. It's really that simple. I was on the internet and thought it through for a minute (those were the days when I went to loads of sites with blogs and a few clique buttons rather than doll sites, so that's what I was going by) then asked my brother, James (technology guru compared to me), to help me set one up on geocities. Sure enough in March 2003 Choccie Button's Chaos was launched (it actually started life in the very beginning with the rather fetching name 'Libby's Site'). It was crap. It really was. It didn't really have anything in the way of content; pages with links to leave and I think a page of online quiz results, and that was about it. The graphics were all done in MS Paint and I didn't do a single bit of html myself. Good times.

I don't remember how I was introduced to dot.tk, but I was and on 21st June 2003 I got my domain watermelon-bubblegum.tk. The name comes from a story I intended to write and never did, that's all the back story there is there. Around this time I began to get into dolling by looking at about three dolls sites (I didn't really know of any others in those days). I took to it like Clingfilm to itself and put up my first vain attempts on my new WB. I also joined The Gathering around June, so I got to know some dollers through there. The doll website was launched!

While I love that my site got popular, geocities didn't love it nearly so much and started being down a lot. I actually got e-mails from them telling me I'd had a lot of downtime and should upgrade XD. Being the cheapskate I am, I did nothing. Then Cecilie saved me and offered to host me *townspeople cheer*. I maintain that geocities was good for getting started, mind, and I quite liked it.

After going off to university, and then graduating, getting a job and joining the Real World I started losing my enthusiasm for dolling. I spent a lot of time opening Paint Shop Pro, doing a few sribbles over a base, and closing it again. So when Cecilie decided not to renew her domain in August 2009 I was quite content to let Watermelon Bubblegum close down.

I blame the livejournal buddies I have who went back to TG for reviving WB. I started thinking in pixels again. I found a base that made me want to doll, and off I went. No sooner had I completed it than I started forming plans to bring the website back. I missed it. But I wanted to do it properly this time, which is why (with James's help again) I decided to actually pay real live money for some webspace. It felt good.

And here I am, back in the world of the dolling.

Past Layouts

Because I am a dork and like to reminisce. For most of the older ones I have very little idea of when I changed them. I'm pretty sure I changed layouts pretty frequently for the first year or two, having seen how many there are and bearing in mind that for the last two or three years I kept layouts up for several months at a time.


Choccie Button's Chaos - March 2003 Back in the very very beginning. I didn't do any html myself and everything was saved in bitmap form...good times.	Watermelon Bubblegum - June/July 2003 To celebrate the birth of watermelon-bubblegum.tk. This was the first one with a dolls section, though a fair were from dollmakers.

Daydreamer My first iframe! This was when the site had changed to be focussed mainly around dolls, hence the doll in the layout. All things considered, not a bad layout.	Petals in the Wind I found this one quite boring though I know some people like it more than my later layouts (my mum, for one). It was also confusing because I stupidly had the name of the layout across the main page so people thought that was the name of the site. A rookie mistake.

Roses I liked the look of this one but got sick of it quickly. It was made up of mangled tables and was a bugger to use.	Mirror This was the first layout to use a stylesheet and I was incredibly proud of it. I loved the navigation, the links were items scattered around the mirror.

Satin Slippers Now this one I really did like. It had transparent scrollbars and everything, and I still think this is my prettiest layout.	Gypsies I remember this one with great affection though it had a lot of flaws. The gypsy always got in the way of the pages and I liked the graphics of the layout more than the layout itself.

Lazy Summer Days - Summer 2004 I had this for most of summer 2004 and loved it. It was small but not stupidly so, and it was nice and neat. I liked the colours of this one.	Grey Guitar I loved this one for a good few weeks then got bored of it. It was too grey and I seem to remember it didn't always work properly. Nice idea, though.

Hard Rock Cafe I liked this one for quite a long time, a few months at least, then I just got sick of it and after some unsuccessful tweaking I left it for dead. Started out okay, though.	Aged Photo - August/September 2005 Did a great overhaul to get this one up, then got hosted a little while later and kept it because I hadn't had it for very long, so this was my first layout at buggative.net. I kept this style of layout for a long time, partly because I'm lazy and party because I never tire of how organised and tidy this setup is.

Winter Nights - 26 December 2005 The winter version of the previous layout, which everyone said looked more like autumn. Well it was winter, just not a frosty winter because I didn't want the layout to look cold. So there. I really liked the colours for this one.	Summer - 8 June 2006 An inspired name, huh? This was very much a convinience layout; I was never overly fond of it, just needed something different for summer. The colours are a rip-off of the good summer layout from earlier. Still, I organised this one a little more so I guess it was good for something.

Biro - 25 August 2006 So called because the scribbles in the corners reminded me of biro scribbles. I liked this one a lot, but I always get tired of dark layouts quickly because they get depressing.	Space Bandits - 3 January 2007 The 'space' part has never made any sense - these gals quite clearly have nothing to do with space - but that's what I have always called them. I really liked this layout. I wanted something bright and fresh after the darkness of Biro, and this was just what I was after. I had this one up for ages.

Miss Misc - 24 July 2008 A bit cosier than the Bandits, but very much notes on a theme. This one was the last layout before WB shut up shop in August 2009.	Boxtacular - 02 February 2010 A new layout for the re-launch of the website after being offline for a few months. The first layout in a long time not to feature a doll. I liked this one a lot, it was simple and tidy.