Trip Down Memory Lane

I’m sat here digging through my old folders in a desperate attempt to find a half-finished layout or two that would be decent enough to give my website a fresh look without appearing obviously dated, and what should I happen across but a bunch of old layouts from my various sites. Some of these date back eons, have a look and see how many you remember…

cloudy skies layout

old layout 1

old layout 2

old layout 3

old tutorialtastic layout

Of course, now I’m going to have to dig out my back-up CDs and see what else I can find…

Oh dear oh dear

I found more:

old layout 4

old layout 5

47 comments so far

  1. Rachael said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:22 pm

    Oh wow! I don’t remember any of those layouts at all, but some of them are pretty scary! :o

  2. Aisling said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:26 pm

    I remember none of them. :P Before August, I had no clue who you were. :)

  3. Maz said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:28 pm

    I like the header for TutorialTastic, even if I can’t work out what’s on it (staplers?). I don’t remember any of them either, except maybe the green Jemjabella one.

  4. Jem said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:30 pm

    That’s a few sticks of RAM Maz – probably one of the most overused images in my entire ‘library’. It’s been in about 6 different layouts of mine ;)

  5. Amelie said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:41 pm

    I remember all of those. I rule.

  6. Sarah said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:59 pm

    I remember these. :D

  7. Jenny said:
    On 03 Jun at 8:59 pm

    I think the first layout here was the first time I actually discovered CS Reviews. D:

  8. Vera said:
    On 03 Jun at 9:05 pm

    I have never seen the one with the pineapple. The rest I remember quite well. I think that the second was the one I first saw jemjabella (er well jemology) with. I still like it, and if I’d see it anywhere I wouldn’t consider it outdated at all :)

    Ah… now you’ve made me nostalgic as well.

  9. Stepherz said:
    On 03 Jun at 10:31 pm

    I think you’ve always been ultimately better than everyone. If I dug out my old layouts… people might die of heart attacks.

  10. Annie said:
    On 03 Jun at 10:56 pm

    Didn’t read blogs then so I don’t recognise any of them. I like the CS Reviews one though. :)

    Saying that I might have come across the bright blue and pink Tutorialtastic layout…

  11. Arwen said:
    On 03 Jun at 11:06 pm

    Haha, I don’t recall any of those. Your old layouts are definitely better than my old layouts.

  12. Katy said:
    On 03 Jun at 11:21 pm

    yup, all of these (and I can vaguely recall some even older variants of “cloudy skies”)

    also wooo CSR! hehe

  13. Dee said:
    On 03 Jun at 11:36 pm

    Oh man, those are truly works of art, dude.

    Makes me nostalgic for *sniff sniff* simpler times. ♥

  14. Stephanie said:
    On 03 Jun at 11:46 pm

    I remember them all.

    Along with a few from “Cloudy Skys.”

    (and anybody who is anybody knows that isn’t a typo.)

  15. Julie said:
    On 03 Jun at 11:56 pm

    Mmm I think I remember 3 of them. Haven’t been stalking…er I mean, visiting here for that long.

    The first one looks nice, but it would need a bit of change in some of the colors, I think. And BellaBook is THAT old?

  16. Lydia said:
    On 04 Jun at 12:03 am

    I don’t remember any of them, as I’m a relatively new visitor to your website. But as far as peoples’ past layouts go, yours aren’t nearly as bad as others that I’ve seen. In fact, they’re quite decent.

  17. Belinda said:
    On 04 Jun at 1:11 am

    Hee, I remember many of these layouts. You’ve come such a long way Jem, in terms of coding AND design!

  18. Lene said:
    On 04 Jun at 1:48 am

    I remember CSR, but I didn’t know you were behind it!

    I don’t remember the rest of the layouts, probably because I wasn’t a frequent visitor of this site.

  19. Aimée said:
    On 04 Jun at 1:50 am

    I remember the Cloudy Skies ones, but none of the others…

  20. Rose said:
    On 04 Jun at 2:56 am

    I remember all of them except the one of the weird fruit photo thing. All about the girl.

    and maybe the cloudy skies ones. I remember visiting your site on and off back then, but I never looked at it often enough to memorize how the layouts looked.
    O geekyness.

  21. kelsey said:
    On 04 Jun at 2:58 am

    lol, i don’t really remember any of those.

  22. Megan said:
    On 04 Jun at 3:03 am

    I don’t remember any but I love the “old layout 3” one!

    What’s with the coconut and pineapple? ;P

  23. Bobbi-lee said:
    On 04 Jun at 3:12 am

    I love the “all about Karl” “all about me” links! haha

  24. Cristina said:
    On 04 Jun at 3:25 am

    When going through my old designs sometimes I don’t know what’s scarier: the design or the horrid, unorganized code. I look at it and go, “Gah if only I had found Jem sooner and her philosophies on valid code.” XD

  25. Amanda said:
    On 04 Jun at 3:31 am

    I remember them all except for the Cloudy Skies…I think I came to JJB just after you got out of that phase?

  26. Chantelle said:
    On 04 Jun at 4:04 am

    I don’t remember you :P But I’ve been around this community since ’99, so some of those layouts look familiar. I know that I’ve seen that last one before.

  27. Britney said:
    On 04 Jun at 4:15 am

    I like the 4th layout, but most of the rest are pretty lulzy. I like looking back at my old layouts too (you can see them on my site). They are even worse.

  28. Vera said:
    On 04 Jun at 4:32 am

    I don’t remember the Cloudy Skies ones though. When were they up?

  29. Mumblies said:
    On 04 Jun at 6:15 am

    I remember them too,but then I am Jem’s biggest fan :) Why change it? I like how it is now.

  30. Lil said:
    On 04 Jun at 8:12 am

    Isn’t memory lane a wonderful place? I must post some of my old embarassing layouts. The text in the second screendump is priceless by the way.

  31. Jem said:
    On 04 Jun at 8:20 am

    I don’t remember the Cloudy Skies ones though. When were they up?

    Those in particular would have been late 2003 — early 2004.

  32. Shelly said:
    On 04 Jun at 9:08 am

    Unrelated to this post.. but I LOVE your cat fudge!! And Hex!!
    And it was probably a while ago now.. but hopefully you have/will call the RSPCA. That house sounds horrible.
    I’m glad you saved Fudge though :)

  33. Amber said:
    On 04 Jun at 9:59 am

    (Somewhat sadly) I remember all of those, bar the ‘oh dear’ ones. :P

  34. Enzo said:
    On 04 Jun at 11:12 am

    I would never look at you the same way again…

  35. Carly said:
    On 04 Jun at 12:04 pm

    I remember them all apart from the stone which, which is my favorite actually.

  36. Carly said:
    On 04 Jun at 12:04 pm

    Appologies, I think it’s a acorn…not a stone.

  37. Jem said:
    On 04 Jun at 12:28 pm

    It’s an apple and a pine cone. ;)

  38. Stephanie said:
    On 04 Jun at 2:35 pm

    I always knew it was a pine cone, could never figure out the apple part. Looks rather long and skinny to be an apple.

  39. Robbie said:
    On 04 Jun at 2:37 pm

    I remember all of those, accepting the two green ones. I doubt you still have it or know where it would be if you did, but perhaps my favorite layout ever was your pixel version of Cloudy Skys/Cloudy Skies (I think it was one of the incorrectly spelled versions) with a pixel art sun and clouds.

  40. Erin said:
    On 04 Jun at 2:38 pm

    I remember first finding you through link hopping when you had a blue layout similar to the Cloudy Skies at the bottom. I think it was QBee related, although it’s been a long time so I can’t remember. It’s kind of shocking how far we’ve come, eh?

  41. Christina said:
    On 04 Jun at 4:14 pm

    Haha, I lol’d. Some of those are pretty hilarious. I actually like the first one, though.

  42. Angela said:
    On 05 Jun at 12:59 am

    Haha! I remember them all. How sad is that =x!

  43. Jenny said:
    On 06 Jun at 2:59 pm

    I remember some of those. xD Wow.

  44. Christine said:
    On 07 Jun at 4:47 pm

    The definitely pre-date me but i just love the pine cone one. The colors are fabulous. ^^

  45. Regina said:
    On 21 Jun at 5:02 pm

    I don’t remember most of them but you sure have improved a lot since you made those layouts! =) I’m sure 5 years from now when I look back at my layouts I’ll think the same. ;]

  46. Emily said:
    On 20 Jul at 8:33 am

    When did you have the pine cone layout up? I don’t remember that one, but I definitely know the rest. I also vaguely remember the layout you had up when I first visited your site (I think it was yellow and included a lion – if my brain isn’t completely making this up). You should make a reconstruction & post that!

    (Woah, this post is from early June. I hope you don’t mind the crazily late comment.)

  47. Kenna said:
    On 10 Aug at 4:24 am

    *lurking*

    Awww, the good ole days. <3 Remember them all, of course. I wish I still had any of mine, all bye-bye! I hope Karl & the furry beasts are doing lovely just as I imagine you to be doing. <3Jem, miss you!