Creating an interactive personal blog.
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Years ago I had several personal blogs journaling travels and events with my late husband and our family but eventually abandoned them after my husband died.
I’d like to create a new personal blog journaling current and future travel and events with several pages for posts from the old blogs. Two or three pages probably. They’d be quite long, actually since I blogged for several years. I want this journal to be a kind of family history. I’ve found
I’d also like to have an interactive page for friends and family to share photos and events of their lives. I’m thinking of it as a private Facebook-type site. I think they’d be considered authors by WordPress for this particular page.
I need guidance to do this right so looking for any advice about how to start, themes that would support my idea, and whether or not this could be all in one website or would I need to have a couple. I’ve connected with the Happiness Engineers while looking for the old blogs and am grateful for all their help.
Thanks.
CherylK
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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What a meaningful project you’re creating, turning your travel memories and stories into a digital family journal is such a beautiful way to honor your journey and share it with loved ones.
I can absolutely see this working as a single website, and your current plan on razzmatazlady.com is more than capable of bringing this vision to life.
To get started, here are some modern and flexible themes that are perfect for personal journaling:
- Timestream – especially great for storytelling with a timeline feel
- Cottage – warm and cozy with a traditional layout
- Carnation – elegant, clean, and image-friendly
- Bitacora – perfect if you’d like a more classic blog vibe
You can also explore more blog-style themes for your site here: https://wordpress.com/themes/filter/subject:blog/razzmatazladydotblog.wordpress.com
All of these are block themes, which work with our Site Editor, a powerful tool that gives you full control over your layout and design. If you’re used to the old Classic editor, this will feel a bit different, but we’ve got your back with helpful guides to get comfortable:
For the interactive page for friends and family, you can:
- Set up a separate blog page where posts can be shared by different people.
- Invite family and friends as authors so they can contribute their own updates and photos.
You can also keep the site private by adjusting your Privacy Settings, so only invited folks can view and post.
Let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything else!
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Thank you so much for your encouragement and the suggestions! I’ll check out the links you’ve shared. I’m eager to compare those themes. I want the blog to be public except for the interactive page which will only be for those I invite.
I think the best way to start is with a current timeline and the interactive page. I’ll create pages for the old blogs with a few posts that are complete just to get it going and perhaps create interest. I made many blogging friends in the past which was so much fun. It would be amazing to locate some of them, again.
Still trying to locate all the old posts and photos and I’ll be selective to trim the size of the blog. FYI, I found most of the posts through Wayback Machine on Internet Archive via the Happiness Engineers! Lots of the photos are missing so it’ll be a challenge there. I’m so looking forward to setting this up. Definitely a work in progress. I do appreciate your help
CherylK
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It’s great to hear how energized you are about bringing this space to life, and how incredible that you were able to recover your posts through the Wayback Machine with the help of our team.
Even if some photos are missing, I’m sure that the stories you tell will still shine through, and you can always add new images or updates to give them fresh life.
Since you’d like the overall site to be public but keep only the interactive page private, you can do exactly that by changing the visibility settings for that one page. Here’s how to do it: Control how a page or post is viewed.
That way, everything else remains viewable to visitors while your invited circle can share privately on the interactive page.
To keep everything organized as you build out the timeline, the interactive section, and archive pages, this guide may also be helpful: Set up your blog in 5 simple steps.
Keep me posted as things come together, I’d love to hear how it unfolds and help if you’d like a second pair of eyes!
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