A Hosted Site Experiment

I tried getting fancy.  I though I'd consolidate my work and blog into a Wordpress.org web site.  I went right along to bluehost.com and bought a domain and installed wordpress.  I spent 48 h trying different themes and messing around with things, but I never could get something that I either understood or even liked.  To the left is a screen shot of where I left it when I gave up.  (I should mention that despite my frustration, Bluehost was very agreeable and easy to work with):
 
Right now, I'm using the following sites:

Blogger:  For blogging (which works well and looks great with minimal effort, I have to say).  It was easy to import my posts into wordpress, but I was going to need to go back through and update the media files and links.  I didn't get that far since I never got the wordpress theme to display to my satisfaction.

Flavors.me:  For consolidated easy access to portfolio display.  I like that I can send people to flavors.me/albryce and then they can get directly here or to Etsy.  However, you need a site to integrate with your portfolio (i.e., photos) and for that I use....

Flickr:  Maybe it should have been instagram, but for right now, flickr works fine.  Here's my flickr photostream.

Mailchimp:  For a newsletter.  Although, I have to confess I've never sent one.  I have very few subscribers, and I don't want to hassle them.  Feel free to sign up--there's a link at the top of the page, or you can sign up here.

Etsy:  For selling.  I have to confess the online selling is hypothetical, but it's always nice to dream.  If you're interested you can look at my shop here.

Finally, I just started using my Facbook Page, which you can visit here.  And sometimes I post to google+, but just to my own personal profile.  

Why all these sites?  Consider that to start a hosted wordpress site, was a couple of hundred dollars up front (although it covered 3 years), and I was still spending a ton of time getting things looking right. These site are all FREE.  Love that.  And, they look reasonably professional with minimal effort on my part.  Love that, too.

I'm sure there are better ways.  It's actually hard for me to keep up.  If there's something that you use to get your work up online, tell me what you think, and why you're using it.  I'd love to hear!