This is the 3rd generation of my personal portfolio site since graduating college, and this time, I chose the 800 lb. CMS gorilla, WordPress. As a newbie to PHP I have encountered many pitfalls along the way, but I’m proud to say I created my own custom theme using dynamic content when functionally appropriate! I even, for better or for worse,  incorporated HTML5.  Thus far, my site is far from complete, and everyday I see something else I want to make dynamic or a design element I’d like to rework. In the future I’d even like to incorporate some nifty animated javascript!

For anyone interested in learning how to develop their own WordPress theme, I would highly recommend subscribing to Lynda.com and checking out Chris Coyier’s training tutorial. He goes over the nuts and bolts of developing a theme and has many other useful design tips for beginners. Just do that, and have a husband who’s a brilliant engineer, who can decipher just about any programming language, even though he never went to school for it, and you’ll be set!