STEP 1. after purchasing your theme, it will automatically download. go to your wordpress dashboard. if you have not yet installed wordpress, you need a hosting plan before setting up your site. in case you need more assistance with this, click here.

STEP 2. once you’re in your dashboard, go to themes under appearance in the menu.


STEP 3. click add a new theme and then click upload theme.


STEP 4. click upload theme. find the .zip file of your theme. our themes are child themes of the standard wordpress theme “twenty twelve”. this theme should be pre-installed, but if it’s not there, you will be prompted to download “twenty twelve” first.

+++ IF YOU DO NOT SEE YOUR THEME FOLDER (mell.zip) : select everything in the folder, right click and click compress items. you’ll then upload that folder.

STEP 5. once the theme is installed, click to activate your theme. your theme is now active! you will be prompted to install several plugins. please do so, as they will allow your theme to have all of the functions available in the demo. you can also now customize to your liking in the other appearance sections, arranging your widgets, modifying your menus.

if you’d like to upload your own logo or header image, under customize, click site title & tagline and uncheck display header text. then go to header under appearance and simply upload your image. uncheck show header text with image here as well. a .png file with a transparent background is best.

your logo will automatically scale down to fit into the inset space for it.

if you would like your header to look like it does in the demo, simply type the name of your blog into the header section under customize.

to increase or decrease the size of your header, go to appearance and click on editor. click style.css and scroll to the bottom where you’ll see TO EDIT HEADER TEXT SIZE. change the font-size: ___ px; to a larger or smaller number until you’re satisfied with the size.

to create your social media buttons, create a text widget and simply follow the format below, substituting in whichever social media site you are linking to, and replacing the “#” with your URL.

<div class="socialmedia">
				<a href="#">Facebook</a>
				<a href="#">Twitter</a>
				<a href="#">Pinterest</a>
				<a href="#">Instagram</a>
				</div>

under widgets, create a text widget and drag it to the top right of the main sidebar. upload your profile photo to your blog and use the url in this code:

 <img src="insert your photo here">

if you’d like your profile photo to link to your about page use this code:

 <a href="insert the url of your about page here"><img src="insert your photo here"></a> 

STEP 1. under appearance, click on menus. drag the pages you want to include (or create them) into the nav menu on the right. you can include categories and links as well.


STEP 2 . under appearance, click on customize. click on menus and select your menu from the dropdown.

+ in order to have your links in the menu open in a new tab, select screen options in the top right corner. under show advanced menu properties, check the box next to link target. now your links in the menu will show a box to click titled open link in a new tab/window. click this.

to get your sharing feature at the bottom of each post working properly, go to the plugin settings for ADD TO ANY. make sure you click none under universal button. under placement, deselect all of the options. everything else can be left as is. click save changes.

please do not modify the design of the theme other than the options we’ve provided for you. it compromises our design. if you want to change functions, colors, fonts, or layout, please visit our shop to purchase add-ons. please be aware that we do not provide technical support for customers who have modified their CSS.

you may not remove our credit link from the bottom of your blog, it is in direct violation of our copyright.

under widgets, you can include all of your categories on your sidebar easily by dragging the categories widget to your sidebar. if you only want to include certain categories, create a text widget. you can title it however you’d like and then use this code:

<a href="insert category url here">TYPE CATEGORY NAME HERE</a> 

if you’d like more spaces between the categories, simply use <br/> between each code. if you’re unsure how to link to your category, the url should most likely be www.yoururl.com/category/yourcategory

if you’d like to change the number of posts displayed per page, go to settings and then click reading. here you can determine the number you’d like, but keep in mind the less posts displayed per page, the faster the page will load for your readers.

if you want to include your instagram feed in a slideshow or gallery on your sidebar or footer, you will use the alpine phototile for instagram plugin that you will be asked to download. simply follow the steps included with the plugin.

you will also be prompted to install the contact form 7 plugin. you can adjust the settings by clicking the “contact” option on the right-hand side of the dashboard. copy and paste the shortcode into the page you are using as your contact page.

our themes are designed for standard formatted posts. to ensure the best looking blog, please only create new posts using the standard format. you can post an image, link or quote within this format.


other ways to ensure your blog looks the best it can is to always post photos of the same width and when categorizing posts, try to keep the number to 3 categories maximum so you don’t clutter the space.

many customers have asked about what the best gallery plugins are. unfortunately, the free plugins are not great – so we highly recommend this one from envato for a $15 regular license.


our themes are compatible with all plugins, just make sure never to update your pin-it plugin (if you’ve purchased from us)