Wow, my gorgeous new header.

I've been looking at it for over a month now and every time I saw it was flushed with pride, just like a new parent.

There was an idea in my head for a children's book and I asked my readers if they knew of any illustrators and Tanna from My Kitchen in Half Cups suggested I get in contact with Lobstersquad, who as you probably all know illustrates her own blog with the most wonderful drawings.

Unfortunately for the book idea, someone else got there first, but I continued to follow Lobstersquad wondering if there was a way we could collaborate on a project. A little while ago, after I spotted yet another blog with the name 'food for thought', I realized that I needed to change the name of my little blog, to give it a better identity.

Knowing that my blog was in desperate need of a makeover as well, I wondered about how best to achieve it. Well, what about a dinner party at my place to which all bloggers and blogger readers are invited! From this point the name 'at my table' came fairly easily, then all I needed was to create the atmosphere of a rocking, great dinner party.

The first guests I thought of were to be in animated discussion, a sure sign of a successful party. Then to represent the different time zones of the blogger world there is the sleeping guest who is also an allusion to a particular person who is a member of my food and wine club, who has been known to fall asleep at the table on more than one occasion! Because I also talk about autism from time to time, one of my daughters is seated at the table doing one of the things that she loves and holding her favourite doll, spot on Tanna.

Where I grew up, my best mates brother was gay as is my own brother, so to say that everyone is welcome at my table no matter who you are or what you believe, I asked Ximena to draw two gays, not explicitly but ambiguously and she achieved that effect perfectly.

As you all know, I tend to write about whatever catches my fancy, even if it's a bit quirky or non foodie, to that end I wanted an animal of some sort and gave four suggestions from which Ximena chose the duck, which made me very happy as a Melbourne boy who has grown up reading our famous cartoonist Luenig, whose depiction of a certain duck has reached iconic status.

So that was all the ideas I had for my dinner party, it was then just a case of deciding how big to make it and the header of Belly Timber seemed to be the perfect size, I hope Mrs D doesn't mind that I borrowed her dimensions!

And that was pretty much it. Ximena then sent a draft and a few different colour schemes to chose from. It was all pretty easy with only some minor changes along the way. If you would like to see the creative process from the other side, go here.

After the header was drawn I got in contact with Susie of Bluebird Blogs who put the whole package together in a stylish way fully in keeping with the header. It was her idea to morph the table into the page of the blog, very clever. I think Susie is quite proud of how it all turned out as she featured the blog on her own site.

So a great big thank-you to Ximena and Susie, a fantastic job, well done.