Carrd was my first experience with designing a website, although I didn't really think of it as a website at the time. Most people made Carrd sites to display links to their profiles, abouts, and/or BYFs/DNIs, but instead I used it to display information about my characters and their setting! It limits the amount of elements you can use, so I have no use for Carrd now that I can make HTML pages. My characters and story have changed since I made this Carrd (2019), so heres my current page about my original characters.
Lost Media
I technically had one real HTML page before my personal ones. It was for a little basic computer class in my chemistry degree, where we used various programs. We documented some things on a single page HTML file, including images, tables, and links. I didn't even realize I was writing HTML, I was just looking up how to do certain things and copy pasting them. I seemed to be the only person who enjoyed it, working on it outside of class and stylizing it more than just a flat color background. Naturally I gave it a starry background and a rainbow title (this was before I was exposed to any kind of old personal websites, I just can't help myself). There was a program we used that we could model molecules in and a way that we included them in the HTML document. You could rotate the molecule around on the page and I loved it.
Sadly I could not find this file anywhere on my school files, or I would happily share it here.
Personal Page Test
While first learning HTML, before I made my more serious note pages, I made a page with my little experiments. It was never published, nor did I intend for it to be. If you're just starting out, remember you don't have to do anything fancy to have a fun webpage!
As you can see, I still like starry backgrounds and rainbows! I was excited to be able to make a rainbow border on the page, which was just done by putting a div inside of a div with a rainbow background and thin padding. I sometimes still do this if I want to have a rainbow border. I also had fun layering transparent divs, which inspired the divider under my homepage title on my old design.
CSS Notes
Before I ever published any personal pages, I made a bunch of HTML and CSS notes, in the form of pages themselves! I styled each page differently. The design I did for my note page on margins and padding was the biggest inspiration for my personal site! This is most obvious with my orginal design (seen below :3).
Early Neocities
Here is the earliest WayBack Machine caputure of my homepage from June 30, 2022, just a few months after I made it! Its so simple compared to what it became (which became too cumbersome to update, thus the redesign).