iPhone and iPad backgrounds, because why shouldn't something you look at 2,983 times a day be beautiful?

** I promise, this post even has something for guys. Pinky swear. **

When I upgraded my iPhone from a 4 to a 5S a couple of weeks ago -- {angels singing} -- the extra half-inch of screen real estate suddenly made the chevron background a little overwhelming for me.

Remember? This is what it looked like when we last spoke:

I loved my chevron, I really did. But that extra row of app icons gave me another six-and-a-half rows of chevron, and I think it was just too much. So I did what I always do ... I Googled the next idea I was interested in for a background: "turquoise ombre background." And I found this one in a great quatrefoil pattern and promptly locked it in:

 So today my background looks like this:

It may still be too busy for some of you, but I love it. The Make It ... Create blog also has the ombre quatrefoil offering in pink:

They have about 12 other color options, too, so check them out.

If you like to have a nice print for your Lock screen background but something like this is too busy for your Home screen background, you can always Google solid color backgrounds for your Home screen that coordinate with whatever print you pick out. Take mine, for example ... I could use these two together:

Another blog that has some great free iPhone and iPad backgrounds is Doodle Craft; that's where I picked up my navy chevron background several weeks ago.

You can choose by team colors, holidays, shapes, quotes ... they have all kinds of choices.

An Auburn fan might like this one, for example ...

And I love this red-and-green ikat print for Christmas:

Okay, I promised something for the guys. Here it is (via Hongkiat.com): There's an app titled Icons Skins 2 (and there are other Icons Skins apps, too -- and App Icons apps that let you customize your app icons, another thing people have been asking about) that lets you customize your home screen with themes like Blueprints:

Doodle:

Fire and Metal:

Pencils:

Grass ... ? Astroturf ... ? Sod in front of a privacy fence? I'm not 100 percent sure what this one really is.

Screws and bricks:

Screws and wood:

Tron:

Zelda:

Pacman:

And IT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.

Two other cute ones included in that app are Post-it Notes:

and Clothesline:

Just wanted to answer these questions that had come in from Twitter about where I find my free phone backgrounds; there are plenty out there, and I think we all deserve something AH-MAZING to look at since we look at these screens every 30 seconds.

Or is that just me? ...