styling text widgets in footer

I have wp 3.2.1
and just upgraded Ata from 3.6.4 to 3.7. 1

I have created a widget area with 5 cells and each cells have 2/3 text widgets in the footer. I had applied top bottom padding (css inserts) to these text widgets which worked perfectly in version 3.6.4. But after upgrading this is lost.
I tried many combinations (with the help of firebug) but nothing seems to work. on my test site here too it is not working. feeling so stupid. Please help.