Monday, June 18, 2012

Monday Made It! Blog Redesign!

This is my first time linking up this summer with Monday Made It!

Everything I've made this week has to do with blogs! [I hope this counts as a Monday Made It!.] I have a few other crafts waiting to be made, including the infamous supply drawers, birthday balloon things, and more.

I was really intimidated to redesign my blog, but also really excited! I've messed around with html and graphics in the past, but not much. [Thank goodness for tutorials!]

For anyone who thinks that they are clueless, you AREN'T! I made every aspect of my blog in Pages [the Mac version of word] I have no fancy programs, not even powerpoint, so that is what I had to work with. Well, that and Picmonkey, but we'll get to that!

First, I needed to find a background.


I got mine from Aqua Poppy. So many cute background for 2 or 3 column designs. Some other cute sites I found were Allie Brown's Layouts and Scrappiness downunder. These are for backgrounds though, not layouts! I set my background to my choice in Blogger, and I'm ready for the next step.

Next, I made my header.

I wanted my header to match my background. So I took a screenshot of my background. If you're using a Mac, hold the buttons COMMAND, SHIFT, and 4 down at the same time. Then hold and drag where you'd like your screen shot. When you let go, the image will be saved on your desktop.

I opened up Pages and dragged the image onto a new page.




After playing around with different ideas, I decided to drag a gray rectangle over the image's center, and then may it partially transparant.


Then I added my title using my super cute font collection! I used text boxes so that I could manipulate them. I used a separate text box for each font. I added clip art for a small touch [a melonheadz puppy in my sample below!]!


Last, I messed around with the borders that pages has to offer and come up with this scrappy one. Boom. There's a header!

Then, I made my button.

I used the same process of making my header to make my button. Obviously it was just smaller. And I didn't include a picture due to space constraints!



After that, I made my social media images.


Are you loving my sequence words? I made my images, again, in Pages! I simply added red circles. Then, I used the heart font that you see [which is JLR Simple Hearts.] I changed the border to dots and made the dots large.


Think Share Teach had a great tutorial for adding them to your site, and offers a few premade freebies if you don't want to make them!


Now that everything is made...


you have to turn them into images! Take screen shots of each item and save. I save everything in a blog folder so that it is all together. For the button, you'll need to upload it to a host site. I use photobucket, and it is super easy. As for adding your button to your blog, google a tutorial. They are everywhere!






I hope this helps someone! Although it is probably a billion times easier to pay for a better blog makeover, it isn't in my budget right now. I hope to link up for many more Mondays to come! =)

9 comments:

  1. Wow!!! You did your own blog makeover?! That's awesome and it turned out so good!!! The whole html code stuff scares the tar out of me....I'm always afraid I'm gonna screw something up and it will be lost forever! Thanks so much for linking up and I'm so excited to hear you'll be back:))

    4th Grade Frolics

    ReplyDelete
  2. Holy smokes! I'm totally impressed that you did all this yourself. Way to go. The new design looks great. :)

    Amanda
    The Teaching Thief

    ReplyDelete
  3. So informative! Thanks for sharing this info :)

    Elizabeth
    Fun in Room 4B

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your blog looks great!! I wish I was that talented!

    Katie
    Dirty Hands and Lesson Plans

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's awesome that you made your own blog design! Maybe you have a future in designing blogs for profit... :)


    The REAL Teachers of Orange County

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love love love the background! Could be my obsession for red though too.. :) Great job on doing it all by yourself! It can get frustrating and overwhelming for sure. Super helpful you posted how you went about it. :)

    Amanda
    Reaching for the TOP!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very impressive! I have never even thought about doing my own design, but maybe I will now. Yours is really cute. Good work!


    Jen
    Lifelong Learning

    ReplyDelete