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! =)