Feel free to download and share with your best ladies (or gents, up to you), just make sure to credit back to me :) (Link at end of post)
Download your valentines here and have a happy Valentine's Day!
Stay lovely,
Corin
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Self-Love Valentines
I made you all some Galentines because goodness knows that the upcoming holiday of romance and unrealistic expectations could use a dash more of self-love. Whether spending the day with your sweetie or flying solo with your best gals don't forget who is no. 1. (That's you!)
Feel free to download and share with your best ladies (or gents, up to you), just make sure to credit back to me :) (Link at end of post)
Stay lovely,
Feel free to download and share with your best ladies (or gents, up to you), just make sure to credit back to me :) (Link at end of post)
Stay lovely,
Paths to Wonderland Design x Casetify: Phone Cases for All the Wonder-Lovers!
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| Image source: Casetify |
Hey guys! Just a quick post today to update you on one of
the most exciting projects to come to Wonderland yet!
Earlier this summer I was contacted by Casetify about
designing phone cases for their artist’s collection and I am happy to report
that my collection is up and ready to go on their website! Seeing my silly
little designs come to life into a real line of products is unbelievably
exciting, and gets me so psyched about all the design dreams dancing around
my head.
Casetify as a brand has some super hip technology with their transparent/printed cases and interchangeable backs, and allows you to customize away if my designs alone don’t cut it for you. Plus, there is work from a ton of other artists up on their site, and Casetify does an amazing job of promoting these small designers, which is such a blessing for those like me trying to get their work out there!
As for the designs themselves, the first handful of cases were directly inspired by the digital fruit salad party I held earlier this summer. (Did I mention all the free downloads that went up with that?) I took those designs, infused some watercolor, ombre, and transparency, and optimized those designs for the phone case dimensions.
Peach Pattern // Peach Pun
Strawberry Pattern // Strawberry Pun
Raspberry Pattern // Raspberry Pun
Kiwi Pattern // Kiwi Pun
Cherry Pattern // Cherry Pun
Blueberry Pattern // Blueberry Pun
Following that, I have 5 designs that I made exclusively
for the phone case collection, and I really love these too! They are definitely
in the sassy, sweet, slightly dorky, and totally pastel spirit of Wonderland. And I got to throw in a little bit of outdated
slang on that “hella rad” case, so we are all winning here. (It’s my personal
favorite!)
Hot Damn in Magenta + Peach // Hot Damn in Indigo + Lavender
Geometric in Pretty in Pink // Geometric in Oceanic Palette
Hella Rad Multicolor (see first post image)
Last but not least, I put one of my old favorite designs as a MacBook sleeve, or iPad Cover! I'm potentially looking at revamping a few other Monday in Wonderlands or printables into cases, so let me know what you would like to see!
I will definitely keep adding more designs to this collection as time goes on, but for now I am so so happy with the designs I put together. If you are interested in purchasing a phone case, or think a friend would love one of these designs, you can check out the whole online collection here! And while you are at it, peek around their site and take a gander at all the other gorgeous designs up there. Thanks y’all for all the support always, and I can’t wait to see what fun design projects are in store for Wonderland next!
Which of these designs is your favorite? Are there any of my old designs that you’d like to have on a phone case of your very own?
Stay lovely,
Hot Damn in Magenta + Peach // Hot Damn in Indigo + Lavender
Geometric in Pretty in Pink // Geometric in Oceanic Palette
Hella Rad Multicolor (see first post image)
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| Image source: Casetify |
I will definitely keep adding more designs to this collection as time goes on, but for now I am so so happy with the designs I put together. If you are interested in purchasing a phone case, or think a friend would love one of these designs, you can check out the whole online collection here! And while you are at it, peek around their site and take a gander at all the other gorgeous designs up there. Thanks y’all for all the support always, and I can’t wait to see what fun design projects are in store for Wonderland next!
Which of these designs is your favorite? Are there any of my old designs that you’d like to have on a phone case of your very own?
Stay lovely,
**For full
disclosure, I am paid a small artist’s fee for every one of my designs that is
sold. I am insanely appreciative of this perk, but am sponsored by Casetify in
no other way. As usual, I would never promote a product or service to you that
I do not fully appreciate and intend to use.
Still a skeptic?
Stay tuned for my review of the physical Casetify product in the near future!
That is, once I decide what phone to replace my current, somewhat crippled one
with…**
Wonderland Design Update!
Well hello there! It’s been a little bit, hasn’t it?
I’ve been a little AWOL from the blog lately, and part of
that is just the craziness of life, but the other part is a lot of fun design
side projects I’ve been working on! I’ve been having so much fun using my
summer free time to play with words, images, and Photoshop in general, so I
thought it would be fun to share some of the things I’ve been working hard on
with you!
First of all, I have some super-duper fun and exciting
news—one of my designs is going to be
made into a patch for the Crybaby Club online store! The “UGH, so many
feelings” design you see above scored second place in their patch design contest, and I can’t begin to express how happy this made me! Even seeing it as
a finalist felt like such amazing validation for my ever-growing love of
design, and I can barely wait until I get those patches in person. I’ll be sure
to let you know when they are for sale, so you can express your overwhelming
feelings too! And by the way, The Crybaby Club blog and Instagram is one to
follow if you have a lot of feelings but are still a badass (aka you are
human).
Next up, you may have noticed that I added a little flair
to this blog’s layout with a new header, bio picture border, social media
icons, and quick content links. All the elements have either a doodle or watercolor
theme, which takes my original blog design plan and, in my humble opinion,
elevates it a little bit. I also love how much using content tags and those new
labels in the sidebar cleans up my blog’s appearance. These little additions
were so much simpler than my huge html layout edit earlier this year, but
arguably make a much bigger difference in your first impression of my blog!
From here, site design wise, I plan to update all my bio photos with some that
are better branded to Wonderland, so stay tuned for a silly photoshoot
behind-the-scenes!
Another project that is still in the works but already
looking great is a set of phone cases designed by me through Casetify! I was
contacted by a partnerships rep about joining their “Artist’s Collection” and
have been having a blast getting creative with designs I sure hope people will
love to proudly display on their phones. As soon as I stop agonizing over the
details, I will upload even more of these custom designs to their website to my own phone case “store,” from which I earn a small incentive for every case
purchased. The program is open for other designers too, so if you are
interested, check out their website and shoot them an email! You can hop on
over to my Casetify collection right now, but I have a few more designs to add
before it gets its own post!
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| Brandon's YouTube Channel // Rey's YouTube Channel |
In addition to all this, I’ve designed a couple of logos
for friends lately, which is an entirely new and exciting design challenge for
me. I obviously have a lot of creative area to explore regarding logo designs,
but it’s an interesting exercise to combine another person’s style and brand
aesthetic with their brand name! In addition, since both these logos were
designed for YouTube channels, this gave me a chance to play around with
Premiere Elements a little bit to animate the logos! (Of course, now I’m dying
to get an Adobe Cloud subscription so that I may uncover the world of Adobe After
Effects, but time will tell what silly things I choose to spend my money on!) Speaking
of, I’ve been considering creating a YouTube channel for myself and my blog—any
thoughts or recommendations on videos you might like to see?
Last, but definitely not least, as a part of Aggie Fish
Camp, I’ve turned into my camp’s token Photoshop gal! This “design” role involves
generating designs that are projected onto bed sheets then painted as banners to
decorate our camp room. The banner designs I created and included here are
definitely a composite of various artists’ work, mostly thanks to the magic
wand tool, but I consider this to be an exercise in composition and color more
than anything. (These are totally non-commercial creations, or otherwise I
would never dare use the work of another artist in my designs!) Working on
these banner designs has also been a great tool for me to learn the ropes of
Photoshop, as I work with layers, distortions, and fonts to imitate iconic
logos and images with our own camp name.
Phew! When I write it all out, I have been having quite a
time with creating this summer! Design is primarily a hobby at this point, but
if you happen to love the type of things I am making, leave me a comment or
send me an email and maybe I can look at making something for your website,
YouTube channel, or brand! ! I am quickly falling more and more in love with creating
of this type, and can’t wait to see the possibilities this hobby of mine
presents.
Do you have a creative hobby that you are currently passionate
about? I’d love to see what you are making!
Stay lovely,
Some of My Favorite Free Watercolor Textures
Howdy guys! I'm working on a little design project as a kickoff to summer, and in the process of that have been stocking up on downloadable watercolor textures! I figured I'd pass on a list of 'em today so that you can get designing for yourself! You can also make your own watercolor textures fairly easily, but I tend to have issues with the colors looking correct and saturated appropriately. (Basically, I need to invest in a good scanner or camera or lighting setup...yay college.) And besides, these are all ready to go, are actually easy to download, haven't given me any pop-ups or tried to install things on my computer, and live on cute blogs with minimal ads, unlike many "free graphics" websites! I hope this is helpful for any projects you might have, or just for some fresh computer backdrops!
Free for personal use:
Design Love Fest (Don't forget to get free graphics on this site every week!)Craftberry Bush
Angie Makes
Pixejoo
Free for commercial use:
Gold and Berry (make sure to download the .zip file!)Hello Geri
Lost and Taken (so many free textures guys)
Not sure how to use these? Try the techniques in my Gold-Foil and Watercolor Text Art Tutorial, including some free painted textures of my own!
What are your favorite free resources for making cute graphics and text art?
Stay lovely,
Disclaimers: Like all things on the internet, you click links at your own risk. I would never intentionally publish content containing bad links. Also, follow the copyright policies listed on each artist's individual site. They are clear and easy to find, and if you aren't sure, be respectful to the artist above all else. PS I use this copyright policy.
DIY "Stamped" Digital Wallpaper w/o Photoshop + Free Citrus Wallpapers
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| Left click to download |
While I was busy revamping an old Monday in Wonderland as a printable for my email subscribers, I discovered an easy technique for making a fun, patterned digital wallpaper! And then, upon adding a little color, I ended up with a ton of fun wallpapers and wanted to share them with you and show you how it's done. Now, as you may know, I’m trying to make it by without Photoshop for the time being, so this easy technique will only use PicMonkey and Paint! Also, you can click to download all the wallpapers throughout this post so yay for you getting free things!
And I don’t have much else to say for this intro so let’s just get into
it!
For a 2-color pattern (above):
Step 1
Draw a simple, repeatable, silhouette design with black pen
onto white paper. You can also use online clipart images, but I kind of liked
the messy, imperfect vibe I got from my own drawing!
Then make your image digital! You can either take a photo of
your drawing in bright light (without shadows) or scan it in. Either way, you will want
to decrease shadows, increase highlights, and ramp up exposure and brightness
until the image is completely black with a blank, white background. If you
notice any uneven or patchy lines in the image, the simple brush and eraser tools in Paint can be used to carefully clean up the lines. I like using “oil brush”
because it is wide and has soft edges. As you clean the image up, also utilize
the zoom feature to make things easier.
When you are happy with the solidity of the image, crop as
closely to the edges of the silhouette as you can, and save as a JPEG or PNG.
Step 2
You now want to create a small sample of your total pattern
that you can later replicate onto a bigger scale. I found this easiest to do in
PicMonkey, although it can be accomplished with Paint as well.
Go to the PicMonkey website and select “design”, choosing
whatever “canvas” size you like. Then, click on Overlay > Your Own, and insert
your black and white silhouette onto the canvas. Decrease the size to your
liking, so that you can fit 5-10 copies of the image on the canvas. Once it’s
the right size, right click, and select “duplicate image.” From there, you move and rotate the “overlays” to create a sample of the pattern.
Once again, save this image as a jpeg.
You can make this sample randomized or grid-like, depending
on the image being used. The easiest way I found to make a standardized,
gridded pattern was to actually insert a grid as an overlay first, then delete
it once all the silhouette overlays were in place.
Step 3
Repeat step 2, this time starting with a canvas to the dimensions
of the wallpaper you want. There are cropping options for an iPhone, iPhone 6,
and the dimensions of your computer screen within PicMonkey to simplify this
process. Don’t forget that if you want to make multiple sizes, work from
biggest to smallest to speed up the process (by taking the big image and cropping it down to smaller sizes).
Also, this time you will be inserting the sample of the
pattern again and again the create a fully stamped background. You can either
keep each sample block the same, or utilize the flip and rotate options to keep the background random. Fill the entire canvas with pattern!
If need be, insert the original, single silhouette as an overlay, shrink it to match the rest of the pattern. and use these individual shapes to fix any awkward white spaces.
If need be, insert the original, single silhouette as an overlay, shrink it to match the rest of the pattern. and use these individual shapes to fix any awkward white spaces.
Step 4
To make the background 2 colors, you first need to “combine
all image elements” with the button next to the settings gear in the tool bar
above your canvas. This will flatten everything into one image for your next
step. Then, go to Effects > Warhol, and pick the two colors you think best
work together for your background! Save and you’re are done.
You can also download the black and white version of this citrus print and use the Warhol effect to play with colors yourself!
You can also download the black and white version of this citrus print and use the Warhol effect to play with colors yourself!
For a multi-color pattern:
In Step 2, just change the color of the individual overlays! This
should be easy to do if the images are completely black and white.
Additionally, it is easy to use the eyedropper thingy to match repeated colors
throughout your sample. Then just create repetitions of those colors throughout
your total image. To color the background, I combined all image elements, then adjusted the temperature of the image down slightly, although you could also use the "texture" tool, like I did in my Gold-Foil and Watercolor Text Art Tutorial.
For a pattern around text:
Either draw and digitize, or digitally create your text, and
save it in black and white with minimal white space around it. You will insert this text as an overlay onto a blank canvas of your desired dimensions, just like you did with the pattern. (You could also skip saving the text separately, and just combine image elements after
the text is in place, but I liked being able to move it easily as a unit and
use it in wallpapers of multiple dimensions.)
Repeat steps 1-3, with or without multi-color, getting each pattern sample as close as you can
to the central text. (Don’t’ forget that you can right click and “send to front”,
etc to change the order of the overlays on the canvas.) Then, use the individual overlay of the image to fill awkward white spaces as you did in step 3. Following this, you would combine the
image elements, and use the Warhol effect if you are going with 2 colors like the image above!
And because I do this out of love, I did a little cropping so that you can get any of the designs above for your cell phone too!
Click here for the lemonade phone wallpaper
Click here for the multi-colored citrus phone wallpaper
Click here for "When life gives you lemons" phone wallpaper
I hope you enjoy these fun, citrusy wallpapers, and I look forward to seeing your own versions, for any season or fruit! I've loved designing these guys honestly, and am so so happy to share!
UPDATE: Some people have been having trouble with a couple links so try this!
Multi-colored citrus wallpaper
Lemons quote computer wallpaper
Stay lovely,
PS: Sign up for my email list for a printable, 4x6 version of the "When life gives you lemons" quote that you can color and hang up yourself! And other free goodies, and very sparse emails, I promise! Okay, bye!
And because I do this out of love, I did a little cropping so that you can get any of the designs above for your cell phone too!
Click here for the lemonade phone wallpaper
Click here for the multi-colored citrus phone wallpaper
Click here for "When life gives you lemons" phone wallpaper
I hope you enjoy these fun, citrusy wallpapers, and I look forward to seeing your own versions, for any season or fruit! I've loved designing these guys honestly, and am so so happy to share!
UPDATE: Some people have been having trouble with a couple links so try this!
Multi-colored citrus wallpaper
Lemons quote computer wallpaper
Stay lovely,
PS: Sign up for my email list for a printable, 4x6 version of the "When life gives you lemons" quote that you can color and hang up yourself! And other free goodies, and very sparse emails, I promise! Okay, bye!
How to: Gold-Foil and Watercolor Text Art Without Photoshop (+ Freebies!)
Not only have I spent an excess of time lately designing
my blog, I have also been playing with graphic design a little more. Much like
my blog layout, I felt as if my Monday in Wonderlands have been lacking a
little in love and care, and so I resolved to right that horrendous wrong! Oh, and
I have more free things for you because I love you! (If that’s all you want,
it’s near the bottom of the post!)
I found this watercolor text art tutorial on one of my
favorite blogs, We Lived Happily Ever After, but it uses Photoshop, which I am
currently saving up for/comparison shopping with Elements! So instead, I
wondered if I could throw something together with similar masking techniques using things already had on my computer and/or free internet tools, And ended up
with the images you see above! Wanna know how I did it?
I used Microsoft Word 2013, Paint, PicMonkey and this Free Online Photo Editor, which
I found in a Google search. I know that sounds a little sketchy, but for my
purposes it worked amazingly! You also should be able to use an earlier version
of Word, I just can’t direct you to exactly where all the buttons will be, but
they shouldn’t be too hard to find!
Ready to make somethin’ pretty?
Step 1
Do a quick google search find a gold gradient and texture
that you like (this was my source).
It doesn’t even have to be your ideal color, because you can always adjust the
cast, saturation, and even tint. Save this image in a name and place where you
will be able to find it, and make any edits you want to in the editing program
of your choice.
You will also need to pick a background image! I suggest
something relatively light and not too busy for this. You can download some free painted backgrounds I made for ya, or make your own with craft supplies, creativity, and a cell phone camera! (#collegestudentprobs #dreamingofDSLR)
Step 2
The next step is to find a font for your art. You can use
one you already have, or use a free online service such as Font Squirrel to
download something you love. (Again, I have never had issues with this site
downloading or installing anything I didn’t want, but I can't speak for any other sites.) To use a font from online, download
it, open the folder, and double click on the file that has the font name, which
should open up a new window. Click install in the upper left corner, and you’re
in business!
I actually used almost all Font Squirrel fonts, including
Edo, Porcelain, Windsong, and Amatic!
Step 3
Open and new word document and select insert > word
art (top right). I would suggest picking the third icon if you are in Office ‘13,
because it doesn’t have any shadowing. Type your desired text in the font of
your choosing and make it as large as it will fit on one page. Change the fill
and outline colors to black under “Drawing Tools>Format.”
Step 4
Right-click on the edge of the box around your text and
select copy from the drop down menu. Then open Paint and select paste in the
upper right hand corner.
Step 5
The white background in Paint will likely be bigger than
the text you pasted in. You can either click "crop" right after pasting, so that
your text will fill up the page, or create white space around the text. To do
this, click on the small box in the lower right hand corner of the white
background, and drag it out to create a larger white space. Then press select
in the toolbar, click and drag create a box around your text, and click within
that box to slide the text around and center it. When you like the centering of
your text, save the image.
If you choose to incorporate multiple fonts, you can
either copy and paste each Word Art box separately into Paint, or you can
arrange it within word, make it as big as possible (including collapsing the
tool bars and everything!), and screenshot your computer screen. You then paste
that into Paint and crop from there.
Step 6
Go to PicMonkey, and pick the edit function. Open the
image with black text that you just saved in Paint. From the icons in the far
left, select texture (second from the bottom). Click “your own” at the top of
the list, then “open my texture.” Select your gold image that you saved
earlier, and change the “blend mode” to “screen.” I usually adjust the “fade”
slider to 0% at this stage, but I wouldn’t suggest changing the saturation just
yet! You can adjust the coloring of the whole image in just a second!
Step 7
Still within textures, click “your own” and “open my
texture” once again. This time, import your background image, and leave the
blend mode on “multiply.” You will see your pretty background with that
gorgeous gold text sitting right on top! At this point, I typically move the
“fade” slider up a little bit (to around 35%), and then click “apply.” After
this, I would go back to the “basic edits” menu, and do a few more tweaks with
exposure and colors, since the texture feature dulls the background image a
little.
Step 8
Save that gorgeous masterpiece you made! And show it off
to your friends who spent all that money on Photoshop! (Honestly, I’m just
jealously bitter, don’t mind me.)
Now remember that other site I linked at the beginning of
this post? That one is really useful if you want to get rid of the little bit
of background color that shows through the letters with the “texture” function
on PicMonkey, because this free editor allows you to add transparency!
(Ooooooh… Ahhhhh.) The downside of this is that you will probably need to use a
font with solid lines rather than a paintbrush style for it to work really
well. You will also notice a a very very slight border around the edge of your
letters, which for my purposes was a-okay! (Free is free after all!)
To use it, repeat steps 1-6, then upload your file with
the gold text to this other editor. From there, you can select the “wizard”
tab, and select the “transparency” function. Click anywhere there is white in
the image, including the centers of letters, and that area will become
transparent. Then save in the upper left corner. I use the “save local” option,
and it downloads right to my computer.
Open your textured image in PicMonkey, and add it on top
of your background with “Overlay > Your Own” in PicMonkey. It basically
works as a sticker that you can move around and change the size of, which is
super fun.
These fun methods of overlay are super customizable, and
you can switch up textures, fonts, and fills however it suits you, like I did in the watercolor ones you see above! You can even use it on quotes you drew up
yourself, and maybe for a blog header or something?! Just a thought…
Okay so what about the free stuff, right?:
Well, you can download the textures I used as backgrounds here including a couple bonus ones, to make your own art! (Which you should
definitely show me should you choose to make it!!!)
You can also get
all the text art you see in the first collage image by signing up for my email list! (I mean, I know I basically just told you how to make it, but then again
I’m really lazy so this bribery makes sense to me.) I promise not to be that clingy
girl that won’t stop talking to you (did I mention that I’m lazy?) AND I’ll
send you special goodies every once in a while, just for being the babe that
you are ;)
Shameless self-promotion aside, what’s your favorite way
to add a little spice to your photos?
Stay lovely,
Other painted textures and all designs created by me!
Blogging on a Budget: Awesome, Free HTML Design Tools for Blogger and How I Used Them
If you’ve stopped by my wonderland before this previous weekend, you may notice that things look a little different ‘round here now!
Recently, I’ve been really frustrated with the overall
design of my blog. I was going for cute when I first put it all together, but
that left a lot of messiness. Blogger is a little hard to customize, and so I
was feeling really stuck. I’ve been investigating new templates and even been
considering switching to WordPress for a couple weeks now, but my lack of
spending money (ya know, college student) was making any sort of investment
rather daunting. So with a LOT of my weekend, I took to sprucing up the place a
little! (Let’s be honest, I was also procrastinating.) I wanted to make
everything cleaner without sacrificing the little bit of whimsy that I like to
keep around here, and I have to say, I am really pleased with what I
accomplished!
Of course, I couldn’t do it alone. I had to do a lot of
tweaking to my HTML, and HTML is scary, guys! And unless you were a website
designer in another life, you may not be able to figure it all out on your own either!
So with much googling, I came across some seriously amazing and free resources
for blogger CSS and wanted to share them with you all, in case you are looking
to give your blog a face lift too, all without spending a dime. I also did a
little tinkering with the some of the codes I found to further customize, so I
included that below as well!
Learn How To:
Beautify the Popular Posts Widget In Your Sidebar (this post has beautiful free CSS layouts for the widget too)
Tip: You can change the font and
size of the text as well. Where the code reads
font: 10px verdana;
replace “verdana” with your font
name and change the number in front of “px” until it is readable. You can also
remove
text-transform: uppercase
if you want the titles below the
thumbnails to not be in all caps.
Remove Those Repetitive Titles in Your Blogs “Pages” (I mean, it’s already stated
just above!)
Again,
you can change the font and size within her code. You will see
font-family: verdana;
font-size:
11px;
Change
both “verdana” and the number of pixels if desired
Add a Custom “Pin It” Button That Hovers Over Images (This tutorial is also helpful for removing the button from some Images, or if
you would just like to use one of the official buttons!)
Hide Lengthy, Pinnable Collages Within a Post (Yes, they will come up as an
option when someone tries to pin)
Create Links that Initiate Free Downloads Using Google Drive (I use this at least
once a week!)
Create More Space Between the Sidebar and Post (Increase Margins)
This
code from the post:
.blog-posts {margin-right:-30px}
Can be customized by changing
“right” to “left”, if your sidebar is left oriented, and by making the px size
positive. Also make sure to change your total blog width (a feature found in
your “Template Designer”) by the same number of pixels to realign the text and
images.
This is similar to the previous
source, but you may want to do this if you remove the nav bar at the top of the
page. Again, you can set the negative px value to
less than the specified amount, so that the space will be decreased,
rather than completely eliminated, as the tutorial instructs.
As you might find out if you click through, many of the
changes I made originated from this list of posts by Bloomin’ Rouge! One of the best ones was how to easily remove the automatic borders
on Blogger images, which finally solved alignment issues that I couldn’t find a
cause for! Another game-changer was adding text spacing and/or capitalization
to my tabs, body text, and gadget titles, which you can see all over—fancy
right?! She has so much free, beautiful information, and her gorgeous blog
design is proof she knows what she is doing.
Additionally, the Blogger Help Forum is a surprisingly great resource if you can’t find a good a Blogger
tutorial by googling. I had a very specific issue with a Watermark on the
“Ethereal” Template I was using, and was able to find a CSS code to remove it
within minutes! (Here
is that post, in case you are having a problem that sounds similar.)
Additional Tricks:
ALWAYS Backup Your Template Before Making HTML Changes
As many of the links above will also tell you, you can
save a complete backup of the Blogger Template you use, including all your
changes, in case something goes horribly wrong. In the dashboard, select
“Template” (the same place you will be able to edit HTML). In the upper right
hand corner, there is a “Backup/Restore” button. Click that, then “Download
full Template,” just to be safe. Even if you aren’t making any big changes soon
because you love the layout of your blog, it is probably a good plan to save
all your work.
Create Your Own HTML Widgets Within Blogger
To do this, select “New Post” in your Blogger Dashboard,
and put together all images and text, including links, in compose mode. Be
mindful of the width of your sidebar as you do this (you can find and change it
through “Template Designer” on the “Layout Page.”) Then switch over to HTML,
and copy everything. (Save and close this post—do not publish!) Go to “Layout” and
“Add a Gadget” to your sidebar. You will select “HTML/JavaScript” as your
widget, then paste into the “Content” box. (If I’m not making sense, this
post may clarify. It was where I got the idea!) I used this method to create my
“About” information at the top of the sidebar, because I didn’t like Blogger’s
layouts, and wanted to add easy links to my social media. I did get my icons
free here,
but I’m considering personalizing them further, because the black majorly sticks out now. (There are so many
different colors of icons there though!!) You can also quickly center all the widgets
you made with this simple trick.
Get Your Posts Read Back to You
This isn’t really coding or a visual switch, but another
fantastic trick I read recently on Beka Ellen was to get your computer to read
posts back to you in order to edit them! You can find how to do this in
Microsoft Office here.
I also want to add customized share links to the end of
every post, but I am having a hard time finding a tutorial I can completely
personalize, so if you know of one, pass it on! Other than that, it’ll just be
little design touches in the coming months to make this little place all my
own!
Regardless, after the past weekend, I’m not too disappointed
with Blogger after all! It’s a format I’m familiar with, so I am relieved for
the time being to not feel forced into switching to WordPress due to Blogger’s
weird limits. Thanks to all these little tutorials, and all the others out
there, I think I’ll be sticking with it, and can even save money on a template
for now! If you have any questions about what I did specifically, I’d be happy
to answer them! I am nowhere near an expert, but this stuff is super fun for me
to play around with, and I might be able to give you a hand!
What kind of blog design have you done in the past? Feel
free to share a link so that I can see your beautiful blog, and guide me to any
other helpful posts you know of regarding blog design!
Stay Lovely,