if you are new to starting a blog you will need a header and a blog button.
First off you need to decided on the colour scheme of your blog. I recommend you choose 2-4 colours. use this
HEX code chart to choose which colours you want to use and note down the number codes for all the colours for when you make your header and blog button. Keep these colour codes safe as you may need them in the future if you add or change something else on your blog
Ok now to make your blog header.
Open
Picmonkey. Picmonkey is a free online photo editing program. Once you are on the picmonkey website choose 'edit a photo'. Now choose any of your photos to upload. It doesn't matter which one you upload. Here I have used a lovely photo of myself. Now the first thing we need to do is resize it. so click on the resize button.
You want to resize it to either the same width as your blog or slightly smaller. I resized mine to 1000x200. Make sure the two options are unchecked. Oh, don't I look lovely now.
Then you need to click on the icon on the left side (as shown in the pic below). Then choose the rectangle overlay. Drag the shape over your photo so it completely covers it. Choose the colour you would like to use as the background, I choose white - code #FFFFFF. Remember to use the code colour you chose from the Hex code chart. Once you are done, click on the icon at the top of the page to add the overlay, so it won't move around.
Once you have done this, the next step is to add your blog name. So click the P on the left side and choose a font and colour and write in your blog name.
Now you can add other overlays or writing to personalize your header any way you like.
Once you are ready click on the save button
There you are, now you have a lovely header to add to your blog.
If you have a blogger blog I will now show you how to add it. Simply go to your blogger dashboard and select the layout button. Then click on where the header goes.
Upload your image and then make sure you select the 'instead of title and description' check box
Now your done!!
And to make your blog button just follow the steps to make your header but resize your button to 200x200 or what other size you want to use. It is also a good idea to make a few different sizes of buttons, especially if you want to place your button on other blogs that may require a different size, 300x100, for example
To add your button to your side bar for blogger. Click on layout and select add widget. Choose either image or html. If you choose image all you need to do is upload your button image. If you choose html, you need to have your button uploaded already on the web, then you need to copy the url of the image and then in the html widget write <img src="YOUR IMAGE URL"> and put the url of your image where is says your image url. If you want to make the button clickable write this <a href="YOUR BLOG URL"><img src="YOUR IMAGE URL"></a>
And I'll let you into a little secret that I like to use. I don't use image hosting websites. What I do is make a new post in blogger, and upload my buttons to this post and save it. DO NOT PUBLISH IT just save it it. And to get the image url of the image simply right click on the button and click copy image url and I paste this into the html of where I want my button. If that makes sense.
Here are the other posts in my Blogging A-Z series
Linking to some of these great parties
TTCkit
