Every now and then I try to make my blog my own. You know...doll it up a bit. You might have noticed that I regularly fail at this. The clue? It always gets set back to a prefab template. Argh! I am, admittedly, a computer dunce. Pre-blogging I could check my email and shop. My computer knowledge ended with those two activities. Now, I've added blogging to my repertoire, but, really, that's sort of like writing long, picture filled emails and sending them out into the universe. I don't think this classifies me as computer savvy. When I look at HTML all I see is gobblety-goo.
Last night, I tried and tried to fix things up. I put a picture in the header. It ended up taking up half the computer screen. I took it down. I tried it again. I took it down again. I tried making my blog three columns. I succeeded. Don't go thinking I've made sense of the gobblety-goo. I just googled it. (Oh, I should add googling to my list of computer can-do's.) Anyway, I was obviously none too pleased with the results as is evidenced by the lack of the third column. I like other people's three columned blogs, but mine? It looked like gobblety-goo. I'm not trying to get too terribly fancy with the whole blog design. In fact, I tend to like simple blogs, but I'm apparently inept when it comes to creating one. I'd be happy with a white blog (I have no idea why it's currently green) with a nice photo up top and maybe even three nice, neat columns...not the too close for comfort look I got last night. Okay, so a pale, robins egg blue border around the whole thing would be cool, but I think I'd be way overstretching my own brain powers to accomplish that one. So, does anyone have any tips or favorite tutorials for swanking things up?
Nothing for you here - sorry! Mine is and always has been a Google template, sadly.
ReplyDeleteI love what other folks have done and would gladly let someone else doll mine up, but I figure the learning curve at this point isn't worth it - I'd rather spend my few moments writing posts rather than learning HTML! Especially since so many people read through a feeder anyway.
Wishing you success in your quest, though! :)
If you keep you content fresh and interesting, people will visit your blog often. Keep your design as simple as possible. You don't want to distract from the content.
ReplyDeleteOh Madeline! You and I are so alike. I was doing the exact same thing yesterday. I want my new blog to be a fresh start, so I went to cutestblogontheblock.com
ReplyDeleteand went under blog secrets on how to make it a 3 column blog, I too succeeded, but am still not sure if I like it yet. And like you tried to add a pretty picture to the top and it took up the whole page, tried again and it cut the picture in half, tried yet again and it streched it out really wide. So for now I have given up on the picture thing. Uggg!
my template is the basic goggle one to ,I like looking at everyones pretty bogs, and sigh. But, everytime I add a third colum like you it looks all glopped together, and I don;t like that much at all.
ReplyDeleteI think the basic layout is fine, I like reading what you and Levi are up to and saying hi, and looking at pictures of what folks are doing . The layout is not so important.
I know some folks pay to get thier blogs done, but, personally I don;t have money for that, and I kind of like to fool around and change my basic colors and stuff. And if I paid for a design, I wouldn;t be changing it.
Sometimes it is hard to go for a design even a simple one without experience in how to get there.
ReplyDeleteI love designing :) Maybe we could figure something out? I charge little and trade often. Keep reading the tutorials...I am not too sure as I do not use blogger but if you google blogger design tutorials you should find a lot.
Start with a template you like and build from there :)
Oh I love your rose header...you know I just fiddle with the basic templates too until it turns into something I like....and you know what else? I have never come here and thought anything of your layout...it's always pretty and welcome and like someone else said it's all about your gorgeous content for me!
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