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Many of you probably already blog, or there may be some of you wanting to blog, and just haven't gotten around around to it. Regardless, a blog is the perfect place to put your digital scrapbooking skills to use! Or if you don't have the digital scrapbooking skills, our ready made templates are quick, easy to use and make it look you are Photoshop masters!
Let me tell you why I love blogging. First of all, with the whole world turned digital, its the easiest place to store my memories and photos of my family and well as write down important memories and exciting happenings. I simple upload my already digitally stored pictures, and write whatever I want to write. Second, its cheap! Digital products can be used an endless amount of times and the blog sites are free! Third, I can share my memories with whoever I like, or even keep the blog private as well. And lastly, can you say BLOG BOOKS?!!! Technology is amazing! I'm so in love with the invention of the blog book, that make printing out my blog into a physical book easy and beautiful! There are a lot of great blog book companies. Check out Blurb Book and Blog2Print!
This tip will be in two parts. The first part I will show you how to enhance your blog using digital products. And the second part will show you how to get start a blog, if you already do not know how.
A. Using digital product to enhance your blog:
To make your header, simply log into Lettering Delights so you can easily grab the items you want directly from the Try Me Now Tool. I started with a base from the Family Graphic Set. Opening it in Photoshop, I began by layering my frames, graphics and title on top. I used the Try Me Now Tool to write Hansen using the At Home Alphabet.
Continue with layering your graphics, and title. Feel free to change up transparencies of some. Just have fun. It's just like scrapbooking, but with a computer!
When your header is finished, upload to blogger by selecting design in the top right corner of your blog, then choose layout at the left. Click on edit on the title area, and a second box will pop up that will enable you to configure your header. Choose the header from where you saved it on your computer and make sure you select the bubble that says "instead of title and description." Then hit save.
You can make entire layouts the same way, starting with a piece of digital paper, and layering your digital graphics and alphabets, or you can make it super easy on yourself, and use our digital templates. If you haven't used a digital template before, just simply open the template in Photoshop or a similar program, and plop your pictures on top or underneath if they are transparent. You can also pretty easily remove the center of a frame if it isn't transparent. If your template is a jpeg and isn't transparent you have to make sure it it no longer a background layer in photoshop. Just doubleclick on the layer in the layers menu and change it to layer 0. This will make it so when you delete the center of the frame, it will be transparent and not a solid background. To delete an oval or circle frame, begin by placing a guideline at the top of the oval and at the left side. To place a guideline in photoshop, make sure you have the rulers on your image by hitting control + R, then place your arrow at the top of the ruler and drag it down to where you want your guide. Using the oval marquee tool, start your marquee where the two guidelines meet and then drag the oval down to where you want it to end.
Hit delete, and this will take out the center of your frame. Insert your picture below the template layer and save.
So that's digital scrapbooking made easy. Right now all our digital templates are on sale for just .25 cents! So hurry and get them before they're gone!
B. Getting started with blogger:
Begin by going to www.blogger.com. You can also go to www.typepad.com, but today I'm focusing on blogger since it's a little easier to use, although typepad enables you to do more. The first thing blogger will ask you besides creating login information, will be for a blog name. Sometimes this takes a few tries to get a name no one has used, but keep inserting them till an available one comes up. Then select a blog template.
After you have chosen a template, you can refer to the above tutorial to create a blog header. You can also choose a different background for your template, and play with different colors and layout settings. You can change the background by selecting template to the left. Choose customize and then choose background towards the top left. You can see a large selection of pictures, patterns, and textures to choose from. There are even many free sites that make blog backgrounds that you can apply as well. You can also adjust the widths of your sidebar and black, or select advanced and customize your colors as well.
Once your blog is set up how you like it, select "back to blogger" at the top right, and now you can play with the layout on the left. You will see a basic template of how your blog is set up and each box can be edited and customized. Any place that you see "Add a Gadget" is where you can add a plethora of gadgets including customized html, pages, pictures, buttons, search boxes, etc. When you are done playing with these options and adding everything you think your blog needs, you are ready to start posting. Select "New Post" to the left and it will take you to a black box. You can begin typing, add pictures, links, etc. Have fun, get creative, and remember...when your blog gets to a point that you want to have a physical copy, anything you put up can be downloaded and printed to a blog book, including all pictures and images! Check out the finished blog here!
I thought the TOU prohibited the use of LD graphics in a blog unless "you...protect the images from being copied or downloaded." How can this be accomplished?
ReplyDeleteIf the images are used in like a conglomeration or incorporated into something--that is allowed, like I've done here. You can not however put up one single giant image that is posted and can be easily copied and stolen. Something like a blog header is too small resolution as is as well. Thank you for asking!
Deletegood question
ReplyDelete