Spicing up like with a teaspoon of cinnamon, not a cup of cayenne pepper. Nothing major, just a tad more color, a new header and a more professional looking layout.
I've often thought about redesigning the ole blog but never got around to it. I know scads of you use free templates but I knew I couldn't follow suit (they look great on your blogs though). Knowing my fickle tastes I'd certainly loathe looking at any busy pattern in a matter of days. Or maybe minutes. (And I despise how those templates move when you scroll down the page of a blog. Am I the only one who's noticed that? Maybe it's the amateur-web-designer in me that cringes at that. In my mind only text should move when you scroll down, not backgrounds.)
Man, blogger has seriously improved its design tools in the past few years. Besides the new templates, they have plugged in html editors almost everywhere! I vividly remember 4 years ago when I spent hours of Chloe's naptime creating a header image and then laboriously toiling in the html to get it just right. And then there was the agony of realizing that the header STILL didn't work even after all my labor. Ugh.
This recent blog revamp was quick, smooth, and painless! Thanks to a few super easy tools that is.
- Jing. I realize I say I LOVE a lot. But I really truly LOVE this screen capture program. It's free and incredibly easy to use. And the quality of screen capture images is perfecto. Jing enabled me to skip the tricky step of saving my header as a picture (formatting, size and resolution often alter when I do this). Instead I just clicked on my magic yellow Jing ball, dragged the cross-hairs across my header and grabbed a copy of it. Jing has also made uploading medical images for my online job MUCH easier.
- Picnik. I think I'm the last person in the world to discover the fun-ness of Picnik. This online photo editing site has a lovely simple interface making it un-intimidating and easy to navigate. And it's loads of fun to apply their photo effects. Besides the usual color changing tools there are myriads of other toys to play with which make pictures fuzzy, bright, pixellated, and much more. I've only just begun exploring this whimsical site.
- New font. For the first time ever I downloaded and installed a new font. Woo-hoo! I don't remember on where I found the font for my new header but google "free fonts" and you'll soon see there are a plethora of downloadable fonts out there. Just be sure to read the fine print so you don't owe the font creator any royalties. This site made for good font browsing and boasts of 8,000 free ones.
So, what d'ya think of the new look? And how do you update your bloggy look?
3 comments:
Wow! I love it! I so need to do something like this but I am incredibly impatient & totally ignorant of how it works. I just recently discovered that I can go in the html editing thing & copy & paste pictures where I want them to be in my posts. Your blog does look much more professional. I have been thinking lately how I want to step it up with my blog - maybe put in tabs or something but that's all I've done...just think. Thinking will get me nowhere, huh?
Anyway - love, love, love the new look & I'm working hard not to covet it :-)
BTW, thanks for including those links & sites. I'm gonna have to make the time to check them out!
Love it! (to use your phrase :) ) Nice to see you braking out of the mold. I'll have to check out your links. I've been having fun messing around with my blog. Blogger really has improved since a few years ago. Totally understand the woes of editing html.
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