I was perusing around the net and ran across some pretty awesome blog designs that made me totally realize what a crap-chute of design mine actually was. So after spending a total of two days obsessing over the differences I narrowed down a few and got to work. There's no way on God's green Earth I can take credit for figuring out how to create the elements that did sling-shot me into the blogging present. For that, I can thank one amazing lady... Morgan, keeper of the blog "The Little Hen House". She has shared a few tips and tutorials that are now priceless to me. Thankfully, it only took me an afternoon to read, learn, and create - I wish the same for you!
Check out how I made my "I am Ashley Marie" link to my 'all about me' seperate page by clicking here. Sure, Blogger already has a widget for this, but using these directions and an outside photo source (she uses Photobucket through Wordpress, I use Picasa because my Blogger photos are automatically linked to the album) and choosing how large you want the link pixels to be gives me much more freedom, which I like. (I want control, total control, bwah ha ha!!!)
*** Additional tutorial on things I had to figure out myself ***
How to Add a Page to Your Blog
1. on the Blogger home screen click 'Pages' on the left sidebar
2. Hover over 'New Page' and select 'Blank Page'
3. you will be redirected to a new window that mimics a 'New Post' screen, decorate that page as you would a post with information you want specific to that 'Page' and 'Publish'.
4. When you create the 'Button', use the URL of that published page as the link in the code. Wa La!
How to Get the Photo Link from Picasa
1. Upload the image into Picasa
2. Click the photo
3. Click 'Link to this Photo' on the ride sidebar
4. I selected the 'Small 288px' for my images to the left of this post and checked the box that says 'Image Only (no link)'
5. Copy the entire script in the box under 'Embed Image' and paste in tutorial's script. Wa La!
How to Get the Photo Link from Picasa
1. Upload the image into Picasa
2. Click the photo
3. Click 'Link to this Photo' on the ride sidebar
4. I selected the 'Small 288px' for my images to the left of this post and checked the box that says 'Image Only (no link)'
5. Copy the entire script in the box under 'Embed Image' and paste in tutorial's script. Wa La!
Check out how I made my "Chickadette" button by clicking here. This was one of the first elements of other blogs I totally just had to have! How cool is it that other people who like your page can 'grab' the html code and post a direct link from their site to yours? Ummm, abso-freakin-lutely awesome is how.
Honestly, I am SO PROUD of myself for learning these tutorials and SO GRATEFUL that Morgan decided to share with the rest of us what feels like should be proprietor secrets. Go thank her by loving all up on her blog... click the image below to be redirected!
Omg, seriously, why did I not find this a few weeks ago?! I spent an entire Sunday redesigning my blog, figuring out the whole "button" thing, and trying to add pages to my blog. Such "basic" stuff, but it took me ages to figure out how to do it.
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