tips on jazzing up your blog

okay so i haven't really been able to settle on a blog design or theme that i really like (hence all the recent changing) but i think i might actually stick with this one.  first i sketched out an idea of what i wanted my blog to look like.  of course i don't really have any experience designing websites or graphic design so i tried to keep it pretty simple.  here's my preliminary sketch:

first the background-just basic stripes-i decided having the extra dots was just way too much.  i just opened up a blank file in photoshop and painted some stripeys.

i think the major problem i had with my previous blog designs was the font.  i really couldn't find a font that had the right vibe...until i found KG Call Me Maybe.  i looooove this font (and the song) so so much!!  lately i've really been crushing on tall skinny fonts.  for whatever reason the regular version wouldn't work on my mac but i like the skinny version better anyway.

next-colors.  before i couldn't settle on what colors i wanted but this time i forced myself to pick a color palette.  probably pretty basic advice but it really does help to narrow it down.  plus it makes going through all the advance settings of blogger go faster when you already know which colors to choose. i wish there were a couple more places i could slip in the coral color but i suppose i'll have to settle for the 'hover' action for now lol.

i really wanted to have custom titles for all the gadgets in my side bar...but i guess there's a limit on how many characters can go there because i couldn't get the whole code to fit...so instead i changed the font color of the gadget titles to transparent, then i opened a new html gadget right above the gadget that needed a title.  i ended up with some larger than necessary spaces but it gets the job done.  making these little titles is basically like making a blog button...over and over...

and talking (or typing) about blog buttons...i made a new one!!  and i made one for the linky parties i will be hosting soon...hopefully i'll have it up and running next weekend.  there's a really great tutorial on Ellison Lane Quilts on html coding to set up a blog button with a grab box.  you can see the final product on my right sidebar.  

there's no hardcore html/css coding going on here i did all this just by using blogger gadgets.  even my navigation bar across the top is just one big html gadget.  when i first really started considering my blog design i thought there was no way i'd be able to get  the 'custom' look a lot of the big blogs have without paying someone to do it for me but i think it turned out pretty well...and all i used was blogger gadgets and 3 different html codes!!  you can find my previous post here about html coding for social media links.  this is the code i used for basically everything-just replace the bolded parts with your own info.  you can find the original tutorial here.   

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Her-New-Leaf-Blog/
329109590455030" target="_blank"><img src="http://hernewleaf.
files.wordpress.com/2012/01/facebook.png"></a>

for the gadget titles you just use the last half of the code:

<img src="http://hernewleaf.
files.wordpress.com/2012/01/facebook.png"></a>

and for the button with a grab box go here.  i was pretty nervous at first-it all just looks like a jumble of letters but it's really pretty simple cut and paste.  

so what d'you think??  are you ready for a totally professional looking blog?  it's actually much easier than it seems.  

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