another quick blog tip

Do you want your links to go to a new web page instead of loading on your page?

If so - follow this tutorial by Leelou blogs!

It takes 2 seconds

Click here for tutorial

help me help you!

hi there :)

So we all know that I have been having fun helping people re-design their blogs. I have posted the tips that I followed that helped me create my blog {tips that took me weeks and weeks to compile!} in hopes that they would help girls just like me make their blog festive & fun. Because let's face it - it's more fun to blog when you have a fun, cute, well designed blog. I reached out for help to a girl whose blog I loved & didn't get any response and in turn decided that whatever I learned, I would pass along. Help a sister out! And I have LOVED to do so.

There have been a few friends/now new friends that have taken my tips & tricks and ran with them. I am so impressed! My friend Mary Liz, Sarah & also my new friend Heather. Let me know if you have used my tips & tricks and found them helpful!

Ok getting down to it - some of you that I do not have the pleasure of knowing yet have asked me to help you with your blog. So let me propose something - I would LOVE to help you, if you in turn would help me! You see, my love/obsession/passion is photography. There is this workshop that I have my HEART set on going to in September. You see, if I want to start my own photography business - which I do! - than I think this conference would be VERY beneficial. The only problem is - it's almost $3,000 to go! AHH! So, from now until September - any extra work that I do on the side {because I do have a full time job!} the money will go towards sending me to Love Affair!

Because my free time is limited, I am only committing to taking on 2 blogs/month. If I find that I have more free time than that, then I will let you know. Use the google button under "Contact me" to shoot me an email. Simple disclaimer: you have seen my work & know what I do. I do not create the backgrounds but create everything else. If you want a picture header - great! If you want a cutesy header and there is something you like off of Cutest Blog on the Block or a place like that, let me know and I can help. Case in point my friend Sommer's blog! Here are the ?'s I will ask you:

1. 2 or 3 column blog {3 column will be a little bit more $}

2. picture or scrap book header

3. Which background - pick out a free one & tell me which one you like! {I love Shabby Blogs}

4. Pick Font {from kevinandamanda.com}

5. Send me pictures you want for header and/or sidebar

6. Side bar items {archives, blog list, anything extra}

7. divider signature name

Basically, we can work out what kind of "donation" you can give to my cause of going to Love Affair! Email me & we'll get started!

In case it's been awhile, here are some posts you can look to if you are ready to tackle this yourself!

Tricks #1 and helpful sites

Tricks # 2

there are other little tips & tricks along the way under "Blog Help"

Thank you for understanding! I hope I can help some of you make your blog fun & cute :)

Another blog re-designed!

You know my befri, Allison, that I always talk about?

The one who's baby Grayson is all over this blog?

Well Friday night I made her sit down & tell me what she wants for her blog design!

I finished it tonight & wanted you to check it out!

I love my friend & love her new blog :)

The Zachry's Blog {click here}

Blog Help

I've had so much fun recently helping friends spruce up their blogs! I think if I did this for $ I wouldn't like ti as much as it's a work of love for my favorite friends. It's a challenge & takes time but the results are always worth it - a pretty blog & happy friends! I'm not sure I have done great at "teaching" them how to do it - it's just easier for me to whip it up but I"ll try to keep posting tips and tricks that I've learned. Under the "blog help" tab on my blog you can keep up with sites I've spruced up & tips and tricks I've found.

Here is the latest for my friend Sommer

http://sommer-mypreciousfamily.blogspot.com/

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday Friends!

I just had to say hi & show off something I've been working on.

I just helped my friend Becca do a few things to fancy up her blog!

She is thrilled with the results & I think it looks great!

A few little things can go a long way.

Check out Becca's Blog!

{I am having issues with my links not showing up, trying to fix the colors!}

Also I am just SO THRILLED about this weekend. Stephen & I are going to Lubbock to spend some time with our dear friends Ellen & Clay. Ellen, Clay & Stephen's families go way back and I am just lucky enough to have married into this great family tradition of friendship. Ellen & I quickly became friends after meeting at what was probably a family friend wedding and/or party {this is a fun bunch here - always something going on!} I think the first thing that we connected on was we both are randomly obsessed with the town of Bourne. I know, I know - but we share that love. And it just grew from there. I can't explain the friendship I have with Ellen because I don't have one like it with anyone else {all friendships are different really}. We are "soul sisters". Every time we have a wedding that we are all going to Stephen & Clay get a little perturbed because you can usually find Ellen & I sitting together {glass of bubbly in hand} talking for at least 3 hours. Recently, Ellen & I have connected with the love of all things photography. She is an amazing, talented photographer who just started her own business this year in Lubbock! {Check her out here} We have been emailing back and forth for weeks about lenses, websites, equipment, photoshop, everything! She was the one who convinced me to get my Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens {that I took all the "hill country" pictures with}.

This weekend we are going to have so much fun - Ellen & I are going to "play" with our cameras on Saturday, maybe get a work out in, go shopping & end the day with the Aggie/Tech basketball game with the guys. Oh and did I mention Milly will get to meet her boyfriend Sully? They have a male golden & we can't wait for them to meet and fall in love. However, Milly still has yet to meet her "other boyfriend" Tucker. {Alli - we need to make that happen!}

SO looking forward to a weekend with our fun friends!

{are you noticing a trend in the pictures.....}

A new fun trick!

One of my other FAVORITE new blogs is, iheartfaces! They too have some nifty tutorials & I just followed this one to make this picture larger! Very fun! If you don't know about this site & you are at all interested in photography {any level!} you should check out their site! It's so fun!

ps {this is a little sneak peak of the fun pictures I took today of my newest friend, Grayson!!}

pss {which do you like better - the black & white or color! they are both so sweet!}

More Blogger Tricks....

So are you ready for round 2 of Blogger tips & tricks?! Today I will give you some info on how to get facebook/twitter/gmail/etc links on your page & also point you towards the tutorial that helped my make my linkbar!

Big props to my friend Lauren for teacing me how to do this next part!

Google search {images} for facebook, gmail, twitter, whatever other buttons you want to put on your blog for people to contact you! Find an image you like and resize it to 60x60 {in photoshop, or antoher free editing software}. Upload them to photoshop & copy the "direct link" for that picture. Go to your blogger dashboard - layout - add a gadget - html/java script. In that gadget window paste this code:

http://www.facebook.com/YOUR PROFILE USERNAME" target="_blank">THE URL OF WHERE YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR FACEBOOK BUTTON"/> YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS" target="_blank">THE URL OF WHERE YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR EMAIL BUTTON"/> http://www.twitter.com/YOUR PROFILE URL" target="_blank">THE URL OF WHERE YOU HAVE UPLOADED YOUR TWITTER BUTTON"/>

{Obviously you will substitue it with your own info!} and you are done! And if oyu have already uploaded your new fonts - if you type "contact me" or wahtever you want in that same window it will show up in oyur new font on your blog! How fun!!

Ok now, onto my linkbar {which is the bar underneath my header that has the info "about us" "photography" etc. I used this tutorial:

from Simply Fabulous Tutorials

then I went into photoshop and made the the words "about us" etc , saved them and uploaded them to photobucket. I saved the direct link and then replaced in the simply fabulous code "about us" to the direct link from photobucket!

I am trying to put the code but it just shows up as the links when I publish this post - so my words will have to do.

So I just replaced the HOME with my image and kept the code at the end. WOW it took me a while to figure that out! And it took a while to get the spacing/font right in photoshop with my words, but I did it!

I hope this is helping yall - I don't want to just keep going on and on if no one cares, ha, I just wish someone would have spelled it out better for me {and I'm so thankful for those that DID spell what they knew out for me!!}

Here's some love for simply fabulous tutorials:

Another great blog with tips & tricks is Megan from Shabby Blogs!

I followed this tutorial to get my own post divider!

My other FAVORITE blog to get great tips & tricks from is

She is the one with the free fonts & she has great tutorials!

This is where you can figure out how to do your own signature, and figure out how to put all your new fun fonts to use!

Also, The Cutest Blog on the Block has this page called Blog Secrets which is amazing too!

I pretty much went through every tutorial on the pages I have mentioned and did a few fun things! Now you know exactly where I found all of my tutorials!

One more! Made by Madeline has some good tips & templates!

I am currently in a continuing education class on the basics of Photshop - maybe I'll have some insight to share on that someday! But that is all from me for now about blog design - let me know if there is something else you see on my blog that you want to know how to do & I'll try to help you!

Happy Blogging!

Blogger Tips, Tricks & helpful sites!

I had such a good time working on my new blog design & had some great help from awesome blogs. {There were also some people I reached out to for help, that wouldn't help me} so I want to pass along some good info! I have to give a shout out to my new friend Lauren for ALL of her help. Go check out her blog - it's amazing!

I hope these sites help you - there are so many little things that I probably won't get to document because I just sorta learned them as I went & probably won't be able to explain how I did it {it was just magic!} but if you have any specific questions, email me and I'll try to help you figure it out. I did all of my sidebar titles, link bar titles, header & buttons in Photoshop CS4, but a lot of the stuff {like the fun fonts} doesn't require Photoshop. The Cutest Blog on the Block also suggests the program GIMP {a free editing program - they say similar to photoshop}.

My blog is a 3 colum blog & that was the first thing I did to change it up. It requires a lot of HTML & CSS code, but I did it all with the help of this tutorial:

from The Cutest Blog on the Block

however, I did end up changing the numbers in my html code to make it bigger, etc. here are my numbers: {I also added a third sidebar (one on the right & one on the left) so there are 2 places for sidebar} basically $endSide = right and $tartSide = left side

Instead of a 860 header wrapper, mine is 940px {that means my header is as long as my main wrapper {where all the text/sidebar items are)

My numbers are a little different than the #'s it suggests in the cutest blog on the blog tutorial, but at least that gives you a place to start! I've put in red the numbers in mine that are a little bit different.

/* Outer-Wrapper ----------------------------------------------- */ #outer-wrapper { width: 950px; margin:0 auto; padding:10px; text-align:$startSide; font: $bodyfont; } #left-sidebar-wrapper { margin-$startSide: 10px; width: 200px; float: $startSide; background-color:$mainBgColor; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ } #main-wrapper { width: 450px; margin-$startSide: 10px; float: $startSide; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ } #sidebar-wrapper { margin-$endSide: 10px; width: 200px; float: $endSide; background-color:$mainBgColor; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */

}

It is SO confusing at first - and a lot of it I just sorta had to mess with the numbers. Here are the run downs on what all this means:

#outer-wrapper - This defines the entire blog
#main-wrapper - This defines the main column
#sidebar-wrapper - This defines the sidebar

Always remember to save your template before you start messing with your HTML. If you go to Edit html there is a place you can save your entire template to your computer. I actually started a "practiceblog" while I was doing my re-design and then moved it all over last night :) That way I could do as much as I wanted and when I got it just like I liked it, I moved it! You can do it with your same email address & even make it private so no one can find it (under permissions tab).

Ok, so after I changed my template - I picked out a free background! I did follow some tutorials to make my own in photoshop, but I didn't like them as much as the ones I found online for FREE! There are so many sites that offer these:

Cutest Blog on the Block

Shabby Blogs {Where I got mine!}

Aqua Poppy Designs

Lee Lou Designs

**Now remember, if you changed your template to a 3 column, you need to get a 3 column background! Just look for it on the site, they should all have 3 column backgrounds.

Ok, now that you have a background & a new 3 column template - get to work! There are so many ways you can customize your blog! I had a few people ask me about my header size: 940px by 350px. If you want your header to be the length of your blog, than look and see what your header wrapper is in your edit html section. {you can hit ctl F and it pulls up a search box in your html so you don't have to keep scrolling around to find what you are looking for}

Since I have photoshop, I opened up my image, went to "image size" and put in those dimensions. Then I opened a new document with the same dimensions & copy and pasted my image over there. Then I just put a text box over my picture and added words. Then I hit "save for web & devices" and uploaded it to photobucket. I would suggest getting a photobucket account (it's free!) because you can easily upload your pictures/graphics and then get the "direct link" to put into your blog. That is waht I did for my header!

Ok onto FONTS! kevinandamanda.com is a HUGE resource!!!

There she has FREE FONTS!!!!

On this post she tells you how to apply a new font to your blog! It is so fun - it's a longer tutorial, and takes some time {and maybe some frustration there!} but it works! just follow her tutorial & you can have a new font for your post title, dates, and sidebar! If you go with a 3 column blog, make sure to follow her instruction to add the other sidebar to your account at webs.com so you can have the font on both sides. And don't worry, every time I did this process I got frustrated, but just hit refresh or wait a while and it always shows up! maybe it just takes some time to load...

{another fun trick - if you have problems moving your page elements around, get firefox - it's so much easier & then you can look at your blog in safari and see what it looks like!}

OH and another note - while picking the color for your font, it's so much fun to match it to your background color. firefox as an application called Colorzilla that you can download for free. It works like an eyedropper tool, once you download it, it will appear at the bottom of your firefox browser window - so click it, and then click a color on your background and it will give you a 6 digit color code! When you get to the part in the tutorial to change around the color of your fonts, enter that code {write it down so you will use the same color around your blog} I used brown, green & pink and I think it makes my blog look unified that the colors are all the same.

Ok I feel like that was TOO much information for 1 post. I will keep working on these little tutorials & please let me know if there is something on my blog that you want me to give you the info from. Here are a few more things I will document for you {so be on the look out!}

1. How to link your facebook, gmail, twitter {like mine under "contact me"}
2. the tutorial that helped me make my linkbar {under the header that says "about me", "home", etc}
3. how to make a post divider
4. how to make a signature
5. and if you have photoshop {or a related program} I can try to tell you how I made my sidebar titles {like the ones that say "my posts", "my friends", etc}

How does that sound? I hope I can help give you the information you need to change up your blog! It took me WEEKS to compile all of this information & from there it was just sorta touch and go with what worked and what didn't. I will try my best to give you the resources you might need to spruce up your blog! Let me know what else you want me to explain & I'll try my best!

Yeah for my NEW BLOG!!

Well, I admit I have been MIA but it's for good reasons...I have been re-designing my blog! Do you love it? I have spent countless hours learning new tricks in photo shop & searching blog after blog for tutorials. I am going to work on getting a list together of all the helpful places I found & I'll post it in case any of you want to give your blogs a makeover :) I got the background from shabbyblogs.com but besides that - I did it all myself in photo shop and from tutorials. I LOVE it. I hope I don't get sick of it soon.....but because I've been so MIA, here is a quick run-down on what has happened the past week and a half!

• Last Friday morning @ the YMCA - I did something that was pretty darn embarrassing. I totally BIT it on the treadmill. Yes, you heard me right. I was talking to my friends Brooke and Terri and just FELL. I'm talking to my knees, still holding on, treadmill still going {luckily I was walking and not running} and it was all in SLOW MOTION. Brooke finally reached over and hit the stop button and I proceeded to let go around the same time and was flung off the treadmill. What followed after was a laughing/crying mix.
• 

• Last Friday night I spent the evening with my good friends Sommer, Brooke & Victoria. We went to eat at Pizzaria Venti before heading up to Stonegate for "Women of Stonegate". It was a great night of fellowship & worship. It really got my heart thinking about how there is "something more" available with Jesus.

• Last Saturday night we went to some friends for dinner! That was the extent of our weekend - pretty low key but great to relax at home! Sunday I went to a bake sale some of my high school friends had for Haiti! I was so proud of them for doing something for those in need.
  

• Tuesday was crazy with our first after school program for work {OpChamps} and Teen CBS. But don't worry, my fall off the treadmill totally worked into my lesson for the kids. God is so funny sometimes - I think he allowed me to fall so I would FINALLY have a good real life analogy for CBS.
  

• Thursday night we went to dinner with our dear friends Will & Ansley! They are about to get married and Ansley was in town for the weekend - we had fun catching up with her & I successfully embarrassed my husband by taking pictures....hey, I'm practicing! We have some homework due for photography class on Wednesday!

• Friday I left for a retreat for work @ Lake Brownwood. It was a good, productive, relaxing time & I especially enjoyed the ride down with my new friend Valerie. Too bad on the way home my car broke down!! Thankfully, I was a few miles from Bronte & was able to make it to the gas station. After waiting an hour, having my car towed, etc etc my new friend Valerie and her sweet family {who I was following until I stopped to take pictures of a gorgeous sunset} turned around and picked me up! My car was towed to San Angelo since it was going to be $500 to tow it to Midland - ugh. SO SO SO thankful for friends that picked me up & drove me home and good friends that let me borrow their car this week {love you Eggemeyers!!} It's times like these that make it hard {and a fun challenge} about not living in the same town as family. Luckily, our friends in Midland are like family. We are beyond blessed
• 

That is all for now. I promise to be better about blogging - I will want to more now since my blog is so fun and pretty :)

This week is going to be VERY BUSY - especially since we are on pins and needles waiting for Alli to have sweet Grayson!!!

photoshop, photography class & blogs

Last week was a very exciting one for me - I started a digital photography class at our church! It's so funny, I got some Christmas money this year and the only thing I wanted to spend it on was "camera stuff". I have been obsessed with purchasing & learning photoshop. {as you saw on my goals for the new year} Well, I purchased photoshop & received it in the mail yesterday & it's loaded onto my computer! now, I just have to wait for my photoshop class to start next month.

However, my befri Allison sent me to a photographer friend's blog - she has a one hour Photoshop tutorial {on DVD} you can purchase to teach you everything you need to know about photo editing on Photoshop. Should I take my class at the college first - then if I still don't know how to edit, order UNO? Check it out! Let me know your thoughts.

I am obsessed with making my own background/header/buttons/etc for my blog. I got totally inspired by this girl. I love her blog & she designed it herself in Photoshop! Anyone out there who knows how to do this - is digital scrapbooking kit the way to go? Any advice would be helpful - I am excited about changing up my look here!

OK back to my first sentence - the class! How awesome is it that our church offers a digital photography for MINISTRY class? Awesome - it's only been one week, but I love it already. We talked about how your photography can glorify God & bless people and I know we'll be talking about it more. There are some great photographers in the class & I'm looking forward to making some new friends & growing in my knowledge and skill as a photographer {ok, a wanna be photographer} I seriously LOVE taking pictures & have always been that way. Yes, it is just a hobby - but I'm getting more serious about it! My favorite part about taking pictures is giving them to the people in the pictures {usually my friends & fam}. I think it really blesses people {and it blesses me, knowing that I can bless them in that way} does that make sense?

Anyway, be prepared to hear about it on here! We have assignments each week & last week in class we talked about the importance of SLOWING DOWN {in photography & life in general} and taking the time to see what's around you. We were supposed to take pictures of things around the house. We could only submit 2 - but here are some of my faves from my home! Enjoy