Sunday, June 28, 2009

Makeover!

My friend Laurel e-mailed me several weeks ago. She said, "I was thinking a cute blog post idea...like the Home Improvement show where friends make over someone's home. You could make over the design of someone' blog and the end product is a complete surprise, taking into count the person's personality of course. .....okay maybe I want you to make-over my blog but it's still a cute idea."

I laughed and told Laurel I'd like to redesign her blog. Finally this week I got to it. Little Sis helped me--she has a great eye for these things! Here are before and after screen shots:

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(Click on screenshot to check out Laurel's blog!)

Here are the changes I made, and how I made them, in case you'd like to give your blog a makeover! (These instructions are for blogs on the Blogger platform.)

1. I switched to the Minima White Blogger template. I'm a fan of this template, since it's so simple and therefore easy to customize.

2. I made her posting column wider. I also recently made this change on my blog--though it wasn't a very drastic change on my already-cramped page! To read about how to widen your posting column (so easy!), go here.

3. I redesigned Laurel's blog header. She wanted to keep the daisy theme, so she supplied me with the picture she'd used before, and I incorporated it. I also took out the border that is usually around the header--e-mail me or comment here if you want instructions on how to do that.

To make headers, I use Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, which is similar to Adobe Photoshop. If you don't want to buy a photo editing program, you can make blog headers for free at Scrapblog.

4. I changed up the colors of the background, text, etc. On Blogger's "Fonts and Colors" page you'll see a place where you can "Edit color hex code." Go to this site, and you can find codes for 4,800 different colors--better than the 60 offered by Blogger, huh?

Laurel, I hope you enjoy your new blog makeover--I had fun doing it!

10 comments:

Call Me Cate said...

You did a really nice job sprucing it up! Minima is so great for customizing - I was helping someone customize another layout and what a nightmare. Laurel's blog looks fantastic!

Cathy said...

Great job! What I notice is that your blog is the first one advertised on both of them ... hmmmm.... :)

Steph said...

That looks great. Thanks for the tips. I finally got my blog up and running and I'm slowly customizing it.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the inspiration! I updated my own blog today!

Laurel said...

I do love it !!! Thank you so much :-).

2cats said...

It really looks beautiful. Now I just wish I understood what you said about re-doing it.
I have listened to your web blog a couple of times, so that I can learn how, but I am still in the dark.
But yours always looks so fresh and inviting.

Just Me said...

Do mine! Please do mine! LOL. This was great!

Scriptor Senex said...

You could end up with a full time job at this rate! Ooops, I mean another full-time job.

beckiwithani said...

It looks fabulous! :)

Networlddirectory said...

Laurel's blog looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing..