Thursday, March 7, 2013

Bloggy Spring Cleaning

The gals at Arkansas Women Bloggers are hosting a Bloggy Spring Cleaning this March.  As I was reading through some of the first round of tips, I got inspired to work on my blog header.  My header has been out of date for quite some time.  One of the previous pictures included the logo of a former employer and just needed to be a better reflection of me as I am now. 

I took a few minutes to review my pictures and select some that could be good candidates for the header.  Then I headed over to PicMonkey to build a collage.  I utilized the FB Header design options in order to get a collage that was a horizontal rectangle.  I added the pictures into my design choice and played around until I got the layout that I liked. 

Next I added a swatch to the layout of the collage so that I would have someplace to put the words on my header.  I also moved onto the Background tab and made changes to the background color, spacing between elements, and added rounded corners.  That completed my collage so I saved a copy of the picture using one of the best picture quality options. 

Step two was to add the text to the photo.  For this, I chose the edit a photo option and selected the Text tab to add text to the photo.  I ended up using multiple text boxes so that I could play with different fonts and colors within my header text.  There are lots of other editing features that you can play with but all I needed to do was add text for this particular project. 

Here's the comparison of my old header with the new one beneath it.  I updated the color scheme of my background to better match the header.  My next update will be choosing a background that isn't quite as busy.  I've always loved Argyle but I want something a little more understated now. 

What do you think?  I'll gladly take any tips or tricks that you have for keeping your blog site design fresh and fun.  It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for three years already!

If you want more detailed instructions on developing a custom blog header, visit DetroitRunner for this great tutorial.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shout out. Glad you liked my post. It's a great way to easily customize your blog.

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  2. Hey! I found you through AWB, and you look so familiar. I run in NWA, too -- just got into triathlon last summer, but mostly running. I browsed your blogroll -- we read a lot of the same folks. Hope to see you at a race sometime! {And the blog looks great - love the new header.}

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  3. Love the new header, you look fantastic darlin' and so does your blog!

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  4. I am sooooo diggin' it! Remember when we went to MamaFus and over lunch got your blog up and running? Look how far you have come.

    So proud of you!

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