Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Making Some Changes!


I decided to make a few changes to the blog.  I really, really dislike how complicated Blogger is to work with and change formatting without advanced HTML work.  I might dare to say that my husband was right when he suggested WordPress instead of Blogger, but oh no I said, and now I suffer!  Grrrr.  

I might invest in a purchased template in the future, but this works for now!  Please leave a link to your template provider if you purchased one, I'd love recommendations.


The Header

I really wanted something not as horrible as my old header.  Trying to find the correct free online software was a pain, not to mention figuring it out, editing the pictures, and then reinserting the edited pictures back into the header design.  

I used Picmonkey.com.  You don't have to sign in and all the features you could really need are free.  You can save direct to your computer too.

You can insert your pre made header image in your header gadget, just click "instead of header and description."

The Sidebar 


If you ever want to get rid of a title in the gadget on your side bar enter:

Into your gadget title.  As you might have discovered, you can't not have a title or the red error message pops up.  This "title" tricks it and its gone.  But you might have to re-enter it every time you mess with that widget.


The Sidebar Buttons


They were free from Brandi Hussey.  They come in a few colours and you can download them as a .zip file.  Inserting them is much easier then the 45mins it took Googling how to do it!  

You insert an "image" gadget.  With in the gadget options use the fancy title trick, then upload the image.  You can make the image a link (i.e. to your Flickr) by inserting the link address.  You can make the image a header/title (i.e. Google + title and below it is your Google + badge) by doing all the above mentioned, but don't insert a link.  Then all you have to do is place the image gadget above your Google + gadget.  Voila, a header/title


Mini Me


The Mini Me is actually the "You and Me Happy Together Family Dolls - Ethnic Family" from Toys R Us.  1:12 scale and the legs and hips are articulated!!! 

I had to buy the "ethnic" family to get brown hair, as the caucasian family was blonde.  I am not sure how this family is "ethnic,"  but I suspect they are hinting at a Latin background? very weird.  At $16 this was an awesome buy to help me ensure my furniture was scaled correctly and I was tired of looking at my wood artist models. 

I did a photo shoot with Mini Me and Mini Miss Kitty.  Photos aren't on this computer, so I will post them in the future.

Good night and sleep tight!

5 comments :

  1. Using the miniature you is the cutest! You even did a photo shoot! :) I love the overall look and the header is very pretty. It takes some time to learn the html editing but personally I've kind of enjoyed it. And I didn't know about the "" trick for the title, I've always had to go into the code and edit it. This will be so much easier. Thanks!

    I actually started out on Wordpress with my blog and I really do miss the ease and the overall all simplicity (it has a fabulous visitor info page, lots more options for posts and much more) but I am so happy I moved my blog over to Blogger. This was around 2 years ago. I personally found Wordpress expensive. I started getting ads on my site which I would have to pay to remove and in order to change and customize the templates provided the way I wanted to I would have to pay yearly as well. I do use Wordpress (self-hosted) for my portfolio site and pay a fee both monthly and yearly, but I didn't want to do that for my blog. I decided it was worth it to pay once a year for a custom domain for paperdollminis (I put my blog on my business cards with my portfolio site so I wanted a simple www. address). But that's it! The other reason was that I felt I was missing out on connecting with the majority of mini blogs because they were blogger, things like a blog list with updated images and having a blogger profile when I commented (I guess google+ could be used now). So don't regret your decision too much there are pros and cons of both sites! If you ever get stuck with html for your blog send me a note and I can do my best to help :)

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    1. Thanks for the Wordpress info. I've just been so annoyed with Blogger, but I guess there isn't really any great solutions short of making my own site entirely.

      The title trick isn't "" There was HTML between them but it disappeared when posted. I re posted it as an image. I found it on a Google forum. I've used it at least 10 times and it works!

      Thanks!!
      Kat

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    2. Ah okay :) Thanks for letting me know, Kat. Of course the html would disappear in your post lol...so temperamental! I'm going to give it a try, much easier than going into the code itself and deleting lines.

      I hope you get things the way you want, thankfully once it's done, it's done. I know at the beginning I found a lot of nice templates on Etsy for a one time fee. I also found a couple stylish freebies...I'll take a look and see where I found them and send you the links. I used the freebies to help put together the blog I have now :)
      Kristine

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  2. Hi Kat! I am so happy that You are satisfied with your new Header and it is soooo cute with the mini YOU carrying that toolbox! That says it all, doesn't it? :D
    Personally, I am 100% illiterate when it comes to setting up my computer program. I just put on a SAD FACE and get my daughter to do it for me. :(( So I am Quite Impressed with ANYONE who can and will set up for themselves. Brava, Kat!!! :D

    elizabeth

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    1. Thank you Elizabeth! The blog design hung over me for a while. I figured it was time to put down the glue and the paint and get the design party started!

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