Monday 4 February 2008

Tweaking my blog template - any ideas ?

For quite a while I have been thinking about a new fresh look for my blog.

Today, I came across Smiler's creative blog. She has an awesome series on Blogger tips-Blogging 101.

I really liked her template and I started hunting around ... somehow I came upon this site

Compender now he has some really brilliant blogger technical information on 3 column templates. Which is what I am testing.

I also found this Blogger tips and tricks.

I am keen to keep playing around with Blogger because as much as I am envious of Wordpress themes and all the plugins and self hosting - I am reluctant to lose the ground I have made.

*sigh* what to do ?

So do you like this theme/template ?

It has taken me a few hours to edit the template. It is still a work in progress. I have a lot of de-cluttering and re arranging to do tomorrow.

I also have it on my to do list to get a pretty header ... any ideas welcome - please !

So there you have it.

It's your turn ... give a girl some directions and save me a few detours or disasters.

ETA - One more link Dummies Guide for Beta Blogger. I have only had the chance to browse a few of these but they seem very informative.

12 comments :

Unknown said...

Wow! When I clicked your link (from my sidebar), I thought "Hey! Her template looks different!".

I do like it. It looks very crisp and fresh. If you want to do neat things with the template, there are quite a few bloggers out there who help other bloggers out with template designs and headers. It's always fun to try new things.

Laura said...

Those all look like good resources...the free wordpress.com blogs are SO limited, I totally wouldn't recommend switching over to that. My friend Wendy (http://wesnlani.blogspot.com/) is a big blogger.com fan...I'm sure she'd be a good person to talk to!

jeanie said...

Oh it does look good - I should dedicate a few moments some day to doing some more - it was nice to see some of the widgets that work for blogger...

Military Mom said...

I really like the simple white look you got going on! Another great site for blog help is:
http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/

There's a button on my blog that say Blog Tips that can link you to this. It really helped me a lot!

lightening said...

I'm so hopeless that I can't actually remember what it looked like before. Sorry. But the 3 columns looks nice and if you can get a header graphic happening, it'll make it a lot more personal.

I have just been looking at templates myself (setting myself up a blog to keep track of my gardening stuff http://lighteningsgarden.blogspot.com if you want a little peak). The frustration I've found is getting something that is easy to install. Have you seen these templates?

http://freeskins.blogspot.com/

Of course, the only trouble is you need to save all your widgets etc. Was easier for me as I didn't have anything else set up when I was playing with templates.

I've used the first one of these for my gardening blog and so far I'm quite happy with it.

I do like wordpress self-hosted but as a non-costing option, tweaking your blogger blog a bit can make a BIG difference. I have a free wordpress blog as well (oh yeah, you already know that lol) and they're definitely not as easy to tweak as the blogger HTML is. Not for me anyway. :)

Anonymous said...

It looks great, but am I supposed to be able to see the edit buttons on the bottom of the widgets?

Anonymous said...

Love the new look! Just had to show my hubby, who has absolutely no interest whatsoever in blogging: yours, mine, or anybody else's! But he did state that he was impressed, so that's all good.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Thanks for the visit and the comment! Your site looks great. I agree with some of the comments above... A banner picture would look great and they're pretty easy to do...

Jenn said...

I'm not much help with the how-to, but I do like the three column setup and might be checking out some of those links to see what I can learn.

By the way, if you'd like to play along I've tagged you for a meme.

Anonymous said...

I am a fan of this 3 column layout. I looked for AGES to find one that was what I wanted.

Still not exactly what I envisioned but hey, you can't have everything!

Looks fantastic to me. Can't wait to see the new header!

Cathy said...

thanks for all this info - i'm definitely going to come back and have a closer look at it all... am thinking of changing my template too!

katef said...

Oh I love the three columns... and I am a big fan of white space too so I think this is well on the way to looking awesome!
If you have some ideas for a blog header I am happy to have a play in photoshop for you. PM via the aussie bloggers forum if you like - or I think you have my email address from commenting on my blog??
Oh and if you are worried about loosing reader and subscibers by shifting to self hosted wordpress... I actually had the opposite happen and gained about 20-40 visitors a day after switching! No idea why tho!

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment.

Please know that even when I do not respond specifically to your comment - I treasure each comment made and consider it a thoughtful act of friendship.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=14131376#othersettings
So what do you have to say ? Share with me ...
add your ingredients to this recipe we call life.