Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Why the new header?

This was my best effort to "freshen up" the look of this blog.

My frustration level with blogger templates has risen to unheard-of new heights. I hate everything about the new template format. *grumble.grumble*

Folks (like Fox and a few others) who routinely entice and delight us with blog makeovers, how do you manage?

As for the photo, I took it with my cell phone quite by accident one day while I was tatting and listening to Pandora streaming radio. The fabric is actually from the pocketed dolly bag I bought from Jane Eborall back in April, 2010.

Thinking myself quite clever, I decided to attempt a blog makeover using this photo. Many hours later I was still wrestling with the template designer options and intensely dissatisfied with the results.

In the end I settled for this. Mostly because it will focus on the color in the lace photos I upload. But I am not happy with the design.

8 comments:

Gina said...

I haven't actually switched to a new blogger template. I'm still using an old one that I customized and it took me ages to figure out so I'm afraid to make many changes. I use the online freebies for backgrounds and make up my own picture for the header, but I like the header wide and not too tall so I have to know how many pixels that is and make sure my photos fit within those paremeters. I didn't do that with the last one because I can't remember what those measurements are! No matter...it worked out okay for now. I LIKE your header photo!

Michelle said...

I like your new header- very nice. I'm sorry for the frustrations!

Bree at "Bree's Way" said...

I never know what I am doing, old, new, I fudge my way through it either way. I am not the most computer friendly person, lol, that is how I describe myself.... I just push buttons until something I like pops up... often it takes me several hours of clicking this and that, I figure if all else fails, I haven't saved any changes and I am right back where I started :D

tattrldy said...

I agree with you, I seem to take hours to figure something out and then it doesn't turn out like I want. Accident or not I like the picture.

Lace-lovin' Librarian ~ Diane said...

I haven't changed the look of my blog in ages. I'm afraid to! At least you're brave enough to try!

Umintsuru said...

Love your new header especially the title and the new font.

Miranda said...

Like Gina, I use the free backgrounds that are available from many sites. I am pretty fussy about which backgrounds I choose; I've seen several that I liked but didn't use because I thought the center space was a bad color for text to show up.

Most of the free backgrounds work best if you use the Minima template, which you CAN still get to if you want it. Go to Design, then Edit HTML, then scroll all the way down and click Select Layout Template. I have been frustrated that I can't seem to get a 3-column layout in Minima, even though there are lots of backgrounds available for a 3-column design.

I think it's funny that Bri says she just fudges it, as she has one of my favorite headers! I'm going to work on my header soon, but not today.

If you want something fancy, like writing across your header, your best bet is to open the picture in Paint or similar program, add the writing as a text box with transparent background, and save it as a new jpg. You can also use these programs to do a photo collage.

I get frustrated with the template editor too. The only part of it I really use is the Advanced section, where you change your text colors and fonts. Only I can't figure out what half the things in that section are referring to; I will change something, and nothing appears to change on my blog. And changing the size and font of the sidebar titles does the same to the date stamp at the top of each post, which makes no sense to me; I don't want the date that big! GRRR!!!

Can you tell I just spent a lot of time on this, too? And it's all your fault, because you inspired me to change my background, and then I had to change everything else! :)

Fox said...

Looks amazing! Nicely finessed. And, thanks for the compliment. i spend inordinate amounts of time getting the look I want - far too much time for what it is!
Finicky-Fox : )