Enter the Between: Header image

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Creating a Custom Header for your Blogger Blog

I must have changed my blog's design twenty times this week, using Blogger's new templates.

There are so many choices. It's hard to decide on just one. I've gotten as far as creating an attractive header for my blog (using a free download from the site listed below), but I haven't figured out how to create a custom header yet.

The blog header has a function similar to a book cover or the entry to your home. It's the first thing friends and potential followers see when they stop by for a visit. You'd like to make a good first impression, so they'll take some time out of their busy schedules to stay for a while. Of course, if they come back or not depends on the content of your blog. But that's another story.

The header should also reflect your blog's theme, which in my case translates to my journey from writing to publication (A WRITER'S JOURNEY. Behind the scenes, between the lines) and also the theme of my four novels: Between Will and Surrender, Between Darkness and Dawn, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, and Between Now and Forever, thus my blog title, Enter the Between.

At http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2007/05/add-image-to-your-blogs-header.html you'll find a short video showing how to add an image to your blog header. I downloaded my header-image (the right size and ready to go) free at: http://www.freewebpageheaders.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/510 . You'll find additional free blog-header websites at: http://www.eblogtemplates.com/free-blog-header-images/.

Until I learn how to create my own custom header, I won't be completely satisfied, so my current header will not be the last, guaranteed.

But that's part of the fun, isn't it? To keep experimenting and learning. I'll get it right one of these days.

Good thing I don't have many followers yet (kind of like a tree falling in the forest when there's no one around to hear), and the followers I do have know me and like me (I hope) and are therefore tolerant, figuring I still have a lot to learn.

Yesterday I had a picture of a tunnel beneath my header and title. Now there's a fantasy tree in my header and behind my title.

See how much I've learned?

Below is a video on how to create a custom header for your Blogger blog, a project more complicated than the one above, but one I hope to get around to soon (after downloading the free program from http://paint.net/, of course).