Blog Resources

Last week we talked about some New Year's resolutions. One I suggested was to start a blog to record the important happenings in your life. Blogging is a great way to stay connected with family and friends. It's also a great way to make new ones. I've made so many good friends through my blog and theirs.

I often get comments and questions on the appearance of my blog, so I thought I'd share some easy blog resources with you. The internet is an amazing tool! There are so many fun, and free, resources out there.

I've been designing my blog headers using digital scrapbooking methods in Photoshop Elements. I don't know a whole lot about it, and just kind of learn as I go. But this week, while searching on the internet, I found a really cool website, Scrapblog. It's basically a web-based scrapbooking program. It has tons of backgrounds, elements, fonts, stickers, etc. to create fun scrapbook pages, blog headers, cards, calendars, and more.

It allows you to either start with a blank page and build it yourself, or you can start with some of their predesigned templates. I was playing around with some of the Christmas templates and made eight layouts in under an hour. The ones below are a few of them:

I was hooked! I couldn't believe how easy it was. So then, I started creating new blog headers. The new look on this blog is one of them. Here's another one that will likely appear on my blog sometime in the spring:

I even made a desktop background for my computer:

Check it out! It's super fun and super easy. Oh, and did I mention it's FREE! Here's the link again: Scrapblog.

Another great, free, resource is The Cutest Blog on the Block. They have tons of free backgrounds you can add to your blog and other resources as well. I get all my backgrounds from them. You can check them out here. Their website includes many resources to teach you how to design your own blog elements. They also have a forum where you can ask questions.

I hope some of these ideas are helpful as you consider starting a new blog this year, or changing the design of one you've already established. I'm happy to help if you have any questions.

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