Blogmin

Today will get two posts, as I have stuff I want to share, but I also felt that this was an important update, so please bear with me! There are quite a few links in this post too, so I will recap the important bits at the end of the post, to save you having to re-read everything to find them again :)

Regular readers may have noticed that the blog layout has changed a teensy-weensy bit.

Most obviously, it’s much wider now and my header picture is waaay over to the left. The ‘wider’ bit is deliberate, the picture-to-the-left not so much… I have tried resizing it and stuff but simply cannot figure out how to get it back in the middle, over the main ‘post’ section of the blog!!!

The ‘wider’ bit has happened because I have now created a left-hand sidebar. I had previously thought it would be great to have a list of links to finished projects, and then later on add more lists for other groups of posts that may benefit from easy access too. I’m not very experienced at making computer stuff do what I want, but then the other night I was trying to get to sleep when it hit me that it was really easy to achieve this – I simply add a ‘Link List’ from Blogger’s own selection of gadgets via the layout page, and add my links. I know I seem really stupid for not realising this sooner, but they describe the link list as allowing you to link to external sites, so I hadn’t made the connection that it didn’t matter that I wanted to link to my own posts! Doh!!

This accomplished, I decided I wanted to improve more things! (not least the header picture being all the way over to the left… grrr!) Time for me to learn more about computer stuff!

I was having a browse of the Deramores Blog Competition entries, and while I was looking on CrocheTime I saw that she has these most gorgeous social media buttons, and I so wanted to tidy mine up!! 

Just look at those lovely buttons!

Jacquie from over at Bunny Mummy had suggested I add follow options, and not knowing what to do I had just gotten hold of the individual buttons from wherever I could, and while I wasn’t happy with the look, I knew they were better than nothing.

So… I loved the buttons on CrocheTime so much that I got in touch with Natasja, to ask her how to do it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I checked my emails today I had a really lovely message back from her offering advice. Brilliant!! She linked me to this post of hers telling you how to do it on Wordpress, but being on Blogger I didn’t think it would be the same. She also recommended searching on Pinterest for free social media icon images, which hadn’t occurred to me at all!

Armed with her lovely reply, I now knew to search for blog entries about this kind of thing, and I found this wonderful and simple to use tutorial for Blogger at Sew Many Ways. (Looking at her comments, I’m not the only one to have been overjoyed at finding her amazing tutorial!)

I downloaded some icons from here at Carrie Loves Design, and then followed Karen’s instructions from the Sew Many Ways tutorial – and Ta Dah!!! I have matching social media buttons!! Wooo!!! 

When I was searching for a Blogger-specific blog post about how to do all this, I also came across a tutorial about how to make your own icons. I’m not quite ready for this yet, but I think I’d like to have a go in the future. If you’re keen to try it then you can find the tutorial here at Projects Around the House. Once you’ve made the icons they should work with any blogging platform, you just need to find instructions for whichever one you use for how to add them. 

Happy Blogging!!  :)

Links list:

How to add social media icons to your blog for:

Blogger

Wordpress

Some free social media icons:

From Carrie Loves Design

Pinterest search

How to make your own social media icons