I got a comment on my Not Me Monday post when I said I wasn’t proud of how long it took me to create a little button for my blog. Kelly at Song For Whoever suggested a little post on html for the average blogger. So here you go Kelly, this is for you.
I found the best place to start was Picnik.com. You can upload a photo of what you want to make into a button. You can add effects such as boost, sepia tones, cross color, soften; there are a lot of different options. Seeing as I know me, I upgraded to the premium package for $24.99 a year. I am an addict to these sorts of sites. It’s like photoshop without the horrendous price tag. You can add text with a huge list of different types such as Script, Marker, all the usual types found in Word, Pupcat, Burst My Bubble and the list goes on and on. There’s even one called Steak. There are stickers and touch-up, resizing and cropping, frames and something called “Sandbox”. Lots and lots of different choices. Pick a picture and start playing until you come up with what you like and want to use.
Then you need to link up the picture and make it a button. This what you need to do:
Size your image to about 150×150 or 125×125 depends how big you want it to be. Play around with it. Then you need to insert the links to your website and the picture into the code. I found this tutorial by my web designer Shauna at Blogs and Web Design by Shauna. Go here to see what you need to do (I don’t want to cut and paste without permission, I’d rather just link you.) Her site is moving so I apologize if this link is eventually lost. You’ll find she has a few free help sections for this sort of thing which are great. And text box creation is going to be a free tutorial option soon too, cool.
Now the hard part (for me anyway). HTML. And I usually misspell that. The text box that appears underneath. For that I went to Tips For New Bloggers a great site where you can input your question and it pops up the likely answer. Hyperlinks and Images is where to start. It is a two part process so be sure to also grab the second lesson. You also need to host your image someplace. Picnik will let you save it to Photobucket, Flickr and a few other places. I used Photobucket because of Flickrs rules about the image pointing to your photo album. I didn’t want that. I am not going to cut and paste the info from the Tips site because I don’t know if that is allowed. So just visit the links, read and reread and hopefully you’ll create a neat little button of your own.
Don’t feel dumb if it doesn’t work, takes you forever or you consume every bit of chocolate in the house while doing this. I know how I felt at 11:30 at night trying to decipher what the heck they were talking about. It’s not easy if your brain is anything like mine and not inclined towards the entire math and computer code world. Which I find hilarious because my last job 7 years ago before my mommy gig? Accounts payable. I can’t even balance a checkbook without screwing up but yet I am gifted with accounting software. Kinda freaky…
Good luck to you and if you create a button please let me know. I’d love to visit and see what you’ve come up with. This was my creation. You can make one too.
I love your site!! I am having so much fun reading all the information and fun tidbits you have on here!!Glad I found you! and p.s. Thanks for the comment you left on mine!
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THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!!I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve tried to find info on how to do this!!! I know how my Sunday is going to be spent!
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I can’t wait to check this out… I was JUST looking into this myself (and got very flustered!)Are you soooo excited to go on vacation in only a few days?!!!!:-)Tisra
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very cool creation! I don’t have trouble knowing html, it’s more a matter of what to take off the blog to make sure it loads fast enough!
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seriously, that was an amazing post. I’ve been blogging for a month now and I’m trying to figure out how to make it better and you just seriously helped. thank you sooo much!
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You are the best. Now to just make time to actaully do all of the reading. Can you make my kds take a LONG nap please? PLEASE! 😀
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What? Could you repeat that? JUST KIDDING! lol Great post. I’m not going to try it, but great anyway! lol
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Wow. I’m impressed. Dazed and confused. But mostly impressed.
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You are the best. Now to just make time to actaully do all of the reading. Can you make my kds take a LONG nap please? PLEASE! 😀
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