Designing a Blog Header

I'm sitting here with AJ eating chocolate chips and watching The Money Pit... with an incredibly young Tom Hanks and Shelly Long. AJ doesn't love watching this movie because it seems a little too close for comfort as we work on our own money pit (new windows! new kitchen! new insulation!). :)

I've had a lot of questions from blog readers about how to make collages or how to make their own blog header. It's simple process in Google's free program, Picasa. Here is the start to making your blog more personal and less Blogspot template!

Find one of your favorite background photos. In my case I took a picture of the siding on our house since the gray worked with the grays in our kitchen or bathroom.

Then take a few of your favorite photos that work with the coloring of your background, in my case I did two of our most recent kitchen and bedroom photos and a photo I took of Drew on a beach close to our house.

If you are in Picasa, after you have selected all the photos (at once) that you want hit the "collage" button on the bottom of the screen. Choose "Picture Pile" and the "white borders" option. Make sure you include your background photo when highlighting your photos. Once you are in the stage of designing your college highlight the photo you would like to use as a backdrop. Click "use image" for background.

Now, for the most important thing, if you are making a blog header set the Page Format to .75 x .25 (test it out if this works for you, but if you are using Blogspot it seems to work well).

After you chose those options then click "create collage" on the left hand menu bar. At this point you can add text. Notice that option in the middle of the last row? It's really easy to maneuver and change your font.

I've read that to make a piece of graphic design really work that you shouldn't use more than two fonts... three at max. For my blog header I only used one font, but two different variations (CAPS and italics)

 

There you have it! A simple tutorial on making a blog header in Picasa.

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Before we take off I should tell you that the same idea can be applied to make a photo to commemorate your child at a specific age, like this one I did of Drew. Just add text to any photo like I showed you on the photo above.

So, tell me, what are you going to do for your blog header?