New Blogger Template Designer: Backgrounds

I told you about the new Blogger Template Designer the other day. I talked then about Templates. Today I'm going to tell you about the Backgrounds they have available. 

Using the new Designer you can pretty much make your blog look any way you'd like. After you have chosen which Template you want to use, you can spruce it up with a background image. There are TONS of images to choose from under the following categories:

• Abstract
• The Arts
• Business
• Celebrations
• Entertainment
• Family
• Food & Drink
• Health & Beauty
• Hobbies & Crafts
• Home & Garden
• Nature
• Patterns
• Recreation
• Science
• Shopping
• Technology
• Textures
• Transparent
• Travel

For example, this blog is using the hearts that can be found under both Celebrations and under Transparent and my cookbook is using a background that can be found under Food & Drink (click here to view my cookbook).

Once you've found the background image that you'd like to use, simply click on Apply To Blog in the upper right hand corner. Simple as that! Next time I'll tell you about the Layout options. Have a great day everyone!

Happy Independence Day!!

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!

Zemanta gadget

I was reading about a new gadget on Blogger Buzz this morning called Zemanta. It looked really interesting so I thought I'd try it out. I installed it on my Crazy Life blog since that's the blog that I use the most outgoing links on. I think it's pretty awesome stuff.

You can add pictures that they offer, links to related information and a link at the bottom of your post to related stories. And the gadget does all the work for you, adding things in a sidebar next to your create post editor as you type. It finds items related to what you are typing about and lets you choose which ones to use in your post.

You can read all about Zemanta here and see it in action on my post here. If you write an entertainment blog, a news blog or a current events blog, this would be the perfect gadget for you! 

New Blogger Template Designer: Templates

I told you that I would talk to you about the new Template Designer feature that Blogger has added. I thought the best way to do that would be to break it down into sections. Today I'm going to talk to you about Templates.

To get to the new Template Designer, from your Dashboard select Design. Then select Template Designer. 

There are several different basic template designs that you can start with: Simple, Picture Window, Awesome Inc., Watermark, Ethereal and Travel. Under each template design there are different designs using the same basic template. For example, this blog is using the Simple template in red (which is the fourth design under Simple). 

You can click on the design and see how it looks on your blog without ever changing anything on your actual blog which I think is cool. When you find a design that you like, go to the top right hand corner and click on APPLY TO BLOG.  Don't hit that until you are sure that's the design you want to keep though because once you do, that's your template. Of course it's really simple to change if you just don't like it at all. 

Next time I'll talk to you about the Background feature. Have a great day everyone!