Five Clicks to Your Own Favicon

Have you noticed that Blogger has added a new, simple way to add a favicon to your blog?  I only realized it was there when I was changing my blog design. 

Some of you might we wondering, what is a favicon?   This is Wikipedia's Definition.

The favicon for my blog is this little orange star next to my blogs name...

...and here on my sidebar in the 'fabulous sites' section. 

(Tip:  If you add your own blog to your blog list, you can check quickly to make sure your post published correctly.)

Now you can add a favicon to your own blog with five quick clicks.

1.  Click on 'design' in your Blogger menu.
2.  Click on 'edit'. 

This window will pop up. 

3.  Click on browse to choose your image.  (There is a limit on the size of picture you can use.  I made the image quite small before I saved it, see star image above.)
4.  Select an image from your computer.
5.  Click on save. 

It's really just as easy as that!  A favicon is a fun and simple way to add a little personality to your blog title.  Give it a try. :)

Today's Fabulous Find...my very own favicon. 

How To Edit Gadget Title In Blogger

Last night I was trying out some of the new blogger fonts, but ran into a bit of a problem.  Because the titles of the gadgets on my blog were in all caps, when I tried many of the new fonts, they didn't look right.  My all-cap, un-centered titles have been bugging me for awhile, so I set out on a google search to see if I could figure out how to fix the problem.  I'm excited to say that I found solutions and the good news is that they are simple fixes, hooray for simple!



Example of all-caps, off-centered gadget title in crafty girls font.



How to Change a Gadget Title from all Caps to Sentence Form

This solution came from The Original Blogger Tips and Tricks.  This is a VERY helpful blog.  Read the complete directions here, and then if you need clarity, I put the directions into steps below.

1. In New Blogger, click on Design and then on Edit Html.

2. Save a copy of your blog template.  (In case things don't go as planned.)

3. Hold down the Control key and then press down F.  The find box will show up at the top of the screen.

4.  In the find box type in:   text-transform:lowercase;  scroll down and find where it is highlighted in the html code.

5.  When you find it, change the word lowercase to sentencecase.  It will look like this:  text-transform:sentencecase;

6.  Click on PREVIEW to view the change.  If the title now has upper and lower case letters and everything looks just how you want it, then close out of the preview and click on SAVE TEMPLATE. 

*If this isn't working for you, you might want to check to make sure that when you typed the titles for your gadgets you didn't type them in all caps.

How to Center a Gadget Title in Blogger This tip came from the Blogger help forum.  You can find it here.  

1.  In New Blogger, click on Design and then on Template Designer.

2.  Click on Advanced then scroll down to Add CSS.

3.  Type in this code: 

.sidebar .widget h2 {

text-align: center;

}

4.  After you type it in, hit the space bar once so the changes can be pre-viewed below.

5.  Look over the preview.  If your gadget titles are centered, and everything looks right, then click on APPLY TO BLOG.

I'm pretty sure I'll be tweaking the fonts here and there and may even change the gadget titles back at some point, but now I at least have options.

I hope these tips will help you some as you try out the new fonts that are available.  Have fun!

Today's Fabulous Find...Quick Gadget Title Fixes 

New Fonts in Blogger

Have you noticed that Blogger added new fonts to their template designer?  They added around 80 of them.  (I may have lost count, but 80 is pretty close.) 

Edited to add:  How to find the new fonts

If you use a New Blogger template then click on design at the top of your blog, then click on template designer at the left.  Click on advanced, also on the left, then on the text you want to change.  For example you can change your page text, gadget titles, post titles, etc.  Next scroll through the fonts.  Click on the font that you want to use and preview it below to see how it will look on your blog.  If you like it and want to use it, click on 'apply to blog' in the upper right-hand corner.  If you want to leave the template designer WITHOUT saving any of your new changes click on 'back to blogger' in the upper right corner.

I had no idea the new fonts were added until I read about it at Sassy Sanctuary.  It's kind of exciting news for those of us who design our own blogs.  Go take a look!

 Today's Fabulous Find...New Blogger Fonts 

Featuring: How To Back Up Your Blog

Did you know that it's possible to lose all of the information on your blog?  Everything, just like that, is gone.  That happened to Lisa at Serendipity Chic Design when her e-mail was hacked and overnight she lost access to her blog.   I can't even imagine!  Are you aware that you can prevent this by simply backing up your blog?  

 

You can read Lisa's full story at Funky Junk Interiors.  Donna has written a very informative post on How to do back-up your blog, how to retrieve the information if it's lost, and includes other valuable tips.

I backed up my blog following her steps and it was very quick and easy to do.

 One of Donna's tips is to visit a blog tweaking expert and suggested Sneaky Momma Blog Design.  I took a look at her blog and I'm so excited to read through all of her great blogging tips and tutorials.  If only I'd known she was there sooner, it would have saved me so much time trying to figure things out on my own.  

Another very informative post of Donna's is How to Make Your Blog More Visitor Friendly.  It's well worth the read.

 Don't wait until it's too late..back-up your blog now. Today's Fabulous Finds...How to Back up Your Blog and Sneaky Momma Blog Design!  

Blogging Helps and Tips

Blogging can bring you joy and happiness, when you know what you're doing, and pain and frustration when you don't!  If you are learning to blog by trial and error, like myself, then this post is especially for you.  There is a wonderful new resource for bloggers, new and old, called The Blog Guidebook. 

 

 

It's filled with helpful how-to's, that can save you time and frustration, and so much more.  This guidebook is a great resource for Bloggers and has a load of useful information.  Check it out, trust me when I say you'll be glad that you did.

 The Blog Guidebook is Today's Fabulous Find! 

Jackpot of Blog Design Tutorials

Rainy Day Templates may just have every tutorial here that you'd ever need, to design your blog.  Take a look. 

Featuring: Recipe for Cookie Dough That's Safe to Eat!

Okay, I'm really excited about this find.  I LOVE the taste of cookie dough, but choose not to eat it with raw eggs.  I love it, but not enough to risk getting sick from eating it.  I've made cookie dough before with the intention of eating it raw and left the eggs out, but the texture of the dough was never quite right.  Colette at My Computer is My Canvas has developed a recipe that I can't wait to try.  She didn't stop at making the cookie dough, she went one step further and rolled it in chocolate.  Mmm, yummy!

(Picture is from My Computer is My Canvas)

Click here for the printable recipe and her cookie dough tips.  

 This blog also has A LOT of great tips on digital scrapbooking and blog design.  You might want to check it out. 

While you're there taking a look, click on 'find and install fonts'.  It will link you to an amazing site called ScrapVillage.com.  You will be in awe at all of the cute FREE fonts you'll find!  Here's the direct link if you just want to hurry right on over! 

Edited to add:  We tried the cookie dough, click here for five things we learned.

How to Rollover a Picture and Before and After Clock

Have you been on a site where they have the picture set up so you can move your mouse over it and it changes to another picture?  I just assumed that it was high tech and above my newbie blogger abilities.  Well it turns out that it's really not that hard to do.  Beth at The Stories of A2Z shows how to do it as well as The Pioneer Woman. 

You first start out with a simple code: 

You can copy and past the code at The Stories of A2Z.   One thing I learned was that it was necessary to size the picture in Photobucket first before I copied the direct link into the code.  Just paste the edited code directly into your blog post. It's actually that easy!  Go ahead, move your mouse over the picture. 

Now on to the clock:

Do you have any wedding gifts that you have held onto for 10, 15, or maybe even 20 years or more?  This clock was a wedding gift and I actually had it on the wall in my daughters room for awhile and then it got packed away in a box and was forgotten.  I came accross it the other day and decided to give it a new look.  If it turned out really awful I wasn't out anything so why not try.

Here's how I did it:

1. Removed the clock hands.

2.  Painted the clock frame. (This one is laminate.  I didn't sand or prime it and the paint held.  I was lucky.)

3.  Cut the new picture to fit the shape of the frame.  (Because the original picture was glued onto the frame, I pressed tissue paper down inside the frame to make a pattern.

4.  Cut out the new picture and inserted it into the clock frame.  (Because I may want to change the picture later, I only tacked it on with a glue stick.  The edges of the picture slide under the frame some to hold it in place.

5.  Sprayed over the picture and frame with a clear gloss finish spray. (2 or 3 coats on the picture)

6.  Added numbers to the clock.  (I traced the numbers, from the old picture, onto the tissue paper I used as my pattern and then used it as a guide to transfer the number placement over to the new picture.  It worked really well.)  These numbers are actually stickers used for scrapbooking.

7.  Replaced the clock hands.

The best part about this clock is it was FREE, it cost me absolutely nothing to change. I already had everything I needed!  Do you have something lurking around your house you'd like to update? 

Do You Snip?

Are you familiar with the snipper tool?  If not, you should check out.  I first heard of it here at  http://www.dittledattle.blogspot.com/.  Do you ever want to copy or print just one part of what you see on the screen?  With the snipper tool you can highlight just the area you want and print it, e-mail, save it, or send it to Microsoft Word, etc.   This is a section I took from my blog.  (You can even change the border color.) 

    

Here's how it's done:  1. Click on the Windows start-up button (bottom of screen).2. Click on 'all programs'.3.  Find the accessories folder and click on it. 4.  Scroll down and click on the snipping tool.  The cursor will change, allowing you to highlight the area you want to copy.  When you've highlighted it, let go of the button. 5.  Wait and a snipping tool box will come up and give you options of what you can choose to do next.6.  Click on copy, open your Windows program, and then paste it.  You can also right click on it and then click on 'save as' to save it as a jpeg.   It's really quite easy to use and handy too!