Note to Reader: Since writing this post, I have completely revamped my website, including my website header. However, the content of this post is still relevant in creating a custom header.
I must have changed the design of my now defunct Blogger site twenty times, using Blogger templates.
There are so many choices. It’s hard to decide on just one. I got as far as creating an attractive header for my blog (using a free download from the site listed below), but couldn’t figure out how to create a custom header.
The blog header has a function similar to a book cover or the entry to your home. It’s the first thing friends and potential followers see when they stop by for a visit. You’d like to make a good first impression, so they’ll take some time out of their busy schedules to stay for a while. Of course, if they come back or not depends on the content of your blog. But that’s another story.
The header should also reflect your blog’s theme, which in my case translates to my journey from writing to publication (A WRITER’S JOURNEY. Behind the scenes, between the lines) and also the theme of my four novels: Between Will and Surrender, Between Darkness and Dawn, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, and Between Now and Forever, thus my blog title, Enter the Between.
At Blogger Templates, you’ll find a short video showing how to add an image to your blog header. I downloaded my header-image (the right size and ready to go) free at: Free Web Headers. You’ll find additional free blog-header websites at: e-blog Templates.
Until I learned how to create my own custom header, I wasn’t completely satisfied, so my intervening headers didn’t last.
But that was part of the fun. To keep experimenting and learning.
Good thing I didn’t have many followers yet (kind of like a tree falling in the forest when there’s no one around to hear), and the followers I did have knew me and liked me (I hope) and were therefore tolerant, figuring I sill had a lot to learn.
For a day or so, I had a picture of a tunnel beneath my header and title. Then a fantasy tree in my header and behind my title.
Below is a video on how to create a custom header for your Blogger blog, a project more complicated than the one above, but one I had fun with after downloading the free program from Paint.NET.
How good is that?
Wowhhh it's looking great already!!! I allready made other blogs for our vacations so I know that its sometime a struggle to find a good looking template or header to express what you want to say with your blog.
You did a good job. The lightblue background and a nice header that's made you think you are in a kind of fairytale (did I write that correctly??)
Keep up the good work!!
I like the colors of the current header but my favorite is the butterfly one, or the yewenyi, which is very cool. Off to the right. You're doing a great job at creating this. On my nana blog, I used their templates, and haven't really tried to change it. But I might after reading this.
Lee
http://www.thenakedhero.com
Hi Lee. Like I said, I'm not done yet. I do like the butterfly image a lot, and I also miss the one I had. I don't know if I can size the original to fit the narrow header section since it's protected by a Creative Commons copyright. At least the content of the posts will remain the same, which is actually the most important part.
Hi Marielle (Steijntje),
Thanks for checking out my blog all the way from Holland. It's definitely still a work in progress. And yes, you wrote your comment correctly. But you can respond in Dutch next time. I'll do my best to translate. I need the practice.
You're doing a great job on the site. I've been thinking about switching my Nana Blog over to Blogspot, there seems to be more choices as far as what you can do with it.
Hi Lee,
What are you using now? I'm just into the beginning stages of researching Word Press to see what the differences are between it and Blogger. So far I see advantages and disadvantages to both. I looked up your Nana blog and couldn't find it, but I really like the header to your Irish Sisters Knits site.
This blogging business is very time consuming, but I think, in the end, it will be time well spent.
Thanks, Margaret! I used your advice and made a custom header–something I never thought I could do!