Follow Up to How To Jazz Up Your Blog ~~~ Headers

Good Saturday morning, everyone.

So, I just realised that I totally flaked and forgot to do my how to on headers to go with your new snazzy blog background. Please to forgive? You know what they say... The brain is the first thing to go. Tho personally I believe it is the internal structure of our boobs. But that is another post for another time.

A header is a great way to "complete" the look of your blog. It is like adding accessories to your outfit. And the possibilities are practically endless. You can match your header to your background, like the look my blog is currently sporting or you can mix it up and contrast or coordinate. Say, a background with flowers, hearts and angel wings, then a header with skulls and crossbones or a background in stripes and a header with a floral motif. A pink background with a black trimmed header... You get my drift. :D

Applying a header to your blog is easy. First, go to different sites that have headers for free or if you want something custom, you can have it designed for a fee. I linked some sites in this post. There are others, too. The sites may call their headers banners, headers. They may be stashed under Headers, Banners, Extras, Accessories. Just sift around, you will find them.

Like with your background, size matters! If your blog is two column minima, you must choose a header designed for two column minima. Same for three column minima. Once you have found the header you like, click on the sample image to bring up it's full sized counterpart. this is a very important step! If you don't retrieve the right size image, installing it won't work.

Once you have the full size image up, you will need to save or snag it to your computer. If you have never snagged images, it is a snap. Just right click on the image and a dialog box will appear with a long list of options. Choose Save As (or Save to Computer or whatever your operating system offers) and left click the option. A second box will pop up in the upper left hand corner of your screen. It will show a thumbnail of your image (in newer operating systems, older ones might just show a line of text and or numbers) If it just shows text or numbers, be sure to re name the image so that you can find it when you go to upload it to your blog. Then click the save button and you now have the header image stored in your computer's hard drive.

If you wish to install your header with your current title and description (if you have one) showing, simply go to New Post, then Dashboard or right to the Design tab and click on it. At the top you will see the spot to add a header. Click Edit. A box will open up. You will want to upload it from your computer so click Browse. That will open a window and allow you access to your image storage. Find your image (different operating systems work differently, you might have to sift around and click on stuff until you get the hang of your own system) and click on it. There will be a button that says Open. Click it and the image will upload to Blogger. Or you can just double click the image and it will upload... Either way works equally well. :D

Once your image uploads, you can install it how you wish. If you want your current title and font to show on your header, choose the install behind title and description option. That one should already be selected, actually. Just be sure it is, then click Save. And when you get back to the design page, Save, again and you have a new header.

If you want to add custom lettering to your header and/or images, like photos, try FotoFlexer to add them. This site is super easy to use and with a little practice and so forth you can do a lot of cool stuff to your header. Don't forget to click on Transparency to have your background colours show around your lettering. A big white box isn't pretty on an otherwise pretty header! lol If you choose to add your own lettering and images, you will need to select the next option Instead Of, rather than Behind, so that your lettering and so forth will show, rather than the default Blogger font.

FotoFlexer lets you do glitter fonts, too. I think that you need to host your header on a hosting site, like Photobucket that supports animated images, then upload it to Blogger from there, if you want the glitter text to work. In fact, Photobucket has the same image enhancing software as FotoFlexer, so you can upload your header from your 'puter to Photobucket, fancy it up, then save it there and upload it here... I think. I haven't tried that, yet. If you do and it works, please give a head's up? And if I try it an it works, I will definitely post a how to. :D

Okay, so there you have it, ducks. How to get your header. I hope this helps if you have been wanting one and weren't quite sure how to go about it.