Thank you very much to Maw Books for hosting Bloggiesta! I got so much done and learned so much as well. To see my progress, view my latest update post.
And then I checked my feed reader and got back into the "happy" of blogging. But, I'm still going to do my plea for help!
The Background. I need 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep to function at my best. Due to reading graphic novels, Bloggiesta, and my dog I only got 5 hours on Saturday. Due to my daughter waking me up at 3:30 (!) this morning (she had leg pain) I only got 6 hours last night. Luckily she is fast asleep again. So I am tired.
The Frustration. I wanted to redo my layout/template. My goal was a color scheme/design that was more "me"; I'm not really frilly, ornate, or too wild. I am into clean lines and simple, yet aesthetically pleasing. I thought I could just find a simple 3-column blogger template and change the colors to my liking, but that doesn't seem to be as simple as I thought. All the sites I've found want to give me a theme or their plain templates won't download or have lost links. So, I have a layout with 2 sidebars, one on top of the other. Ugh.
The Questions. I'd love feedback from you about the following. First, let me say I don't dislike what I've got going on as much as I thought I did when I woke up this morning so that's a good thing.
- Challenges. I like advertising the challenges I am doing on my sidebar, but what do you think of the idea of a Challenge link on the top navigation bar instead of a side bar with all the challenges I am doing? That way I could eliminate one sidebar, which I don't think would be such a bad thing.
- Sidebars. Or, do you know html well enough to help me move my lower sidebar to the left of my posts?
- Copyright. How do I type the c in a circle for copyright?
Thank you so much for listening to me this morning! I really appreciate the helpful attitude of book blogges!
7 comments
I am glad the award came to you at a good time. After seeing the amount of time you spent on your blog, I knew you really deserved it and decided to give it to you!
I can understand the frustration that comes with doing the blog layout. Sometimes you have an image in your head and try as you might, it doesn't come down on paper! I spent the last two weeks on my layout, and ended up getting real upset that nothing was working for me.
But once you get started, you get a better idea of what you what to achieve and what you don't want on your blog. I see you have done a great job here! I am now targeting the next Bloggiesta for more layout changes on mine. Happy blogging!
For great templates that are easy to download (I needed Wordpad) go here: http://www.bietemplates.com/
I understand the blog template frusteration! I spent hours trying to find the PERFECT template at a load of different sites, and after 3 and half hours I found a template :D
I don't think there's an HTML that I know of that can make a side-bar on the left, I thought it just came with the template!
You could do a stream or a scrolling gadget that just breezes by a load of challenges, it's handy and fit's in small places! Here's where I got mine for my blog buttons: http://bloggerstop.net/2008/12/auto-scrolling-text-or-image-slide.html
I love your blog, it's easy to navigate and all the challenges post are great! Thanks for being an awesome blogger :) Hope you have a better morning tomorrow, you know how Monday's are!
Think you've done a great job with your blog, as it looks clean and uncluttered. As for your challenges, think having a link is a good idea. I have a link for all of my challenges, and have them on my sidebar as well.
I used a regular blogger template and got directions on how to add a third column from The Blogger Guide. Thinking about changing it, but haven't found another template I like.
As for the copyright...I just copied someone else's and replaced their name with my information. My understanding is that several of us did that as we couldn't figure out how to get the symbol.
The only suggestion I have for your blog is to choose another color for your tabs, as they're hard to see. Otherwise, think your blog looks good!
Aths, thanks for the support
Kirthi, I've put up the scrolling challenge list and really like it so thanks!
Alexia, I found the copyright symbol on a website someone sent me. I'll post it so you can use it as well. I am also going to fix the navigation bar color this afternoon!
I need a lot of sleep too! So I know how you feel. And I like the clean look of your blog. Don't know if you've got the html code for the copyright sign yet: it's ©
In the case blogger will put that into the sign... the word COPY (lower case) prefixed by an ampersand and ending with a semi-colon :)
I think your blog looks great! I'm new to it, so don't know if this template is the new one or not, but I love it! I was tearing my hair out with mine as well, so if you still have questions, let me know. I'm happy to help. I really had to play with it to get the three column that I wanted. :-)
Gnoegnoe, Thanks for the positive feedback and the copyright html code!
Online Publicist, yes, this is the new template. It feels more me and cleaner.
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