DIY blog👩‍💻💗🌷

hello beautiful readers! 

I've gotten lots of requests for a tutorial on how I made my blog! So here it is: 

one note: obviously, I use Blogger, but there are other websites you can use. I've used wordpress and Tumblr before, so feel free to play around with those or any other ones !! But the following tutorial is for Blogger only. Enjoy! 

1st step: make a blogger account! choose your username and pick a fun name and corresponding URL for your blog. you can choose to buy your domain (have your own website) or host it through blogger. i am broke so i chose to host through blogger, which just means that my website will have .blogspot before the .com. NBD to me, but know that you have other options.

      

2nd step: Choose a layout! 

To do this, use your sidebar and click on theme, and then choose from the many options. Note that you can pick a theme and still move things around, nothing is set in stone! I just used the default one (contemporary light) and then edited it so that there would be a main page in the middle and then a left and right sidebar so that I could add more gadgets/widgets. To do that, I hit the orange customize button > layout, and then chose my body layout. you can adjust the widths in the tab above layout too. Just play around with it and know you can always change it later! 

QUICK NOTE: you haveee to click save after you make changes. I learned this the hard way-- there is no autosave! Save your edits, people. 

Okay, now that you're happy with the layout, save, and hit the back button and then head to the layout tab. 

 

Step 3: Adding the good stuff! 

Okay, now you can add fun stuff, like the blog title and then the best parts -- gadgets! 

Gadgets are basically like widgets. Some are built-in, and others (of course, the more fun ones) need to be programmed. Don't be intimidated by the coding part though, it's pretty straightforward if you have any experience with computers, and if you don't-- google and youtube are free! 

This is the left side of my blog! It's currently made up of 4 gadgets. To make a gadget, simply click "add a gadget", and it will give you a bunch of options:

The HTML/Javascript option is what I use the most. Basically, you just paste the code in and it adds whatever you want to that portion of your blog. It's how I made basically everything except the posts themselves and the list of tv shows that I have (to make a list, just use the list option under 'Add a Gadget')

Okay, hopefully that wasn't too confusing. Hopefully I'm not over-explaining either. Let's look at 2 of the easiest gadgets I made: Spotify and moodygirltracker: 

Spotify: 

 

Step 1: find desired playlist on spotify

Step 2: Click Share > Embed

Step 3: Copy code and head back to Blogger

Step 4: Add Gadget > HTML/Java > paste code > save 

Step 5: Save on page, and done! 

  

Moody Girl tracker: 

Step 1 and Done!

You can use this for any kind of message you'd like to display! To change my mood, I just change the text that goes between the > and <. Super easy stuff. 

Other Gadgets: 

My hamster, Coffee order poll, and message board are all from 3rd party sites. There's a ton of websites (i find more every day) that people used back when blogs were actually trendy (which we're bringing back, yay!) and are still available today. You can click on any of the ones I have, and they should bring you back to the OG site where you can learn and play around with things and find things that fit your own aesthetic, or just google things like "embeddable things to put in my blog" and see where it takes you! Also, feel free to DM me or email me if you have any other questions. Or just post in the message board !! 

Design things: 

        Backgrounds: ugh. this part annoys me. The white sparkles I have now are just from the generic pics because every photo I was using from pinterest would split into a bunch of pieces and I got frustrated with so we generic for the moment. But, if one of you figures out the right dimensions for a pic or a hack so it doesn't do that, let me know! Regardless, to change your background, go to Theme > Customize > Background. 

    Text colors/fonts/sizes/etc: You can change all of these things in the Advanced tab, right under Background. (Theme>Customize>Advanced). Once again, I urge you, press the save button. Don't make everything perfect just to lose it and have to do it again! Also, sometimes, when you change the background, it does reset some things with the colors. Just an FYI. 

Okay guys, this is all I can think of for the moment. If you have questions, you know how to reach me. Commenting here will get probably get you the fastest response, but I'll do my best to check everything! 

Pleaseee send me your blogs if you make them, I'm so excited to see!

Kisses, 

SPB