How To Make Your Own Blog

Blogs are big in the crafting world. Everyone wants to show off their artwork. I would like to share what I have learned over the years.

You can have different option of blogs. I use blogger but there is also wordpress. Some things will be different, templates and so on. So I won't get into those parts of the blogs. Google how to do templates and all the technical stuff on the blog host you chose. 

At first, I used a background that I liked. It was dark. Dark was not good to showcase cards. So go a brighter color. Headers are important. You want people to know that they came to right blog and if they happen across your blog, what it is about. You can use {picmonkey} to make a header. There are different styles. You can show your best projects, like I do. Or you can do an artist style header. Check out blogs to see what style you like the most.

Add any info onto the side bar. Link to your website, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ect. Post specials on the side too. This will stay the same, so even if you don't add these links in the blog itself, they can still go to those.

People come to your blog to see pictures, so you got to make them shine. Edit your photos. Picmonkey is easy to use. You can crop, change the color and brightness and even size. Just keep playing with color and saturation until it looks great. You can always undo. Always watermark your pictures. Included your blog address so if people just see the photo, they can still stop by your blog. It will also stop people from using your pics as theirs. Sadly it does happen.  I came across this blog post on {How to make a watermark} and I use this all the time. So easy to make a professional looking watermark. And something that I came across was that you can use your own fonts.
 
Stage your photos. Whether it is paper or props or just outside on the fence. The only ones that you really shouldn't stage are your scrapbook layouts. This works best with a white background. Staging makes your project pop. I know it sounds weird but it is true.

 Here is my photo box. You need cardboard or foamboard to make the sides. Cut out centers of the sides and the top. Cover the holes with tissue paper. I made this one foldable to store next to my desk.  Direct light to all the tissue to diffuse to make a softer image.

Here is the photo before the editing.

 And here it is with all the editing. Sometimes the color will photo weird. Sometimes all you need to do is play with the setting to make the colors true.

 

Here is the same card without staging. You see the card, but it sorta gets lost with all the white. Like I said, its weird but it works.

You can find all the details for my {sun card} here on this post.

I have two watermarks. I had to redo them since I had them saved on my laptop which died. I still don't have my own computer to work with. Just have to use my hubbies. Which has a 32 inch tv as a monitor so I can't complain. But I digress. I had very simple ones like the bottom one. Just had one in white and one in black. I suggest doing the two colors. Not everything will show up if you have just one color. This time I made a fancier one for my artwork. I use the bottom for my tutorials.

Size is important. If it is too small, they can't look at your project. You don't want them to have to click on the picture just to see it. If you do detailed shot, you can make those smaller. Don't just do detailed shot with no full shot of the project. This will not go over well with the viewers, unless you are doing sneak peeks.

I used to just change the size in blogger. It has the size option of small,  medium, large and xlarge. I always used xlarge. But I came across a post. They said that if you upload the original size, it will take a slower time to load your blog. Even if you change the size in blogger, it will load as the original size. So I started editing the size when I was doing all my stuff in picmonkey.

  650 is a perfect size for blogger. Just big enough, but not too big that won't fit. If you have two sidebars, this will be a little too big.

 

 

 If you want it slightly smaller, 500 or 550 works nice. This is also a perfect size for two sidecars.

I like using 350 or 400 for any detailed shots. It keeps the focus on the main picture. But still large enough to see the details. Make sure to switch over to original size in blogger. They always upload as medium.

Sharing you projects outside the blog is a great way to get viewers to view your blog. You can make it easier by {adding a Pinterest button}. They can just click and add it to their boards. I have my own board for my art so I get more interest. If you are doing tutorials or posts with a lot of details, {add a printfriendly button}. This will allow your viewers to either print out the post or save it to pdf.  Add a follow by email button so you can get viewers who don't have a feed viewer. You can also share on instagram, twitter and facebook. Make sure to add a link back to your blog.

I love how easy it is to do these style blogs. Back in the day, you had to do everything with html codes. You can still do this if you know all the codes. You can google to find these. Sometimes you will need to use html codes, like for adding the buttons. In blogger, you can just switch over with a tab. Not sure about wordpress. 

Add links on the bottom of your post. Like what I do on mine. It's a great way to get your extras across. Do a recipe for your artwork. Even if you don't sell any products, people like to know how to make it themselves. If you do sell, it is important to list so people will go to your website and buy what you are selling.




To make sure you don't miss out on any new tutorials, artwork, videos or members only specials, as it is easy to miss posts on Facebook and I don't post to all of them, join my {Facebook group}.

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I offer one on one classes for Cricut Design Space. Stop by for more {details}.

If you would to like to recreate any of my projects, you can order the materials at {nikkageers.ctmh.com}.