Make it: Photo-Covered Journal

Hello!! Considering that my blog is called "Cupcake Crafty", I probably should make some crafts to share with you. Well here you go - a photo covered journal. It's pretty simple really, but read along if you want to do this awesome photo covered notebook. If you don't have a notebook, you should really get one. I barely last a day without one. This can get very extreme, I ended up making my own this week!! But I'll share that craft later on.

So what you need is a blank notebook (mine is from the $2 shop), scissors, glue (or modpodge), fabric, and two printed photos.

To print the photos, measure your notebook and add one inch to the height and width of the photo when you print it. I printed mine on glossy photo paper for the best effect.

Apply the glue to the front of the book. Don't touch the spine. Once you have glued both sides on and they are completly dry, measure your fabric to the height of your notebook and three inches wide. If your notebook is thinner or thicker, feel free to adjust. I don't think mine was quite that in the end.

And there you have it. Your own photo covered journal. I'll be carrying mine around for the next few weeks. I'm also going to use it to participate in Emily's (Emily Jane) july journalling challenge. Visit her blog for more details. #emilyjanejournalchallenge

Have a great day xxHarri

6 months on........The World of Blogging

Hello Again

As I said in my last post, I have officially been a "blogger" for 6 months. That's 181 days, 26 weeks, 4,344 hours and 260,640 minutes (approximately). Do you want to know the seconds. Ok.....enough of that detail.

Since starting my blog on the 22nd December 2012 (my first post is dated this) I have had three blogs. Yes I know this is strange, but without those two other blogs, I wouldn't be here today!

My first blog was titled "As Wrens Fly" - I liked this name at the time. I was inspired to blog by Jo at Lost in the Haze. I did fashion shoots for all my posts, just like her. This blog was also hosted on wordpress. I found it very hard to do anything (you have to pay to customize). Anyway, I had readers and comments and it was fun. I continued to read other blogs, and soon realised what my blog didn't have. A blog design.

Being a person who has a habit of researching and thinking things out, I soon learnt, that wordpress causes money to go down the drain. So I made the change to Blogger (which I will admit that I hated). I continued my same blog name and learnt how to design my blog (simply). I used image-maps and it really was just simple.

But I soon got sick of the name and the image my blog had, I had ideas for sharing other things on my blog, not just fashion (also, I don't have an endless wardrobe, haha). I spent the next month, thinking of new blog names. At this point, I discovered Emily Wind's blog, Crafty Girl. I wanted a craft blog. But I finally actually started to think things through. I set up Cupcake Crafty as a trial blog, so I could test out what I wanted to share. I started experimenting with different designs and I got my iPad Mini. I made my first real design - so my 'trial blog' would be appealing. I started at the beginning of April and I set it all up, like I would never change it, and true I didn't. But when I realised my blog was here to stay, I re-designed and continued what I was doing as it is to this day.

If you look through my blog now, you will not find any crafts (something I probably should do in the future!!). And to the future, I would love to set a blog design company, as I have given a few blogs a makeover and just continue what I am doing, as you, the readers seem to like it. I am in no hurry to change anything or start a new blog again!!

So in my six months of blogging, I have learnt a lot about being a blogger. Not just what post layout/format, what design readers like and how to keep your blog safe from copyright. I know that's all important to know about when being a good blogger. But finding yourself and being you is one of the most important things of all. If you are a lifestyle blogger, you don't have to share your whole life on your blog (it is the internet remember), and you shouldn't lie about yourself. You can hide things from the world but making things up is not a good idea. Bloggers are all a big family, and I would love to help anyone on your way to your blogging dream. Please email me, if you need advice. But I am not the best blogger out there. But then again....... I don't think you need to be the #1 blog on BlogLovin, or ModCloth's blogger of the month. People just need to recognise who you are and what your blog's about. Don't be put off by no views. Just keep trying - keep calm and carry on.

Love Harri
xx

A Little Bit of Pinspiration

I've been very busy pinning on Pinterest lately. Come and follow me and join in the fun. I love finding the crafts and blog designs on it, leave a comment with your Pinterest and ill come and check it out. 

And now to some finds from Pinterest. Dana relaunched her site Fawn and Flora today. I'm so excited, my wish list on Pinterest is filling up.

I know I probably have got bad blogger stamped across my forehead right now, but I have been working on a project, a blogger template for you!! Also I am creating a unique blog design for my friend, Gemma but more about that soon.

One more thing I need to mention is that I have been a blogger for six months as of today. But I'll talk about that in my next post as I do have a story to tell.

Adding Your Watermark

Sorry for doing another Design Tutorial straight away, but this is more a blogging tip than a design tutorial. Don't click off  because if you are a blogger, this important. Recently, the lovely Dana from +Wonder Forest had a horrid case with copyrighting. But thanks to her trusty water marks and her copyrighting, the site was taken down. To avoid this happening to you, and you not being able to claim your photos, you should add your watermark. I just did this yesterday (yes it did take a while). This tutorial is for Blogger users as it uses Google's free photo hosting service called Picasa Web. 

When you upload a photo to a blogger post, it automatically goes to your Picasa Web Album - named after your blog. Just go here to find it. Once you have found your photo that you want to add your watermark too click edit.

Once you are in Creative Kit (it may take away to load by the way) you can add text in any font, colour and opacity with your blog address on it and press save. In order for this to show up on your blogger weblog, select replace original photo.

So it may take a while to do all of your photos, but it might be worth it if you get photos stolen from your blog in the future. Better safe than sorry. You can also do this in photoshop as you go, but you can just add it every time you add a photo. 

See you soon

Harri xx

Make Your Own: Blogger's Button

Hello Everyone......As you know, I've been working on lots of design stuff lately and I thought as I am always learning new things in the blogging world (also known to bloggers as HTML coding, design, and other difficult and confusing stuff) I should share it with you in the easiest way possible. Lots of "help websites" aren't very helpful as I have learnt from previous experiences.

For my first tutorial, I thought I should share how to make a bloggers button (or a, "Grab My Button"). You know, those fancy pictures with boxes of code underneath. Those ones you see on really professional blogs. You don't have to be either professional or have design skills (I know I don't have much yet) Some ways are really long and complicated, but this way is quick and easy, especially if you need to whip up a different size for someone in a rush!!

First of all, upload your image (correct size of course) made in Photoshop or fireworks etc, to a image hosting server. I use Google Picasa Web Albums but Wordpress media upload and PhotoBucket could work. Now this is the important step. Make sure you find the correct file URL. This can be hard to find on Picasa, but the easiest is probably to open the image and right click to "copy image URL".

One of my links looked like this

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h5_m45Pfn2A/Uap7VefXZBI/AAAAAAAABqE/8sbmElH3AD8/w200-h120-no/200x120.png

Tip: Note the last bit. If it doesn't end with your file name and .png or .jpg it won't work

Now the HTML coding stuff, I'm going to try and make this as clear as possible (I hope)

<div align="center" style="padding: 5px;"><img src="IMAGE URL ADDRESS"  title="BLOG NAME" alt="BLOG NAME" /></div><pre style="background:#ffffff;border:solid 1px #8f8f8f; color: #000000; font-size:90%; height: 50px; margin:auto; text-align: left; padding: 10px; display: block; overflow: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;  width: 150px;">&lt;div align="center">&lt;a href="BLOG URL ADDRESS" title="BLOG NAME" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;img src="IMAGE URL ADDRESS" alt="BLOG NAME" style="border:none;" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div></pre>

Okay, want me to explain that confusing code up there. All the colored stuff needs to be edited to your customizations. The image link that you just copied needs to replace the red writing (IMAGE URL ADDRESS). The blue is pretty self explanatory as it's your blog name (BLOG NAME). And the red/brown (BLOG URL ADDRESS), is your blog address (eg. http://yourblog.com). Once you made all the changes, paste full code into page, or sidebar. Wherever you want to put it, but make sure you are in HTML mode on the page or gadget. And you're done, simple see. 

Hope this is easy to understand, and I hope you enjoy that tutorial, even if you aren't using it. I'll try to do more of these tutorials and I'll post them under my Design Tutorials label (link to page). Please comment on what you think of this post. I do hope you think it's okay.

Harri xx

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