*Blog Header* This lesson might be a little bit more complicated than some of the others, so don t worry if it takes a little practice to get it going! And if you are not into blogging or have no desire to learn - no worries! You can just file this one away for a later time for sure! But I will show you a quick trick for cropping your page sizes as well, so you might at least find that information handy! I will preface this lesson with saying that I am *NOT* a pro blogger - nor do I really aspire to be! I have a hard time keeping up with a blog, and quite frankly wonder if anyone at all would be interested much of what I had to say! So, I have dabbled in it, and played around with it a little but not enough to come close to calling myself an expert - by any stretch of the imagination! ALSO - I am more of a learn as I go person, and do not pretend to know the only - or sometimes even the best way to accomplish things! I just know what I have done and what has worked for me, so take it for what it is and see if it can help you figure out what works for you and use what you need! You may figure out something that is a far better system than mine for sure! But, here we go for today - there are a lot of steps, so there are more pages than normal to this PDF! Ready? Let s go!! During the coming month you will receive a *DAILY* email and PDF that will highlight one particular feature or function of your My Memories Suite software. Some will be more challenging than others, some will be pretty basic. As always, I am *here* to answer any questions you might have so never hesitate to email me or pop a post on the MyMemoriesSuite Facebook page! I am *SO* happy you have decided to MARCH INTO MMS with me!!! Hope you enjoy it!..and don t forget to make memory today! Lisa J. lisaj@mymemoriessuite.com 1
To start this project (or any project that might be using the jpeg image for a different reason) I want to start with the closest shape to my final output! Select the Designer Template (or start from scratch) Select the page you wish to use to create your header Delete the unnecessary pages from your Custom Page Arrangment Click EDIT to CHANGE ALBUM SHAPE Select the shape that best matches your output need I choose to REPLACE the album rather than Save as New to save space Rearrange your page elements, or add anything you wish to use to create your blog header - in this example, I stretched out the bottom paper strips and moved the flowers, added some photos (and then added letters that said Blog Header in the next few steps!) **SPECIAL NOTE: KEEP THE DESIGN OF YOUR HEADER IN ABOUT HALF OF THE PAGE TO GET THE PROPER LOOK FOR A GREAT HEADER DESIGN** 2
Save selected page as JPEG (you can refer to that lesson if you need more instruction on that process - all the lessons are saved in the forum at http://www.mymemories.com/forums/12 - the lesson on *Sharing Your Pages* should help) Go to your Blogger account (the set up will be different for every blog host, but the process should be similar) sign in, and click the DESIGN link Locate the HEADER AREA of your page and click EDIT When this screen appears, decide whether you want just your image to appear as your header - if so Click INSTEAD OF TITLE AND DESCRIPTION And make sure the SHRINK TO FIT box is checked Click the BROWSE button and locate the image you want to use for your header **SPECIAL NOTE: YOUR PAGE IMAGE WILL PROBABLY NEED TO BE CROPPED TO FIT THE SHAPE OF YOUR HEADER APPROPRIATELY - SEE NEXT PAGE!** Select JPEG IMAGE (cropped if needed - see next page) of your header and click SAVE 3
This page will cover some BASICS in using PHOTOSCAPE for image cropping! (To get the Photoscape program - go to www.photoscape.org and choose the free download) This program has LOTS of uses and you might just find it useful in other ways too! Once you have the program downloaded and installed - open it and choose EDITOR Navigate to where you have your JPEG image of your page stored (on my computer it s my Documents folder - the jpegs are found in the folder with the same name as my project and the _jpeg extension) Click on the CROP option at the bottom of your screen - I used the Crop Freely option, but you can choose other options for cropping specific sizes Click the CROP button - this will display the cropped area only Then click the SAVE button - from the pop-up menu choose SAVE AS From there you can choose the image quality (I stay in the high end) name the new cropped image and decide where to save it Click SAVE Now, depending on where you saved your image, you should see both the original image and the newly cropped image as well! 4
(going back a page or two) When you select the CROPPED IMAGE you will see a small display of that image in your Blogger Box Click SAVE if you are happy with it! (if not, you may try a re-crop to get it to feel right!) You can click the option to PREVIEW or VIEW BLOG from here to see how the new header looks - sometimes it takes a time or two to get it the way you want it! There are also ways to create the side bars of your blog in MMS, but there are some great ready-made options that will save time! Here s some info on one of my favorites, but there are a TON out there! Visit http://shabbyblogs.com/ and click the DESIGNS link Select a background you like and click the GET THE CODE link under that design Highlight ALL THE CODE (make sure you get every single character in the code) RIGHT-CLICK and COPY 5
Now, go back to your BLOGGER PAGE - and click the DESIGN link again! Click ADD A GADGET Scroll down the list to find ADD HTML/JavaScript RIGHT-CLICK and PASTE that copied code into the box and click SAVE Then when you PREVIEW your blog again, you will see the new side designs The *AMAZING* graphics used in the design of this PDF are from the Love Shack kit by the incredibly talented designers @ TheEttes! Shop them by name in the MMS Design Shop! 6