Editing A Header (without having to buy some big editing program)

When it comes to creating your own cute blog there are so many websites out there that offer an endless supply of backgrounds for you to choose from. But now that you've got the cute background, what about a header? Suddenly a plain block of text that says your blog's name does not seem adequate, but at the same time you don't want to have to go and buy some photo editing program like Photoshop- so what do you do? Well enter a site I just found called Fotoflexer which is an online photo editing site. There is a really great video tutorial about customizing a header that can be found here at Shabby Blogs. Definitely go and check it out.

Free Blog Template

There are several tutorials online that can walk you through how to create your own custom blog background- the one I recommend is found here at the Cutest Blog on the Block. 
To help you out with your blog creation I  have made some blog templates that you can download here for free.

The download includes a simple template for a background, header (like the one on this blog), and side bar tab. They are all .psd files. Want to learn how to use Photoshop to create your blog? You'll want to check out this tutorial by Kevin and Amanda where she walks you through specifically how to create your blog background in Photoshop. You can download a free 30 day trial of Photoshop Elements HERE or you can use the FREE program GIMP which can be downloaded HERE.
Good luck creating your custom Blog Backgrounds and be sure to post a link here when you get it all done so we can see what you've done! :)

Widgets and Fun Stuff

There are so many fun "widgets" that you can put on your blog- I'm going to post a few that I know of, but if you know of more leave me a comment and I will add it to the list.
Playlist.com- This is a site where you can create a music playlist to post on your blog, so people that visit your blog can have some of your favorite tunes to listen to. 
Feedjit- This is a tracker for your site that lets you see where the people who visit your blog are from, how long they're on your blog, and more.
Statcounter- This is another site tracker that you can put on your blog to keep track of all your visitors.
Google Analytics- Another powerful site tracking tool that probably gives you more information than you ever thought you needed!

What other stuff have you found?

What to Write About

Sick of writing the same thing day after day? Don't even know where to start?
Blog About This:
Memory Monday - write about a memory
Menu Plan Monday – post what you’re having for dinner that week and the recipe to share with others and to save for yourself.
Tuesday Tell All – let it all out!
Top 10 Tuesday – list your Top 10 favorites that week
Wordless Wednesday – post a picture only
Just For Fun Friday – be creative
Five on Friday – another way to list things
Sunday Thoughts
52 Blessings Project
Journal Ideas - 258 of them!

Taken from: Gardenview Cottage

Google Reader

This post is not so much about how to fancy up your blog- but instead how to manage and quickly read all the many different blogs you want to keep up with. Enter Google Reader. Now there are many different types of blog readers out there- I just happen to love Google Reader so that's the one I am going to share with you here. (Plus it's always nice to not have to sign in to another site- so if you're already using a google blog, email, or the google group you might as well use reader!)
Basically with reader you "subscribe" to your favorite blogs and then when those blogs are updated they show up in your reader like a new email would. You can also create folders to organize your different blogs so that you can just see your friends blogs or if you want to just check out what cooking blogs have been updated you can do that. The other best feature of reader is you can SEARCH the different blogs. Now it's only going to search the posts that have actually come into reader (so it wont be able to search any posts from before you started using reader) but this is an awesome feature and I use it all the time. Don't you hate it when you know you have seen that perfect recipe for chocolate cake but you can't remember which of the 10 cooking blogs you go to - you saw it on? Now you can just search for it. So don't wait- go start using reader now!
*Oh yeah one thing- if any of your friends have their blogs set to private (which you should to by the way) you wont be able to see their blog through and blog reader.