Beautiful Blog Series: All Things Heart and Home

This week's Beautiful Blog is All Things Heart and Home. Robin, a vivacious and creative "empty-nester" is the owner of All Things Heart and Home and she has done a simply lovely job with this blog! She writes about family (she has four grown children and one grandaughter), decorating, cooking and lots more.




What do I love about the design for All Things Heart and Home? Well, the colors couldn't be more pleasing to the eye! They are soft and soothing, and I love that she just used two main colors, blue and white, with a splash of soft pink to keep it lively. The blog is neat and tidy, easily navigated and very user friendly. Her header is creative yet classy and fits the style and content of the blog so well.

Congratulations, Robin, for having such a beautiful blog! Here is a button for you, if you would like to share this feature with your readers.

<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc341/saludamom/bbdfeaturebutton1.jpg"/></a>

Label Clouds Get Easier in Blogger!

For many months I have been tempted to add a label cloud to my sidebar, but quite honestly, I was daunted by the number of steps I would have to take to make it happen. I hated to see long label lists on blog sidebars, so instead I seriously refined my labels so there were just a select few and I showed them as a list of "categories."

Well, Blogger has been doing some major improvements to their programing and they have made it super easy to have a label cloud (a grouping of labels in a cloud-like formation). So, I will now tackle my first real tutorial (now that it is a super easy thing to teach!).

First things first. Some of you may be beginner bloggers and thinking "what the heck are labels?" Labels are tags you give to your blog posts so that others can quickly read posts only on that subject. For instance, I am going to give this post the label "tutorials" by typing it in the box circled in the picture below. Readers who come to my blog can then click on "tutorials" in my label cloud and all posts containing that label will be shown.

Okay, onto how to make your labels a cloud instead of one long list (which I am not in favor of). 

• Sign into your Blogger account and go to the Layout section of your blog. 
• At the top of your sidebar there is a box that says "Add Gadget." Click on that. 
• Choose "Labels" as the type of gadget you'd like to add.  
• A screen that says "Configure Labels" will pop up. 
• To change your labels from a list to a cloud, all you have to do is click on the "cloud" option (see picture below). 

Wasn't that easy? So, if you have a big long list of labels on your blog's sidebar, I strongly encourage you to switch to a label cloud. They take up less space and help your blog have a cleaner, neater look.

If this tutorial has helped you, and/or you switch your label list to a cloud, let me know so I can go ew and aw over it!

p.s. Since Blogger upgraded it's post editor, the images have gotten smaller (even though it says "large) and of poor quality. I'll load these to Photobucket soon so they'll be larger.

Freebies From Professionals

Typically Beautiful Blog Designs only features bloggers and designers who are woman, and not considered "big dog" professionals. I have steered clear of listing free Blogger templates or Wordpress themes from huge, professional sites because I wanted those who come here (mostly women) to be able to relate to the designers I focus on and to help out those women trying to make extra income, working from home.

Well, I decided that I would have at lease one post listing professional sites that offer attractive, free templates or themes so that those utilizing this site can decide on their own whether to use them or not.

Free Blogger Templates

• bTemplates
  
• Blogger Buster
• BloggerStyles 
• Blogger Templates Free
• eBlog Templates
• Gecko & Fly
• Mashable

Free Wordpress Themes

• Blog Oh Blog
• CrazyLeaf Design Blog 
• Free Theme Layouts
• Free Themes 
• Fresheezy
• Smashing Magazine
• Theme Splice
• Top Wordpress Themes
• Wordpress Templates

I am sure this list will continue to grow, but I thought it was a good starting point. If you know of another place for free templates or themes, please let me know in a comment.

Don't forget that I have listed free Blogger templates and Wordpress themes made by work-at-home women (mostly moms) in this post.

Premade Template Giveaway

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

I am so excited to announce this week's giveaway! Designer Blogs is giving away a premade template worth $25. These templates are absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful way to beautiful your blog without the wait time for a custom design.

Designer Blogs by Erin is no longer just Erin. Amy joined her over the summer and was able to add premades to Designer Blog's services and I know they will be a huge success.

For just $25, you get more than just the premade template. Here is what is included in their premade package:

* Semi-custom template
* Two customized sidebar images
* A post divider
* Custom signature
* Installation (that's huge!)

Once a premade is purchased, it is immediately retired so you know your design is still one-of-a-kind.

Here are a few of their beautiful premade designs:







Okay, on to the giveaway. To enter simply go to Designer Blogs and choose the premade template that you would love to have and then come back there and leave it in a comment.

For extra entries you can do some/all of the following. You must leave a comment for each one to get "credit" for it.

1. Become a follower of Beautiful Blog Designs (if you already are, leave a comment saying such).
2. Follow Designer Blogs and/or BBD on Twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway (ex: Enter to win a gorgeous premade template, installation included! http://bit.ly/2gCEUG @readingtofour)
4. Write about it in a post on your blog (leave your blog address)

The giveaway will end Friday, August 28th at 11:00 PM EST. The winner will be chosen using Random.org.

A Few Thoughts

We had a great giveaway last week and I appreciate everyone who participated. I didn't go through my normal posting routine, as the giveaway kind of threw me off. I will be better this week.

In a little while I'll have my next giveaway post published and I am so excited about this one too! It's a little different and I love to spice things up. Then later in the day I will have the Beautiful Blog post ready to go also.

On top of the other weekly things I do, I am going to start featuring blog that go through a redesign, either by a designer or by their own skills, sort of a "before and after" post. I have two in the works. If your blog is getting redesigned and you would like to be featured, let me know so I can snag a screen print of your blog before the changes are made.

If there is anything else I can do to help you or ideas you have that may help other bloggers, please let me know.

Winner of Simply Delightful Giveaway

Congratulations goes to Mrs. Soup! She was the winner of the custom blog design giveaway from Simply Delightful. I am very excited for her because Jenny does amazing work (I actually have a "before and after" feature for a friend's blog, designed by Jenny).

Thank you to everyone who entered, and don't be too downhearted! I have THREE more giveaways coming up in the next few weeks, so lots of other chances to win. AND, don't forget that I keep a listing of all current blog design giveaways on my Giveaways page. Click over there and enter some more.

For those who are interested, Mrs. Soup won because she had comment #44.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

44 

Timestamp: 2009-08-22 03:13:21 UTC

Designer Showcase: Blogs by Sneaky Momma

This week's blog designer showcase is on Blogs by Sneaky Momma. Jill is the designer at that studio and she creates beautiful, clean designs for the Blogger platform. She started blogging a year ago and quickly became a pro at HTML code, learning how to design her own blog and then started doing the same for friends. In April she opened her own design site, Blogs by Sneaky Momma.

Not only is Jill a great designer, she also writes some of the most helpful blogging tutorials out there and shares them on her tip site, Blog Tips by Sneaky Momma (over half the tutorials listed on my site take you to her).

Here are a few samples of Jill's talented work:





Another thing I love about Blogs by Sneaky Momma are the extremely affordable prices! You can have a simple blog makeover done for a mere $25! She has other packages available, each one going up in a little in price because more design elements are added. Check out her design packages and see if one fits your needs.

Jill has a surprise coming up tomorrow, so be sure to stop by back her site (or check here as I will mention it also) to see what she's up to.

Custom Design Giveaway - Simply Delightful Blog Design

This giveaway is now closed. Winner will be announced in upcoming post.

I am excited to announce that Beautiful Blog Designs is hosting a giveaway for Simply Delightful! Jenny, the designer there, is graciously giving away a custom blog design worth $100!

Jenny has been designing blogs for friends and family for over two years. She recently started her own design business and is off to a stellar start!

Simply Delight offers custom blog designs for Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad platforms, as well as offering some delightful, affordable premade templates. Her custom design package has everything you would want: navigation bar, 10 sidebar images, button, custom header, signature, etc.

Here are a few designs from Jenny's portfolio that I think are just lovely.





To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment here telling me how you heard about this giveaway (ex. Tip Junkie, a reader, Twitter, etc.).

You can earn extra entries by doing any or all of the following (you must leave additional comments for each one)

• Become a follower of Beautiful Blog Designs or of Simply Delightful Blog Designs
• Follow me on Twitter
• Tweet about this (ex. Enter to win $100 custom blog design http://bit.ly/UBGVu @readingtofour)
• Post about this giveaway on your blog

The giveaway will end Friday, August 21st at 11:00 PM EST. The winner will be chose using Random.org.

Would you like more chances to win a giveaway? Make sure to enter the giveaways listed on my giveaways page.

Beautiful Blog Series: Through the Lens

Today's Beautiful Blog is Looking Through the Lens a photography blog by Keilah. Amazing pictures are showcased on this blog, as well as uplifting scripture to match the photos. I enjoyed looking at her shots and they inspired me to look at things differently with my camera.


What did I love about the design for Looking Through the Lens?

• It is a clean, simple design, yet very elegant. There are not a lot of design elements to clutter up the space.
  
• The black background provides a nice backdrop for the pictures. Now, usually I don't care for white text on a black background because it is hard for the eye to read the text. But, the font on this blog isn't too white or bold, it's not jarring to the eye at all.
  
• Her sidebar isn't too overstuffed with gadgets and buttons. She has some, but not an overwhelming amount, and breaks them up nicely so there isn't just a string of lists or a barrage of buttons.
  

Now for the amazing part - the blog designer. The designer who created Through the Lens is Lauren from Quiet Designs. Lauren is only 13 years old! Isn't she talented? She started blogging when she was 9 and is self taught in HTML code. She has really only just begun, having designed three blogs besides her own blog, Beside Quiet Waters. She designs for free, because of her age, and has several blogs she is currently working on. Due to her school schedule, her queue is not open at this time.

Congratulations Keilah for having such a beautiful blog! Here is a button you can use in a post or place in your sidebar to let people know your blog was recognized.

<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc341/saludamom/bbdfeaturebutton1.jpg"/></a>

BBD was Featured!

I am so excited! BBD has received has been featured for the first time! Jill at Blog Tips by Sneaky Momma did a post about Beautiful Blog Designs the other day and I am really appreciate it!

If you haven't seen Blog Tips by Sneaky Momma you should check it out. She writes the BEST tutorials out there! Most of the tutorials I list on BBD link back to her site. I am honored that she recommended my site to her readers.

Hey, Jill is also a talented blog designer with incredible prices! Go to Blogs by Sneaky Momma to see her portfolio and to see what she can do for you.

How Can Beautiful Blog Designs Help You

I started Beautiful Blog Designs at the end of January, 2008 and it has really grown and changed. It has gone from a site simply listing where to get free templates to a place where bloggers, new and old, can find ways to beautify their blogs.

Along the way I have created a few series to help both bloggers and designers.

• Beautiful Blog Series - Each Monday I feature a blog which is particularly beautiful and reader friendly. See if your blog qualifies by reading this post.
• Free Template Series - Each Tuesday I feature a designer who provides many free templates.
• Custom Blog Designer Series - Each Thursday I feature a designer who creates custom blog designs.
• Tutorials Series (new) - Each Friday I will share a tutorial I recently discovered or used which I think is useful for everyday bloggers like myself.
• Design Giveaways - Each Sunday I will revise the Giveaways page with current giveaways, removing those which have expired.

I have one more series in the works - Before and After. If you are having your blog redesigned by a blog designer, let me know in a comment or email, and I will take a screen shot of your blog before the face lift and then again after it. I will write a post showing the change, linking back to your site of course.

Also, I have started to offer two services:

• Free tweaking of headers (from free templates or backgrounds) with a custom font. Those interested need to email me.
• Private blog critiques. As soon as I offered these, several bloggers ask for them and they have been very pleased (testimonials coming soon). And, they are FREE! I did a search and blog critiques can cost you up to $250! Read about my critiques at this post.

As always, if you use my services (find a free template, hire a designer, get a critique) in any way, please give credit by posting my button in your sidebar or sharing about this site in a post.

I hope you find BBD useful. If there is anything I can do to make it better, please let me know.

Free Blog Designs - Template-Mama

I want to introduce you to a wonderful site to find free blog templates. Template-Mama is a blog that provides many, many unique and custom-like designs. These templates have more design elements than many of the free templates available at other designers' sites.

Template-Mama kind of stumbled into blog design. To tweak her own blog, she started to learn HTML code and it just took off from there. She creates Blogger templates as a hobby, for her own enjoyment, but it has pleased her that others have enjoyed them also. She does not expect payment for any of her templates, but if you use a template, I encourage you to donate what you can to help cover her cost of PhotoShop upgrades.

She has more than 80 different templates to choose from and here are just a few of my favorites from her selection:




In addition to the beautiful, free templates, she also write tutorials (click on "tips" in her label cloud) and provides links to other sites with free templates.

Template-Mama, you are very talented and very generous to donate your time to help others. I can't wait to see your future designs, because you keep getting better and better!

Here is a button for you to post on your blog in a post or on your sidebar.

<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc341/saludamom/bbdfeaturebutton1.jpg"/></a>

Beautiful Blog Series: Pages of Our Life

This week's beautiful blog is Pages of Our Life, an absolutely gorgeous blog about homeschooling, photography and the adventures of two active, growing boys. The owner of this blog is Beth, who is also a writer for Heart of the Matter Online and budding photographer.

What do I love about her blog? Well, the background is interesting and different, but soothing, not boring. White is used behind the text and pictures so they really stand out and are easy for readers to see. Her header is a slideshow of beautiful pictures of her family, with a simple, elegant title and tagline. Her blog is very user friendly, with the navigation bar at the top and categories on the side. The sidebar is very simple, clean and uncluttered.



The designer who created the simple yet unique and classy look for Pages of Our Life is Darcy at Graphically Designing. Darcy is one of the best in the blog design business and always has a many on her waiting list, understandably so.



Beth, you have a gorgeous blog and if you would like to share the recognition from BBD, here is a button to use in a post or on your sidebar.

<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc341/saludamom/bbdfeaturebutton1.jpg"/></a>

Designer Showcase: Custom Blog Designs

This week's designer to showcase is Custom Blog Designs, run by Diana Hansen. Custom Blog Designs creates individual designs with you in mind for both Blogger and Twitter. Diana, a work at home mom of three children, opened Custom Blog Designs in February 2008 and has done over 150 blogs makeovers! That is a lot of experience!

Here are some of her favorite blog designs:






Diana has recently added Twitter designs to her list of services. Here are a couple of favorites:



Custom Blog Designs offers four makeover packages competitively priced, Twitter backgrounds, a la carte services, blog maintenance, professional installs, and custom digital scrapbooking. Diana provides excellent customer service and communication and has many repeat customers.

Diana also has a strong heart for others and donates a portion of each makeover to charities that support orphans in China. And, to reward visitors who have left a comment, Diana does a drawing each week and gives away $5 towards any design element she offers, or credit towards something larger.

So, head on over to Custom Blog Designs and look around. And, this is a great time to stop by because she has giveaways going on all month for custom design work.

Special Note: Diana was the designer who contacted me with information on how to change the Blogger navigation bar to match my blog. And, she generously designed a favicon for me (the B-B-D blinkie up in the URL address area and on the file tab). Thank you, Diana for looking out for me!

Beautiful Blog Series: The Mom Creative

This week's beautiful blog is The Mom Creative, a blog about scrapbooking, faith, frugal living, motherhood, and product reviews. Jessica is the owner of The Mom Creative and she does a wonderful job keeping this large, well establish blog running smoothly.

The blog design definitely has a modern edge to it, but I love it for the clean lines, simple graphics and quickness to load. Jessica keeps her sidebars well defined and not too cluttered. I was really quite amazed out how well she has things organized. The site is very user friendly, so it's no wonder she has such a large following.



The designer of The Mom Creative is Danielle at The Design Girl Blog Design. She is an experienced blog designer with large clientele and a real heart for fundraising. By the way, Danielle has a bunch of goodies she is giving away all this month, so be sure to stop over there and enter.


Jessica, you have a delightful blog and one that I stop by frequently. Congratulations on your success! If you would like to share this feature, here is a button for you to use.

<a href="http://beautifulblogdesigns.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i526.photobucket.com/albums/cc341/saludamom/bbdfeaturebutton1.jpg"/></a>

Special Note: Wondering how I decide which blogs to feature? This post that explains what I look for.

Great Summer Sale!

Simply Delightful Blog Designs is having an awesome two day special. Place an order today or tomorrow (8/3 - 8/4) for anything, buttons, headers, premade template or custom blog design, and get HALF OFF your order!

I will do a designer show case on them at a later date, but I wanted to let you know about the sale since it is for just a short time. If you need a new blog design, a button or any other design elements made, take advantage of this great sale.

Here are a couple of her adorable premades:





Attention designers: If you have a sale or special going on, let me know and I'll advertise here for you.

Looking for a design giveaway to enter? Check out the Giveaways page; two new ones were added today.

Beautiful Blog Series post coming up in this afternoon so stay tuned!

Blog Critiques Available

Let me start by stating that I am NOT an blog expert by any means. However, I have looked a lot of blogs and studied them probably more closely than most people do. I have read and followed what blogging experts advise (and I really do agree with), and the results are the blogs I own, Beautiful Blog Designs and Moving Forward.

I have accumulated a lot of information for this blog and done my best to categorize it in a way that is very user friendly. But, I think that there may be so much information, some important, simple things get overlooked. So, I am going to start offering to do blog critiques. What does that mean? Well, you simply send me an email asking me to take a look at your site to see if there is any thing you can add or change to make your blog more reader friendly and more appealing.

Don't worry, I will not be publicizing the critiques, they will simply be email between us. All I ask is that after the critique, if you made changes and are happy with them, that you mention Beautiful Blog Designs in a post or by putting my button in your sidebar (maybe just temporarily since I am not in favor of tons of buttons).

If you would like a critique, please include the following information in your email:

• Your first name
• Your blog address
• How long you have been blogging
• Anything else you think is pertinent