Make the blog “yours”

Do you have blog envy??  I know I do!  I look at these amazing designs and hem and haw about should I pay for someone to make my blog pretty???  I am limited when it comes to graphic designing skills.  I would love to have Photoshop and actually know how to use it!  I’ve looked into taking courses and buying the software but I think I would need a part time job to pay for that!  So I have been searching for tutorials on how to make my own blog pretty for FREE.
I found this great tutorial on making your own header, with software I already had!  Sarah at Clover Lane guest posts on Blissfully Domestic and did a post a while back on using Picasa to make your own header.  YEAH!  Finally!  She completely breaks it down for you – super simple! 
As you may have noticed (if you aren’t reading this in Google reader) that I figured it out a while back and used my own photos to create the header for our blog.  I played around with a couple different ideas…
  





This was before I cropped them and added text.  But the options are limitless!  My mind is spinning with all the different creations I could come up with!!  I worked on one for my good friend Julie for her blog Three Queens and a King.

You have to hop over to her site to see how it all came together!

Along with making a new header I changed the background, text, colors etc.  If you haven’t played with bloggers new layout design, you must!  So many cool background options!! 

I am still wanting to work on the sidebar and figure out how to make the pictures with links so if anyone knows of a good tutorial for that let me know!  But you must go check out Sarah’s tutorial and try it!  And if you don’t have Picasa yet I highly recommend it!  Great tool for editing and sharing your photos as well!

So what do you think of the new design?  Any suggestions?