How I Made My Blog Button

I was really excited to finally add my very own blog button last week!  And, because I'm cheap thrifty, I made it by myself instead of hiring a designer.  I figured that a simple button would work (I actually prefer simple graphics - it's just more my style).  So with that in mind, I headed over to Pixlr.com to spend some quality time with my laptop.  I am a complete novice so it took a little time to get used to (well actually, I made my header first - which was a little challenging.  Making this button was easier once I was a little more familiar with Pixlr).  And since Picnik is going away (boo), I knew that I'd needed to learn something new anyway.  Here's my step-by-step Pixlr instructions - just in case you want to jump into button making too.

To start, I found an image to work with.  I just did a Google Image search for burlap.  Once I found an image that I liked, I saved it to my computer.  Another alternative is to use free digital scrapbooking images.  A quick Google search will bring up lots of options.

I went to Pixlr.com - and chose "Open Image from Computer".

Here's my uploaded burlap pic - 

A standard blog button is 125 x 125 and my picture is 320 x 320 so I needed to adjust the image size.  I opened the drop down menu under "Image" and clicked "Image size..."

A new box popped up allowing me to type in my new size (125 x 125) - 

Then I clicked "OK".  Now I wanted to add text.  To do this, I clicked on the "A" in the tool menu.

I typed "my covered bridge" in the pop up box.  Now the fun part - making it look pretty.  I started by picking a font.  I clicked the drop down menu to see all of the options - 

Once I chose a font (Gungsuh), I adjusted the font size.  

Using the sliding scale, I ended up at 25.  I then needed to change the text color.  I clicked on the color box which brings up another pop up - 

I played around with some different colors and finally chose #4a6a94.  Then hit "ok". The last step was to move the text where I wanted it.  I made sure to use the "Move" tool located at the top of the Tools box - 

Once I had it where I liked it, I hit "ok" on the text box pop up.  Then I saved my button from the "File" drop down menu - 

That's it!  I hope this tutorial helps some of you - and remember that if I can do this, so can you!  Pixlr isn't so scary once you play around with it.

Want to know how to install your new button?  Here's my tutorial for installing a button with a grab box.

I've shared this post here -

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