Skin it

Scouring the web for really cool Blogger skins require one to have patience, ample of it actually because it’s not easy twitching the look of your blog. Blogger requires pretty advance skills when it comes to customizing your blog, knowledge with HTML codes is a plus. I have been with Blogger for eight years (back when they were still called Blogspot) so, I pretty much already learned these stuff over time. I am a self taught blog design twitcher. I normally download free Blogger templates and customize them. Sometimes, I’ll just suit myself with Blogger’s very own templates and just change the background with some image I prefer. I find it enjoyable because I am quite nerdy and I like changing things every now and then. 

Few days ago, I thought of migrating my blogs to WordPress by exporting them (hoping WordPress offer better blog skins) using a .xml file from Blogger. I found WordPress simple and not as enjoyable customizing compared to Blogger because I was ticked off that I needed to sign up with Gravatar so I get to have an avatar for my profile. Sucks right? Unlike with Blogger, it’s automatic because it’s owned by Google so you can just add your Google Plus account widget to your blog (it’s optional) and you’re good to go. WordPress doesn’t have that so I ended up deleting my account instead. 

Later on I’m back to scouring the web again for free Blogger templates instead and thank God i stumbled upon this awesome website by Blogger template designer named Itkupilli. 

His/her designs (I don’t know the artist’s gender) are way cooler than other Blogger templates around because they're ‘baroque' inspired which is unique in my opinion since I am fascinated by anything and everything out of the ordinary. 

Moving on, I went gaga over almost all of Itkupilli’s blogger themes. Sadly, I only needed to pick one so here it is. If you may have noticed (if you did it means you are one of my avid readers haha!) the total change in my blog's interface, it’s because I completely changed my blog’s theme except for Blogger’s default columns which I used as my base/framework whilst the header and background I got from Itkupilli’s site. They’re freebies so don’t worry about copyright and stuff, there’s even a small watermark if you may have noticed. Just don’t claim that it’s yours nor smudge the watermark because that’s a different story. 

As a way of saying thank you btw, I added his/her badge here in my blog. This blog skin also came with its very own header and background image which is also changeable like what I did, I used a different background instead of what it came with since I thought a darker background suits my blog. 

So, don't be scared to try stuff with your own blog, you can anyways preview it before you make any final changes. It's quite enjoyable actually but if it's not your interest then don't worry about just go download a ready made .xml blogger theme, no sweat. 

How to upload a ready made .xml blogger theme? Go to your Blogger dashboard and once logged in just click on the small notepad icon (upper right hand), to your left click on Template > Back up/restore (upper right hand corner) > Choose File (upload the .xml file you downloaded) and you're done. 

For advanced users: Go to your Blogger dashboard and once logged in just click on the small notepad icon (upper right hand corner), to your left click on Template > Customize > then you'll see your Blogger Template Designer screen, underneath is the live preview. You can twitch your blog from there like change your blog's font, background image etc. This is how I twitched my blog as well.

For your blog header, once you download the header file, you may use any photo editing application (I used PhotoScapeX), add text which is simply your blog's name. I suggest you change the size to 1000x300 pixels as this is the default size of Blogger headers. How to upload your edited Header: Go to your Blogger dashboard and once logged in just click on the small notepad icon (upper right hand) > Go to Layout > Click on Header (underneath NavBar) > a window will open > Pick the Header image you made from your computer > Select "Have description placed after the image" > Hit Save. Here's a link you can try if you want your Header in the centered.

Hope these easy steps help. You'll be fascinated and delighted to see your own work afterwards. Happy customizing folks ;)