premades

Damask premade:

Deep Sea premade:

{the background of the seahorse print is also avalible in greyish purple, a darkish blue, a yellowish green, a dark purple, simple white, orangeish yellow, orange, red, and maroon-y red if you're not feeling the hot pink.}

minty freshness premade:

so. hi there.

I have been getting requests for blog designing and it is so fun and awesome! srsly. I want to make it easier... easier for you and me. i will be making premades. your design can be the exact replica of a premade, inspired by the premade, or have nothing to do with any premades. just make sure to mention in your email if you have your eye on one of these.

(and also, i will be making more, so don't you fret if you dont see one tha makes you go OHMIGOSHIWANTTHATPREMADENOW.)

kthanksbye.

Portfolio

This is so fun for me so far. :)

Blog design is starting. Yeah. For realz. (Yes, realz.)

(I know this is sort of random... but I am a random person and I like cupcakes.)

Greetings! (Just kidding, I don't actually say "greetings". Ha.)

If you haven't noticed, Gracely Designs got a facelift. (I'm still working on it, but at least you can read the words.)

I have learned a scary amount of HTML in just a few hours. Seriously. Scary.

I really enjoy it, though. I think it's fun.

That's why I'm starting blog design. For YOU.

I'm not awesome, nor a pro at this. I'm not going to charge you guys for the time being. I'm going to work hard on your blogs.

I will be writing more about this later today. (Ya know, the deets.) Expect another page titled "blog design". If you are interested, you can email me now or email me in a few hours when I have the post up.

I think this will be fun!

*confused? Olivia of Robin Blogs put my post up for Grace Loves the Beatles earlier today, so I didn't do that. I did, however, design this blog you're looking at right now.

How to make a header for your awesomeness blog.

Level: Medium

want to know how to make an awesome header?! fantabulous. (fantastic+fabulous, if ya didn't know.) i use pse8, but you could probably use picknik. or gimp. or whatevs. (i'm not familiar with those so, srry yall.)

Make a new document. (CTRL+N). Your blog has to be 1000 pixels wide for this. Make it about the size below:

100x400, approx. 72 resolution, RGB color mode, White background contents (NOT transparent or grayscale. please.)

Are you a photographer? want pictures on your header? it's your lucky day!! {not a photographer type? don't you fret! just scroll down and i'll show you how to make a pretty header without a nikon/fstop/d-whatever stuff.}

So now you have a big. white. box. Painfully boring, i know.

First, to make it not boring, you should choose a color. You can use the dropper tool if you feel fancy, or you can just choose a color from the color-chooser-thingymabob.

See? Not as boring. But it can still be better. just saying.

Now, open your picture, and click CTRL+A so the little ants start crawling around the picture. Then click CTRL+c to copy. Go on the brightly-colored header layer and click CTRL+V to paste. Then use the arrow tool to resize and drag it around until you like it.

Save to your computer.

you're done!

Need help uploading? Click.

Any questions? Click.

♥

Now, i'll show you how to make a non-photo header, for if you're not a photographer or just don't want pictures on your header.

CTRL+N and make a new file. (Make it the same size as the photo header.)

Making a photo header is really as easy as color chooser, text, and maybe custom shape tool.

Put your text on there...

Now let me teach yall about custom shape tool. (Again, i don't use Picnik or gimp, so I don't know if there is a custom shape tool.

Find the heart on your toolbar. If it's not a heart (in that place under the fill tool), select the tool under the fill tool and click U (just the letter U) and scroll through them until you reach the heart. Now, you can go up into the left hand corner and there are loads of shapes and pictures to choose from! It's one of my favorite things on photoshop. Just click the drop down box and look through them. There is a little double arrow, and if you click on that a list drops down, catergorizing all of them.

I chose the lollipop one.

Then, your mouse turns into a + and you click and drag on where you want the shape. (You can move it later if you mess up.) Done!

How to upload your header through photobucket

Level: Easy

There has been some problem through blogger that if you upload your header from your computer, it gets all blurry and icky and OMG if I don't get that fixed I am going to flip out-y. (well, maybe that's just me.) But anyway, IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. IT'S BLOGGER'S FAULT.  And heres how y'all's can fix it.

You have to have a photobucket account. Not a flickr, a photobucket. Design your header however you want it (if you don't have it already) and then upload it.

Now, view only the header that you uploaded, and click the "Direct link" button. It will automatically copy the link for you.

 Now, you go to how you would usually upload your header. If you don't know how to do this, click here. But, instead of uploading it from your computer, click "From the web" which should be under the browse box. Copy the post into there and click "save".

If your header is perfectly centered, that is great, don't do anything from here. Mine wasn't, so i had to take these steps.

We are going to use some HTML. Don't freak out, it's ok. CTRL+F really helps. Click CTRL+F and in that box, search for [[><b:skin>. Directly before that, paste the following:

#header-inner img {margin: 0 auto !important;}

This should work! Now enjoy your perfectly centered header. (and non blurry.)



how to make a button for your blog

Level: Medium

{I leveled this "medium" because a) you have to get that creativity out of yourself to design the button, and b) we are using HTML code. Fun, right?!}

Ok. ready to get started?

I am going to be using pse 8 for this. But really you can use any photo editing software you feel like. There's Pixlr, Picknik, whatevs. moving on, children, moving on... Now you have to make a new document (control + n on photoshop elements) and make it 125 pixels x 125 pixels. Now you design your little heart out.

*hint: don't make it say that.

Did you have fun designing your little button? I'm glad. Save it as a jpeg on your desktop, or somewhere it is easily accesible. now you have to sign up for photobucket. Sign in, and upload your button.

you can simply click on the direct link to copy it. now, you need to open up a place where you can type: microsoft word, note pad, a draft in your email, whatevs. Now, you need to copy/paste this code there:



<div align="center"> <a href="http://blogaddresshere.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="blog name here" src="photobucket adress here" /></a> </div> <div align="center"> <form><textarea rows="6" cols="20"><center><a href="http://blogaddresshere.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="blog name here" src="photobucket address here" /></a></center></textarea></form> </div>

you have to replace all in red with your information... your blog adress, your blog name, and the photobucket address (direct link) you just copied. Now, you need to copy this code and go to your blogger dashboard.

Go to your "design" and click "add a gadget."

Scroll down until where it says "Html/javascript". Click add, and title it whatever you want. "button" will do just dandy. In the text box, paste the HTML code that you copied. Click "save" and you should be done!

Enjoy your beautiful new blog button!!

Seriously.

*also, please don't copy and paste, k? i just spent a good 45 minutes on this tutorial, just for you guys. :)

♥

did this tutorial not work for you? do you have additional questions/comments? just want to say how much you looove gracely designs? email me, at gracie (dot) drechsel (at) gmail (dot) com or just click that pretty little comment button down there.  

how to watermark your photos

alternative title: my first photoshop tutorial

Level: medium and a half

Yes, this is my very first photoshop tutorial. I will use PSE8 for all of my tutorials. I think that watermarking is a great idea... it gives your photos a personal touch and keeps bad guys from stealing your pictures. 

The first thing you need to do is start a new document. {control+n}. It doesn't really matter the size (it just can't be super tiny) because we will crop it later. In the drop down box, make sure it says "transparent."

now is the creative part. what do you want it to look like? you can use custom shape tool, fonts, whatevs. have fun with it.

next, it's time to crop it. you want to crop it pretty closely around the shape. (i don't know if this really matters, but this is what i do so whatevs.)

now its time to save it as a watermark. you go to edit > define brush. name it, click OK and your you're good to go!

to watermark them, you must be on the brush tool. Go to the drop down box and scroll down to the bottom. You will find your watermark there. Then, simply stamp the watermark on your photo. You're done!

questions? email me at gracie.drechsel@gmail.com.

peace out, yo!