Widdly Tinks has some adorable and creative tickers for bloggers. They make customizable widgets for pregnant women, new mothers, brides to be and for many other special occasions and events. Check out this adorable picture silhouette that I built for our own family.
You can personalize your blog posts by creating your own free signature at MyLiveSignature.com. They offer everything necessary to create both static and animated signatures to add to your email messages, blogs, posts on forums and on websites.
MyLiveSignature prices:
Leelou has some adorable FREE blog templates available. She creates the layouts using inspiration from patterns she comes across every day - clothing, pillows, magazine covers, shower curtains....pretty much anything that strikes her.
She also does custom designs, but her waiting list for custom blog designs is 5 months out, so she's closed the list for new custom orders for now. That's one popular designer! Until then, check out her free layouts here.
Have any of you used Leelou's free layouts? Let us know what you think in the comments section here.
The Cutest Blog on the Block offers some adorable designer backgrounds for free! And best of all, they say that you will NOT loose any information such as links, widgets, or html codes!
You may have noticed quite a few of these templates popping up on blogs lately. They have a subtle box in the upper left corner that says Free backgrounds and more at CutestBlogOnTheBlock.com.
I would recommend choosing a background that is not too busy. The background stays put as the text scrolls, so it is a little difficult to read the text on blogs with any pattern on the middle column of the template.
You can even choose holiday backgrounds and switch them out as each holiday nears.
Have any of you used The Cutest Blog on the Block's templates? Leave us a comment letting us know what you think. Any tips would be great too.
For more blog designers and free blog templates that we've featured on BBA, click here.
This is the first Blogoversary button I've come across and you can easily get it for your own blog at blogoversary.com. All you need to do is input your "born date" (or date of your first post) and it will calculate the code for your personalized button. Then add it as a new page element (html) in your blogger sidebar.
If you type in your blog name and blog address, they'll also showcase your blog on their site when it has its blogoversary, but the address is optional, so don't include it if you want to keep your blog amongst family and friends only.
Made Digital's tagline is "Designing memories that last...and so much more!" And designer Theresa Marie is right. She is one-stop-shop for designs, like:
Ready for a new look on your blog, but don't know where to start? Check out Made Digital's blog portfolio and reasonable prices. You can get a new header for just $35 or an entire redesign package for just $47.
Tip Junkie is a site that compiles great tips and creative ideas from people like you! Fun activities for the kids, delicious recipes and creative decorating tips are just of few of the tips you'll get from Tip Junkie. Your own blog posts can even be added as tips on Tip Junkie. Just check out the Submit a Tip link in her blog's sidebar.
My favorite post and a great one for all of you Baby Blog Addicts is Blogger Questions & Tips. From "Is it worth putting advertising on my blog?" to "Do you like music on blogs", this is a great list of 18 blogger tips that you don't want to miss.
Wanna keep your blog updated daily while you are on a vacation to a deserted island with no internet access??? Now you can with Blogger's latest feature of Scheduled Post Publishing.
We sometimes write posts in advance for our personal blog and save them to post throughout the week (so the grandparents don't have withdrawals), but in the past, we still had to log in and publish those pre-written posts each day so they would post to our blog. Now, we can write posts in advance and schedule the date and time in the future for each of them to post to our blog!
Here's how Blogger explains their new feature:
Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.
For more details, check out Blogger's announcement today in Blogger Buzz: "Blogger now schedules future-dated posts."
I've seen lots of vacation countdown tickers on blogs, but just discovered this fun one for a trip to Disney. This cute Disney vacation countdown widget is in the famous mouse's ears.
You might just have to plan a trip to Disney, so you can add the cute widget to your blog!
Here's another fabulous blog designer for all of you Baby Blog Addicts. Jennisa is the designer behind Once Upon A Blog. She is a stay-at-home mom of two who designs blogs in her spare time and has a wait list for a reason...she is very creative and has some adorable blog designs at reasonable prices.
Check out her portfolio of blog designs she's already completed. One of my favorite features is that she has some digital design kit options posted that you can look at and let her know which style you would like her to use for your blog. And they are all soooo cute!
BabyBlogAddict.com was born out of an addiction to baby blogs. At the time, blog designs were pretty standard. Now it's becoming more and more popular to customize your blog and refresh the look every so often (sometimes with the season...other times with the addition of new family members).
Since so many of you Baby Blog Addicts have your own blogs, we are going to start to feature some blog designers, in case you want to spice things up on your own blog. Lots of these blog designers are also stay-at-home-moms which is great since we love to feature mom businesses.
Here's our first - NW Designs. My favorite is that she calls herself the Nap Warden and used that to name her design site, NW, get it?
Check out NW Designs' completed projects. If you like her style and want a new look for your own blog, let her know.
Her prices are reasonable: the whole shebang (template, header, avatar) starts at $35 or a header for $20.
We recently highlighted the tickers from families.com. Then we came across their free counter boxes. The counter boxes are similar to the tickers, but easier to install in the right or left column of your blog, because they are not as wide as the tickers.
Here are the three they offer: the pregnancy counter box, the angel counter box and the trying-to-conceive counter box. They are free and just require a quick log in to families.com.
To see more of the tickers and widgets that we've featured on BBA, click here.
We've already featured a few pregnancy tickers for baby blogs: the lilypie ticker, the baby-gaga ticker, the babystrology ticker and the countdown ticker widget from 3D pregnancy.
Here's another option for you, the tickers from families.com. They offer a pregnancy ticker, TTC ticker, adoption ticker, breastfeeding ticker, birthday ticker and more. Access to the tickers is free, but does require a quick log in.
We've highlighted a few pregnancy countdown tickers in the past - the lilypie ticker, the baby-gaga ticker and the babystrology ticker. Here's another one to check out when you are expecting. It's the Pregnancy Countdown Ticker Widget from 3Dpregnancy.com.
It will count down the days to your due date and show a new image of your baby's development every week. Add it to your blog's outside column so you and everyone else can keep up with your baby's development. Check it out.
Click here for more baby blog tips from BBA.
Blogger has come a long way, but sometimes it's still frustrating to write a "quick post". How many times do you backspace only to delete a picture that you just uploaded? Well, I have a quick tip that will save a lot of time.
If you accidentally delete a picture or a phrase, just use Ctrl-Z (hold down the Ctrl key and press Z) and your last action will be restored!
Lots of bloggers use slideshows like bubbleshare and slide as an element in their blog sidebars.
Now Blogger is allowing you to show off your photos with their latest tool for your blog: the Slideshow page element. This feature lets you add a slick little slideshow of your photos from Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Photobucket, or any site that supports Media RSS.
The photos will show up in your blog’s sidebar, gently fading into one another. Your readers will be able to go forward and backward, pause, and click through to the photo’s web page.
If you are a baby blog addict (and you probably are since you are reading this post on BabyBlogAddict.com), I'm assuming you are a baby photo addict too.
Here are 10 Tips for Capturing All of Baby's Moments:
1. Take pictures frequently and a lot of them.
2. Capture feelings.
3. Get close.
4. Try different angles.
5. Use a simple background.
6. Use natural light.
7. Set up before bringing in baby.
8. Use a fast shutter speed.
9. Make sure the temperature of the room is comfortable.
10. Incorporate play.
I am definitely in compliance with #1, no doubt about it. I think #3 - Get close - is so important and often overlooked. How many times do we hand our camera off to someone to take a picture of our family, only to get more of the sky or the building behind us than our faces?
If you are ever asked to take a picture for someone, please use the zoom or if you don't know how, just take a few steps closer to the people, don't just snap without any thought.
Did you notice that there is a new feature on blogger comments? Now you can subscribe to comments by email making it much easier to stay in the conversational loop after you’ve commented on a post somewhere. Thanks, Blogger!
We've already featured a couple of options when it comes to pregnancy tickers - lilypie.com and baby-gaga.com.
Babystrology offers another free ticker to add to your blog. Due to popular demand, they even added multiple support - twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, and more.
You thought you spent a lot of time checking your favorite baby blogs...now babystrology even offers Baby Games like the PeePee TeePee Launcher to use up even more of your free time. Remember the creative Pee-Pee TeePee for boys that we featured a couple of months ago? Now you can play the game.
Thank goodness we don't get graded on blog spelling. I consider myself to be pretty good at spelling and grammar, but I only scored an 87%. I just knew I would get a 100% until all of the options started to look right. Take the quiz for yourself, then post your results on your own blog or in the comments section here.
When in doubt you can always use spell check on your blog posts or turn to m-w.com (Merriam-Webster's online dictionary), if you want to get an "A+" in blog spelling.
