DIY Decorating Your Blog for Any Holiday or Season

Modified on November 29, 2011 by Sue Waters

It’s that time of the year again when people get creative and start decorating their houses for the festive season. Everyone loves Christmas decorations, but did you know that you can get just as creative with decorating your blog?

With so many options now available, we’ve decided to show you how easy it is to decorate your blog for any holiday or season!

We’ve also set up a demo blog so you can check out what a live blog looks like when you use different options to customise with a particular feel!

Adding a Custom Background

Most themes now allow you to set your own custom image header and custom background.

Yet most people are unaware of how easy it is to add a custom background to achieve a more customised look while adding a personalized touch to their blog.

The first step is to search for a free background you’d like to use. Numerous websites provide a wide range of suitable free images and backgrounds.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use, all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Now uploading your background is as simple as:

1. Go to Appearance > Background inside your dashboard.

2. Click on Choose File, select the image you want to upload and then click Upload.

3. Once it is uploaded select your preferred display option and then click Save Changes.

And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom background!

Student bloggers often like using an animated gif for their background. All they need to do is locate the animated .gif they want to use, save it onto their computer the same as you would save any other image, and then upload it as a background.

Of course, animated gifs can be a bit overwhelming when used as a background and Ronnie made me remove my pretty ones

Adding a Custom image header

Custom image headers, like backgrounds can really add to the look and feel of a blog.

You can easily make your own or search for a free image header to use.

Here’s some sites to get you started:

Once you’ve located an image you would like to use all you need to do is right mouse click on the image and select Save Image As (or Save Picture as) to save a copy of the image onto your computer.

Tip:

For the best quality use the recommended image header dimensions for your chosen theme (recommend size for your theme is displayed on Appearance > Header)
I use Snagit to resize and adjust my image headers to the correct size before uploading.

Now uploading your image header is as simple as:

1. Go to Appearance > Header inside your dashboard.

2. Click on Choose file, browse for the image on your computer and then click on Open.

Only .jpeg, .gif, and .png files can be used for image headers.

3. Next click Upload

4. Your image will upload and if it isn’t the exact dimensions you’ll need to select the area you want to crop and then click Crop and Publish.
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And when you check your blog you should now see your new custom image header!

Adding widgets to your sidebar

There are lots of seasonal widgets you can add to your sidebar. Widgetbox provides the best selection of Christmas widgets.

You can check out the widgets I liked in the sidebar of our demo blog. I also added a mixpod widget of Christmas music (student’s love music players on their blogs).

Please note you need to be using an Edublogs Pro blog, Edublogs Campus blog or have had extra features enabled on your blog by a Pro blog to be able to add embed code.

Adding a widget to your sidebar is as simple as:

1. Copy the embed code for the widget.

2. Go to Appearance > Widgets in your dashboard.

3. Click on the sidebar to expand it (so you can add the widget).

4. Drag a text widget from the Available widget area into the sidebar area.

5. Add the embed code to the text widget and click Save.

And when you check your blog you should see your new widget!

Enhancing your posts with embedded media

There’s a gazillion tools that you can easily embed into your posts that can create some great seasonal activities and fun.

Please note you need to be using an Edublogs Pro blog, Edublogs Campus blog or have had extra features enabled on your blog by a Pro blog to be able to add embed code.

I’ve added a selection to our demo blog so you can see how you could use them:

Christmas Trivia Fun – from Widget box
Christmas Glogster – get your students to create their own Christmas Glogster
Christmas VoiceThread – create your own VoiceThread
Christmas LiveBinder - packed full of ideas and Christmas activities
Christmas AnswerGarden
Christmas Quizzes – get your students to create their own quizz!
Christmas Picture Puzzle – from Widget box
Christmas Coloring pages
Festive Turkey scoffing game – from Widget box
Singing Christmas countdown – from Widget Box

You’ll find a comprehensive list of popular web tools to embed here!

Adding them to a post is as simple as:

1. Completely write your post including the title, text, images, tags and categories.

2. Click on Save Draft, preview your post and make all necessary edits.

3. Go to the online tool you want to use and copy the embed code.

4. Click on the HTML tab in your write post area.

5. Paste the embed code into your post where you want it to appear then immediately click Publish

Don’t click back to Visual Tab before hitting Publish as it can break the embed code.
Immediately close your post once you’ve published.
Change back to Visual Editing mode when you write your next post by clicking on the Visual tab.
You use this same process for any website that provides embed code.

And don’t forget the longtime-favorite Let It Snow plugin on Edublogs which adds falling snow right on your blog!

Leave a link to your decked-out and holiday-trimmed blog below so we can all get in the festive mood.

Seasons greetings and happy blog decorating!

The 137 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier

Modified on May 13, 2010 by Sue Waters

We now have a whopping 137 Edublogs themes to choose from ranging from:

Those that can’t be altered to themes that are “extremely customizable”
Standard blog themes to very unique themes including photoblog, magazine, newspaper, twitter and Facebook themes.

Which is excellent!

Important Theme Changes

And we’ve made some important changes to the themes:

Threaded comments – All themes now support threaded comments and any user can activate this feature.
Custom Image Headers - almost all themes now allow you to upload your own custom image header.
Comments on Pages – most themes now support comments on pages
Full posts on Category page - most themes now display full posts on category pages for those users who are using their blogs as photoblogs

You activate the threaded comments feature as follows:

1. Go to Settings > Discussion.

Settings > Discussion

2. Select Enable threaded (nested) comments

Enabling threaded comments

3. Scroll to bottom of page and click Save Changes

Please disable threaded comment plugin before enabling threaded comments via Settings > Discussion.

Categorizing the themes

Since you can spend considerable trying to find the “perfect theme” we’ve helped make your task easier we’ve categorizing the 137 themes based on:

Layout – number of columns
Color Scheme and how customizable the theme is
Ability to upload custom image header – those that allow are shown as recommended header image dimensions, in pixels, to upload (written as width by height)
Presence or absence of links to pages as navigation tabs at the top of the theme – as shown in page link column as Yes/No
Presence or absence of tagline in blog header – as shown in display tagline column as Yes/No
Uniqueness

What to look for with a theme

ONE COLUMN THEMES

One Column theme layout Single Column themes have a central post area with no sidebar.

These theme appeal to people who like to keep their theme simple by preventing the clutter often created by sidebar widgets.

All widgets are located at the bottom of the blog on one column themes.

One Column Themes

TWO COLUMN THEMES WITH LEFT SIDEBAR

Two Column themes normally a wide column for content with a narrower sidebar.

These are the most common theme layout and location of the sidebar (left or right) is personal preference.

Two column themes with left sidebars

TWO COLUMN THEMES WITH RIGHT SIDEBAR

Two Column themes with right sidebar are the most common theme layout so we’ve separated these themes based on color scheme.

White themes

Two Column Right sidebar white themes

Grey themes

Two Column right sidebar grey themes

Brown Themes

Two column right sidebar brown themes

Pink themes

Two Column Right sidebar Pink themes

Green Themes

Blue Themes

Two column right sidebar blue themes

Dark themes

Two column right sidebar dark themes

Themes with easily changed color scheme

Two column theme with right sidebar

THREE COLUMN THEMES WITH LEFT AND RIGHT SIDEBAR

Three column themes have either:

Sidebars side-by-side on one side of the blog
Sidebars on either side of the wider content column

Three column themes with left right sidebars

THREE COLUMN THEMES WITH RIGHT SIDEBARS

The most appealing aspect of three column themes is the ability to place more widgets in the sidebar.

Sidebars side-by-side three column themes on one side of the blog allows you to use this aspect well.

Three column themes with right sidebars

FOUR COLUMN THEMES

Four column themes have one content column and three sidebars.

The content column is often the same width as the other columns. This type of layout tends to be cluttered looking and less suited to reading lengthy content.

Four column themes

VARIABLE COLUMN AND/OR SIDEBAR LOCATION THEMES

Some themes are extremely customisable providing the ability to change the number of columns and/or the location of their sidebars.

Highly Customisable themes

UNIQUE THEMES

These are the specialist themes designed to suit features such as photoblogging, magazine blogs, newspaper blogs, research blogs, group discussions and custom homepages.

Themes like WPMU Dixi, WPMU Nelo and WPMU are the most customisable of all themes and well suited for a wide range of purposes.

Unique themes

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Updated: 100 Edublogs Themes Review To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier

Modified on November 26, 2009 by Sue Waters

This is an update version of The 100 Edublogs Themes Separated Into Categories To Make Choosing Your Next Theme Easier post!

Given there are 100 Edublogs themes to choose from ranging from those that can’t be altered to themes that are “extremely customizable” you can spend considerable time testing themes to find the “perfect theme”.

So to help make your task easier we’ve categorizing the 100 themes based on:

Layout – number of columns
Color Scheme and how customizable the theme is
Ability to upload custom image header – those that allow are shown as recommended header image dimensions, in pixels, to upload (written as width by height)
Presence or absence of links to pages as navigation tabs at the top of the theme – as shown in page link column as Yes/No
Presence or absence of tagline in blog header – as shown in display tagline column as Yes/No