Finding a template that suits your mood

I started a few months ago wanting to find a template for my blogs that fit the mood of each blog.

The most important blog being To Write is to Dream and finding the perfect template for that in the end meant a lot of searching. I kept thinking I wanted a background with clouds and so I used that as a keyword in my search. I ended up finding the floating template that I am currently using - however there was a problem. The image used as the background would break if you viewed my blog through IE or had a larger monitor and so forth. I knew that the template was what I wanted and could figure no easy way to fix the image problem.

At the same time I wanted to make it easier to browse my blog. The first widget I used was the cloud tag widget and I have included this widget in all my blogs. However, this still did not seem enough. The answer to how I could make my blog more searchable came when I found the template for this blog Behind Dreaming. This template had tabs that I could name myself and add URL that I wanted. Further stil,l there was a widget that meant I could search the blog's content. Now this is where I admit that I took the code from this blog and added it to my main blog. However, by doing this I had created a new problem. The black colour of the tabs and search box also came with the code as it was a part of their images.

I would like to say at this point it was my genius that helped me figure out how to remove the black images - but I am a wee too honest to let the occur. The links to the images broke within this template and of course within the code I had transferred across. It made this blog look silly but meant I now had the tabs and search box looking perfect for my main blog. So I was very happy on one hand and annoyed on the other. I found where the creator had moved the template images and replaced all the links. I then left main blog alone with the broken links. Now I was truly happy.

So a note at this point: you should save your templates for your blog somewhere else, especially the images embedded within the template. There are different accounts that you can store the images like photobucket or if you have a paid LiveJournal account.

The last stage of creating a blog template that suits the mood is to think of combining a template you like and then changing things like colours and images to fit what you want. This is why you need to back up your template. The other night I have a moment of clarity and realised that the perfect image for the background of my main blog To Write is to Dream was something my friend had taken. After going through many of Graeme's photos we selected the one we thought worked best. If you like the background image then you can see more at Araquel's Pictures, which I have directed you to the landscapes.

This same friend kindly has provided a link to the high res image from one of his accounts. So thank you Graeme for allowing me to use the image and also providing access.