Okay. People have been asking me how I do my themes. I'll try to explain my way. It's not that I'm an expert of the CSS coding. I'm more of a copycat. I take a base theme, then I analyze the links of the graphics, make my own graphics and substitute the theme graphics for mine. Some themes work better for me than others.
I will explain this by parts. Because is near the time of starting again the Online Tatting Classes I'll be busy again. So I'll do this weekly. Please be patient!
First, let talk about what materials I use to make the themes.
You will need a graphic editor program like Paint Shop Pro or Adobe PhotoShop. I use PSP X2 but will work with any version. I haven't work with PS but is the same thing. You can find trials at their web sites.
Corel Trials DowloadsAdobe Trials DownloadsI don't pretend to teach how to use the programs, because I'm learning myself. You will need at least know how to make a graphic with layers, to add text, crop and resize. I don't like to use a lot of animations, but if you know how to do them you're welcome to do add them to your themes.
The second thing you need are the photos or graphics. You can search on the net for photos, but beware of copyrights. If you have notice I don't like to use photos. I use scrapbook kits!!! They are amazing to use for themes. There are thousands of places where you can get them for free (freebies). Here is the "Mother" of all the freebies. I have this page bookmarked and weekly I download freebies.
DigiFree - The Digital Scrapbooking Freebie Search Engine This page will take a long time to load because is super heavy with graphics. Also, I'm not responsible if you get addicted to them! lol
No joking! I have over 100 kits in the external hardrive (over 5 GB) and every week I get more. Does anyone have the Scrappers Anonymous hotline?
Some of the freebies are only obtainable if you buy a bigger kit. Other are QP (Quick Pages) and that's a premade page where you place your photos. Those are not good for themes. So check that you're dowloading a kit. Also they are usually divided into papers and elements. The papers are, well, papers that can be use as backgrounds. The elements are those nifty graphics like ribbons and clips and pearls, cute things like that. There are the minis or samplers. Those are smaller versions of a bigger kit, usually content 1-2 papers and a few elements.
Also I recommend this group on Yahoo
Scrappy Expressions. Melissa, the owner, makes lovely sets that are more suitable to use on PSP because the resolution is smaller than a regular scrapbook kit.
Other thing you'll need. The codes of premade or base themes. I use the tutorials and help from the
Customize your Multiply Profile group. They are great people that know the CSS code and have very nice tutorials. They have some codes written with the transparency settings and are easier to add your own code lines. If you're going to modify the theme of another person be sure to ask permission if that person doesn't states that s/he allows modifications of their themes.
Other thing... This is optional but highly advisable. Get another Multiply account. I have another account that I use solely for the editing of the themes. That way if the code screw up the page, you can delete that account and make another and you don't screw up your page.
Also optional but advisable. Have 2 browsers on your computer. Some themes look perfect in a browser and totally horrendous in another. I have Internet Explorer and Firefox. FF is my default browser. When I'm making the themes I edit the code on IE and then preview it on FF. The Firefox browser can be downloaded
here.
Well, I think that's all for today! If I think something else that you'll need I'll let you know during the week.
Next week where going to start analyzing a Base Theme: Avlack. I think it's the easier to modify...
So go ahead and get your materials. Get a scrapbookit of your preference or we can use all one if you think will be easier.
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He turned 61 this year.
