Blog Design Tips: Tumblr Edition

So, as some of you may know, I am a bonafide Tumblr addict. I spend a lot of time on that website reblogging photos, design inspiration as well as anything else that may come across my dash. Part of my Tumblr obsession as well, is designing and redesigning my theme. I love to make my blog my own by adding cute graphics and details. And in today's post, I'll show you how I get the desired look in this Tumblr design tutorial!

Also, if you're interested, you can check out my Tumblr, pizzalyfe.tumblr.com, where this post was originally published. Enjoy!

Step 1: Decide on your theme. 

So you’re going to want to pick a theme that work for this. I personally love ocehans because they usually come with an option to upload a ‘decoration’ which is great for this. In my example the “decoration” is the palm tree. So once you have a theme that you think will work for this, you want to decide what vibe to go for, and therefore what pictures to find. So that will take some thinking and googling and stuff. (My general tip is pick some decorations that either suit your personality or your blog type!) 

(here’s the general idea of the theme i picked) 

Step 2: Decide on two images. 

Today, I picked a palm tree and a pineapple. I usually like to pick hand drawings rather than a photo or digital art. I just find it gives a nicer vibe. 

So now you can upload your decoration straight to your theme. But, for the secondary decoration, in this case the pineapple, you need to resize it. For most sidebars anywhere from 250-100px width will work, you might just need to play around with it. I resized mine to 100px in this tutorial. 

(this is how you would do it in photoshop) 

Step 3: Insert your secondary decoration into side bar

So this part is just a tad bit trickier, because, as you’ve probably noticed you can’t just upload an image into your description. So, what we’re going to do is upload the photo into the text post, and copy the image code into the description. It sounds complicated but I promise it isn’t! 

1. Upload image to text post 

2. Select HTML 

3. Copy and paste the entire line into your description. 

The final result, after you click “update preview” should look like this 

Step 4: Incorporate into other pages

No now that you have everything nicely in your theme, it’s time to create some title cards to tie everything together. Today I’ll be using photoshop but I’m sure you can do this with online stuff like Pic Monkey or whatever. So, basically all I am going to do is use the secondary decoration next to the title, with a nice font that I chose. 

Font: Pacifico 

You’ll want to make the entire image about 500x200px, because tumblr posts/pages are 500px wide. 72pt font should work. And just resize your image until you think it looks good. This is what I came up with for my ask / FAQ page. 

So now, you want to delete the title field for the page (just add a space in instead, so text won’t appear above your new title) From there you can add whatever you want to the page, for instance, if you want to make your own FAQ page you can follow my tutorial here on how to add an ask box to a page. 

Step 5: Repeat as desired 

So, now that you have the basics down, you can pretty much add little details like that all over your blog to make it your own. 

Enjoy your newly beautiful blog! 

DIY Holiday Gifts & Treats!

So, unfortunately, I'm really late to posting this. Dan and I made these really sweet treats long before Christmas, and I had planned to post it to give you guys some holiday baking inspiration. But, as it does, life got in the way. But better late than never, right? 

This year, for gifts for our families, we decided to make some treats rather than buying something. So, here are the things that we made: 

White Chocolate Popcorn 

How its Made: 

1. Pop some pop corn, and lay it out on a wax paper covered baking tray

2. Sprinkle some pretzels and M&Ms over the entire surface 

3. Melt white chocolate (either with a double boiler or microwave) and thoroughly drizzle over the entire mix. 

4. Let it set for an hour or so, and package. 

Chocolate Bark 

How It's Made

1. Melt white chocolate in double boiler or microwave. 

3. Pour white chocolate onto a baking sheet covered in wax paper. 

4. Let the white chocolate set for up to three hours, depending on the kind of chocolate and temperature of the room. You may want to leave it to set in the fridge. 

5. Once the white chocolate is set, melt milk chocolate, and pour evenly over the base of white. 

6. While the milk chocolate is still setting, sprinkle pistachios, almonds, dried cranberries, or whatever you'd like over the chocolate. 

7. Once the milk chocolate has begun to set for a few minutes, melt red-coloured chocolate and drizzle over the entire thing for some extra decoration. 

Finally, let the whole thing set for a few hours before breaking the bark and packaging it. 

DIY Gift Wrap

We also decided to make a bit of a home made packaging for our gifts. 

First, I designed an original Christmas card in Photoshop, and printed it off on regular printer paper. 

Then, I glued both the back and front parts of the card onto card stock, which I bought in a card making kit at the Dollar Store. 

Finally, I added some chalk board stickers, and wrote the names of the recipients on each. 

So, each of our parents and grandparents received this small gift from us, along with a personalized card.

I hope this was possibly helpful for some of you in the future, and that you enjoyed the photos :) If you made anything DIY for Christmas, I'd love to hear about it, so let me know in the comments!

DIY Bath & Body Gifts for Christmas

Handmade, Organic, DIY Body Products 

For Christmas this year, I decided to make some of my friends and family these fresh, hand made bath products. I think homemade presents are really nice because they really come from the heart. It takes a long time to plan and execute some of these DIYs, so I think its a really nice sentiment to give something hand made. On top of that, homemade body products are the best because they're natural and organic, and you know exactly what you're putting on your skin. 

For full details and directions on how to make the following products, check out the links I've left bellow. And if you try to make any of these for yourself, let me know how they turn out! 

Green Tea & Lavender Body Cream

Based on a recipe from this website. 

Vanilla Sugar Body Scrub

Ingredients: 

- Brown Sugar

- Coconut Oil

- Vanilla

- Vitamin E 

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and stir thoroughly. 

Bumble Bee Lip Balm 

Based on a recipe found here. 

Hope you enjoyed! And of course, happy holidays! 

Christmas Spirit

 

Comfy Winter Day Outfit 

It's officially December and you can bet I'm already in the Christmas spirit! Even though I'm just in my dorm room at school, I've decorated a bit to make it feel a bit more like Christmas.

Christmas Decor Essentials:

1) Twinkly lights! 

2) Silver or Gold tinsel 

3) A mini Christmas tree! 

Along with Christmas time means being inside a lot more, so I have been dressing warm and comfy most of the time. This also becomes my full time wardrobe as of exam time. And of course, winter holidays means a lot more reading, too! Lately I've been reading The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. I'm hoping to get through it over Christmas. Let me know in the comments what books you've been reading lately! I always love suggestions.