The Best of 2012

I thought that it would be fun to kick off 2013 by looking back at some of my best posts from 2012. A lot of blogs I read have been doing this and I personally really like seeing the highlight reel from the past year. So here are some of the favorites, both mine and yours (based on comments and pageviews). As always, I'm thankful to those who take the time to visit!

1. Banana Oatmeal Muffins 2. Fabric-covered drawers 3. Linen Closet Makeover 4. 31 Days Series 5. Fall Front Porch 

6. Kids Craft Packs 7. Medicine Cabinet Reorganization 8. Master Bedroom Closet Overhaul 9. Kitchen Reveal

Grab A Sweeter Still Button

I'm excited to announce that you can now snag your very own Sweeter Still button (see it there on the sidebar?!?). I put this together using PicMonkey and I'm pretty darn happy with how it all turned out. 

If you feel like being fantastic today, then you can grab my button and display it wherever it is that you choose to display blog buttons :) If you do, please leave me a comment so I can be filled with gratitude and gush over you obnoxiously!

Make a Blog Button with PicMonkey

Have you ever seen cute little graphics (aka buttons) on blogs like the ones below and wondered how on Earth they are created? Or maybe thought you could never make one for yourself? Well, you were wrong and today I'm going to show you how.

                          
FYI The buttons above were probably made by someone with far superior design skills than yours truly, but this tutorial will show you how you can still make cute buttons for your blog even without a degree in graphic design. If I can do it, you can do it!

*This is not a sponsored post. The opinions are my own and I'm simply sharing a great tool that I've found incredibly useful.

PickMonkey is a super easy, FREE online photo editing program that I used to make my own custom blog header. In my opinion, it just takes a little practice to find your way around the program. There are a lot of options and the buttons I made for this tutorial are pretty simple compared to all the detail you could add. So here we go...

Customizing Your Blog Header Using PicMonkey

Lately I've been making some changes here on Sweeter Still. I've been adding a few features to customize my blog and trying out some new tricks. One really fun tool I just discovered is PicMonkey, a FREE online photo editing program. 

Today I'll show you how I made my own custom blog header using free resources off the web. It was easy to do and makes my blog feel more personal and inviting.

First I grabbed the free header that corresponds with my background from Shabbyblogs.com. It was just a quick download. Then I opened PicMonkey in a browser window. One big plus for PicMonkey is it works online so you don't have to download a program to use it.

Choose the Edit Photo option on the home page and select the header image from your Download folder. The photo editing window opens with your image ready to be customized.

Next I opened the text editing option (see that P along the side).

Enter the text in the box at the top left and choose a font that you like. I wanted something informal so I chose the "Shadows Into Light Two" font, which you can see highlighted. Click Add and the text box will appear on your image with an editing box.

Originally I saved the image this way and uploaded it to Blogger but it was too small and left this weird blank space at the top of the page. So I re-opened the image and opened the Effects editing tool (the first option on the list).

Click on Resize and you can play with the size and proportions of the image. If you want to stretch it vertically or horizontally, be sure to uncheck the Keep Proportions box.

When you are done editing, just click Save and you are ready to upload it to your blog. So easy right?!

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