January 18, 2006

Begging for Blog Help

OK. I'll admit it. Although I am an artsy person (I draw and doodle endlessly) and love art and music with a passion... and absolutely love web and printed art (I'm much better at desktop publishing), I have little know-how for web graphics and design. I wanted to be a Disney Animator when I was growing up... or a famous artist or children's book writer. Those dreams disappeared into the thin mist of tobacco smoke rings and empty beer bottles... but have been locked up in the back of my mind since childhood. Through learning web design, I hope to renew some of that long hidden talent and give myself an outlet for it (maybe someday even make money at it?)... not just through blogging, but also in design somehow.

One of the reasons blogging has such a pull for me is because of the creative license it gives me. I was one of those kids who journaled and did notebooks back before they were so popular. I used to scour magazines and clip every little word and picture and keep them in a box to glue into notes and spiral bound journals. I get a thrill out of looking at people's animated graphics and backgrounds. Maybe it's a sickness?

So what is the point of this confession? To grovel, that's what. You know who you are... those of you out there with the skill to upload and change graphics, design pages, arrange templates and columns... and I NEED YOU. Not just to help my blog... but maybe to give me a free lesson or two so I can help myself! All I can offer is word-of-blog referrals for your trouble. Alas, I am as "poor as dirt". But, hopefully those of you reading this with a little skill under your belt in the blog design arena won't mind throwing me some table scraps.

Any takers?

10 comments:

Spunky said...

I offer no assistance. Sorry. I hope you find what you are looking for. I found a lot of assistance at from the homeschool kids at Still Thinking. You can get the link from my sidebar. They may be able to help you. Just thought I'd pass them along.

Gracie said...

Hi Sprittibee (cool name! :)) I found you through Women4GodBlogs...

Anyway, I know a great person who can help you (i.e. I don’t know her personally but I've seen her designs and they’re amazing!)

Go check out Yvonne's Blog (http://www.yvonneparks.blogspot.com)

Or you can go straight to her design portfolio page and see what she can create (http://www.yvonneparks.com/portfolio.html)

I know she charges for her designs (they’re worth it tho’) but if you have a picture/design in mind and would like help with making it work on your blog without the expense (I understand poor as dirt – am bit like that right now too!) then I’d be happy to help.

I’m also trying my hand at making my own blog designs, still a work in progress...my creativity isn’t up to scratch right now, just need to find that right picture or design to work with :) But who knows, with your creativity and my helping you upload, change, arrange templates and/or columns…well it just might do the trick! :)

Sprittibee said...

Spunky... I would love for Still Thinking to help me out, but I really want more than just help... I want someone to baby-step me through it so I can learn it myself. This would be hard for them since they are so far away and are busy with school and running their business. I also would feel like I was cheating them since that's what they do for a living. I think what I'm looking for is a win-win situation where I can help someone else and they can help me. Maybe a novice with a lot of talent who's not looking to get paid just yet? :)

Faraja - Maybe you are an answered prayer!? I'd love to chat. Email me off-blog. I will check out yvonne's blog as well.

Bug - I'll check out that site. I surfed quite a bit last night and found so many interesting web design and graphic arts sites. It frustrates me that my interests lie there and yet my heart feels that homeschooling will not allow me to persue it at this time. I could maybe do some free-time learning via email... but sitting down with a HTML manual is out of the question. It is hard enough to get an hour of Bible study in every day! :( The good thing is, I know enough to proceed if someone were to guide me as to what programs to use, what buttons to click, what dpi to use, and maybe a few cheat sheet html codes such as those on webmonkey. I can do minor graphic changes to the site through minimal code... but I want to change the whole layout... and am afraid that I'll ruin the functionality of the blog if I don't get it right. :)

Sprittibee said...

Bev - I checked out the tutorial you suggested and read it. My problem is that I know all of that (learned it all from web monkey on my own), but that is where I ended my design career. Ha! I would like to know more than just basics - and how to steal code from other people's websites - (shhhh!) so I can make the documents pretty without using a nasty blog template like I am now. :) I want to understand and use CSS and be able to add multiple pages for my links/etc. I have collected a bunch of websites and blogs in a folder of links in my browser that I like the layout of. I'm hoping to browse through their code and try and decipher some of it. Maybe I can learn some that way. ;)

Oh, well... times up. Have to get back to homeschooling! :)

Linda Kelley said...

Have you checked out Natalie Jost's designs and web site? She did my design for my homeschool blogger blog http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/LindaKelley/. She's a fabulous web designer. I know she's pretty busy right now. But, she always has tons of great design tips/books/links on her web site at http://nataliejost.com/

Anonymous said...

I'm no professional, but I write most of my own codes for my blogs and such (myspace, livejournal, xanga) so if you want, I can try to help you. What type of layout are you looking to create? Do you have examples?

- bev's sis, becca

Anonymous said...

No professional here, but I am pretty fluent in HTML, still learning CSS. I just like to mess around with coding until I get what I like.

A great place to start is http://www.lissaexplains.com/ it's touted as a tutorial "for kids" but personally I think it's great for learning the basics and the "not so basic".

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I am Priya ,live with my family,i have 2kids,they are small my husband was badly ill last 2years so he lost his job and we faced more financial problems last 2years .I have to payable loans ,need money to my kids for their school needfully and meals and cloths,also my house owner threatened me to vacate their home because no paid his rent also Electricity bill,water bill ,have to pay.Bank loans also very high .
Please help me
Spenser my family
send at least $1

If you like to donate me at least $1 Please use my
Pay Pal account
donhenp@gmail.com

Or mail me dhpdon@yahoo.com

God Bless You.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I am Priya ,live with my family,i have 2kids,they are small my husband was badly ill last 2years so he lost his job and we faced more financial problems last 2years .I have to payable loans ,need money to my kids for their school needfully and meals and cloths,also my house owner threatened me to vacate their home because no paid his rent also Electricity bill,water bill ,have to pay.Bank loans also very high .
Please help me
Spenser my family
send at least $1

If you like to donate me at least $1 Please use my
Pay Pal account
donhenp@gmail.com

Or mail me dhpdon@yahoo.com

God Bless You.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I am Priya ,live with my family,i have 2kids,they are small my husband was badly ill last 2years so he lost his job and we faced more financial problems last 2years .I have to payable loans ,need money to my kids for their school needfully and meals and cloths,also my house owner threatened me to vacate their home because no paid his rent also Electricity bill,water bill ,have to pay.Bank loans also very high .
Please help me
Spenser my family
send at least $1

If you like to donate me at least $1 Please use my
Pay Pal account
donhenp@gmail.com

Or mail me dhpdon@yahoo.com

God Bless You.

 

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