Creating Custom Blog Buttons + May Giveaway Winner

I designed my blog. Well, kinda...I basically added a few buttons on the side bar, a header, and a fancy background to the basic blogger template.

Many of you asked how I created the blog buttons on the side of my blog.

I made a tutorial so you can create nifty unique buttons for your blog using Microsoft Paint.

Microsoft Paint is very easy to use and I find it to be the most user friendly for people that aren't experienced in fancy programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

For this tutorial we are going to create this button:

 {feel free to use any of the buttons in this post for your blog...just please make a note somewhere on your blog where you got the buttons!}

{Step One} Copy this blue linen background...to do this hover over the image, right click the mouse and select copy.

{Step Two} Open Microsoft Paint.

{Step Three} Right click on the mouse in the Microsoft Paint program and select paste.

{Step Four} Stretch the paint canvas by selecting the corner and drag it out to be larger.

{Step Five} Paste the blue linen once again and line it up next to the first blue linen design.

{Step Six} Go to the line tool and select the second thickest line.

{Step Seven} Select the box tool and create a rectangular box. Be sure to select the color to be white.  I basically eyeballed this to be roughly 2.5in x 1.5in.

{Step Eight} Go to the line tool again and select the thinnest line. This will be the outermost box.

{Step Nine} Create a thin line box outside of the thick box. Be sure to select the color to be white. Once again eyeball it to be even around the innermost box.

{Step Ten} Create a text box somewhere in the white area on the canvas.

{Step Eleven} Select a font, any font to create your tab. For this tutorial I used Bradley Hand ITC. I also made it size 48 font.

{Step Twelve} Click the dashed rectangular box (sorry I don't know the technical Paint terms). Create a box around the text you just typed. Be sure that transparent is selected.

{Step Thirteen} Drag the text to the center of the white boxes you made earlier. Again, a lot of eye balling here...It is going to be imperfectly perfect!

{Step Fourteen} Click on the dashed rectangular box again, but be sure that the transparent button is NOT selected and make a box around the entire sign up button and overlap the blue linen.

{Step Fifteen} Move this rectangle over to the uppermost left corner.

{Step Sixteen} Drag the corners of the white canvas in and even out the sides.

There you go! Sorry for all of the steps. I hope this helps you create amazing side bar buttons for your blog. Below I have included several more tabs you can use on your blog!

You can use different backgrounds to match your blog. Just try some free clipart sites...or google fabrics.

I will have a tutorial in the future for making a custom header.

The winner of the May Giveaway is...

Cupcake Couture

Please email me at evelynkatedesigns@gmail.com with your address and your initials for the custom notecards.