January 24, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

I am excited that right at the launch of this blog there are three giveaways available to share with you! If ever you wanted to a free makeover for your blog, now is the time to try.

Blogs by Danielle is giving away a free makeover. To enter you simply go to her site, become a follower (great for hearing about giveaways, freebies and new designs), post about the giveaway on your own blog and then leave a comment for her. Winner will be announces January 30th.

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April Showers is giving away quite a few things. Two winners will be chosen in each category.

1. Totally Awesomely Amazingly Wonderful Customized Blog Layout! Of course this is going to be the numero uno prize silly head! The winners get one of everything under the Blog TLC link above.

2. A $40 gift basket filled with TONS of customized mark. and Bath and Body Works products! Luxurious shower gels, yummy lotions, makeup, hair styling products, accessories, jewelry and more! Click on the link —–> on the right sidebar to go to my online store and pre-browse!
3. Custom Illustration! How cute would you look as a cartoon? Adorable!!! Full body, half, or headshot available. You can use it as your avatar, incorporate it into a header, or even print it out and put it on cards or embellishments. Great for Etsy stuff!
4. 10 winners will get 50% off any blog TLC items of their choice!

Wow! With so many things being given away, you have a really good chance! To be entered in the drawing, you must add her giveaway button to your side bar (she explains how), post about the drawing on your blog and leave a comment on her blog.

Be sure to read through the ways to get additional entries. Deadline for entries is February 1st.

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In honor of their grand opening, That Blog Place is giving away 10 free headers. Simply leave a comment on their blog and you are entered. Giveaway ends February 1st.

I have entered all of them already and if I win something, I am going to give it away here in February!

April 10, 2012 By The Blog Designer Network

This is a guest post by April Patel. If I have said it once, I have said it 100 times… “I’m going to go kill some time on Pinterest. If I’m not back in an hour, send reinforcements!” Chances are you might not know about Pinterest yet. But then again, it is the fastest growing […]

January 23, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

The following are women-owned businesses which design web stores. Auction Add-Ons Blogalicious Web Design Boutique Graphics Cutest Site On The Block Designs by Deanna Edub Graphic Art and Design (Etsy banners) Hip Chick Web Design Lightining Bug Designs My Pixel Shoppes Polka Dot Dandy Posh Daisy Web Design Retro Boutiques Simply Creative Sweet Boutique Design […]

March 22, 2011 By Cheryl

  One of the things I love most about using HootSuite for Twitter, is the ability to schedule Tweets. Did you know you can also use HootSuite to schedule things to post on your Facebook page? I’ll show you just how easy it is………….. You need to start with a HootSuite Account and sign in. […]

January 22, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

The following are sites that I have found which contain all different sorts of things (buttons, graphics, ideas) which may aid you in your blogging or help you add fun and spice to your blog. They are just “extra.” Buttonator Chubby Cheeks Graphix Cinnamon Girl Studio Design (free Twitter bird graphics) Color Schemer Colour Lovers […]

April 3, 2011 By April M

This code below will allow all your links and buttons to open in a new window without having to do any extra work (meaning – WITHOUT adding the target=”_blank” to each and every link). Yay!! The code below will scan your blog for external pages and add the target=”_blank” to each and every one of them.

Before you begin please be sure to save a copy of your current HTML Code to your computer first.

Step 1: Log into Blogger then click on “Design”  >  “Edit HTML”

Step 2: Press Ctrl+F and find this code . Right before that code copy and paste the following:

//

jQuery(‘a’).each(function() {

// Let’s make external links open in a new window.

var href = jQuery(this).attr(‘href’);

if (typeof href != ‘undefined’ && href != “” && (href.indexOf(‘http://’) != -1 || href.indexOf(‘https://’) != -1) && href.indexOf(window.location.hostname) == -1) {

jQuery(this).attr(“target”, “_blank”);

}

});

//]]>

Step 3: Click “Save Template”

Let me know if it works for you.

January 18, 2011 By Dawn Farias

Hi, everyone!  I’ve collected a few links and tips for you Blogger users.  Hope you find some of them to be helpful. 1. Add a horizontal drop down menu in Blogger. Horizontal drop down menu in Blogger from Confessions of a Homeschooler Drop down menu bar for Blogger from April Showers Blog Design 2. How […]

April 28, 2010 By Amanda Padgett

Before I get into today’s post, I want to thank all my sweet followers! In the past 14 months, 501 lovely ladies have decided, for whatever reason, that BBD is worth following. I appreciate all of you and hope that BBD is a useful, user friendly resource for you to use over and over. To […]

March 31, 2010 By Amanda Padgett

Breaking away from blog design talk to share about me and find out about you! Most of you who follow this blog do so for tutorials, designers lists and blog design giveaways, and probably know very little about me. Now, I am not that important to the value of Beautiful Blog Designs, but I thought […]

January 26, 2010 By Amanda Padgett

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winner, Summer, comment #17, from Lady Luck’s Abode!  (I usually paste in the Random.org part here, but I exited out of the page and can’t get back. It was #17, I promise LOL).   Today we have the Grand Prize to finish off the birthday bash for […]

January 21, 2010 By Amanda Padgett

ONE YEAR BLOGOVERSARY! Today is a special day for Beautiful Blog Designs!! One year ago I wrote my first post and made the blog “live.” I so wish I had done a screen print of that day so you could see the meager beginnings of BBD. It would make us all smile. I have some […]

July 2, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

Congratulations to Rachelle at Mommy I’m Hungry! She is the winner of the custom Twitter design from Delicious Designs by Trista. I can’t wait to see what Trista creates for her. Thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway and I sorry I couldn’t have all of you win. Even though you didn’t win […]

June 26, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

I read this post at EightCrazy and because I firmly believe Firefox is better I wanted to share it. Basically, web designers everywhere are using Firefox because it works with codes whereas Internet Explorer has all kinds of kinks in it. Read her post, she explains it better. For months I was having issues here […]

June 22, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

If you are a follower or subscriber and you are getting all kind of posts coming from BBD, please forgive me. I had a navigation bar put below the header and moved the links from the sidebar to different posts for each category. I have a little more rearranging to do, so please excuse the […]

May 27, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

Need a bloggy facelift? Well, there are several custom blog giveaways going on right now! Head on over to Diana Rambles, to sign up to win this makeover from Custom Blog Designs. You can see a proof of the makeover here. Customization and numbered comments are included. Giveaway goes through May 31. ****************************** Blog Makeovers […]

March 18, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

Okay, I have finally returned from my little Internet vacation. I had hoped to come back over the weekend, but enjoyed reading too much. Anyway, I have some posts I need to finish before making them live. I do want to let you know that I have a few giveaways coming up so make sure […]

February 17, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

The last designer I showcased was Smitten Blog Designs and I was ready to showcase another designer this week until I discovered that today Smitten Blog Designs has just launched i.Smitten, a site dedicated to very affordable, beautiful premade blog templates. Each blog templates at i.Smitten is just $5! That price is perfect for the […]

January 23, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

If you want a huge selection of gorgeous FREE templates go to Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates. The designer there is Lena Toews and she has shared many, many incredible templates for you to use, 100% free of charge. You simply browse through the categories and pick out the one you want. She has also provided […]

January 22, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

The following are designers who offer free blog backgrounds (sometimes called skins). Instructions on how to load them are provided by the designer. Addie Designs Affordable Designs For You Allie Browns Layouts Almost Ready Blogs Aqua Poppy Designs Ashley’s Layouts Babbling Brook Designs Bling on the Blog Blissfully Just Me Layouts Blog-ology Blogaholic Designs Blogaroozer […]

May 19, 2011 By Dawn Farias

Isn’t color a lovely thing to have? It brightens, darkens, defines and suggests. Hopefully, the colors on your blog do all these things in a pleasurable please-stay-and-even-come-back-again kind of way. If you’re stuck in a color rut, then today is your lucky day. Here are a few of my favorite places to go for color […]

March 22, 2011 By Cheryl

  One of the things I love most about using HootSuite for Twitter, is the ability to schedule Tweets. Did you know you can also use HootSuite to schedule things to post on your Facebook page? I’ll show you just how easy it is………….. You need to start with a HootSuite Account and sign in. […]

January 24, 2009 By Amanda Padgett

For more helpful posts on blogging, click on “blogging help” in the label cloud in the sidebar. For tutorials on various blogging topics, go to my Tutorials page. Here are some other places to get answers to your blogging questions. HTML 101 (courtesy of A Blog to Brag About) Memes Blog Design How To’s BlogCoach […]

April 11, 2011 By Chris

They say that the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one. When deciding how I wanted  the second half of my career to go, first I needed to sit down and address the most glaring and obnoxious mistakes I’d been making. If I couldn’t identify what I was doing wrong, there […]

April 4, 2011 By Chris

I graduated from the graphic design program at City College back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, internet-wise. We learned PageMaker 1.0 and Photoshop 2.5 (Before there were layers. That was fun.) If you wanted one of the two color computers (Apple LCIIIs—the rest were black and white Mac classics), you needed to show up around […]