New Header

I had a great time making this new header. After taking Carolyn's GID 50 and not being allowed to use the special effects for most of the quarter (hee hee!), this felt like being a kid let loose in a candy store!

I spent several hours playing with a multitude of fonts that I have on my computer. I'm a scrapbooker, so I have probably 3,000 to 4,000 fonts in my "collection."

I settled on this casual font, which is called Gabrielle. I have no idea where I got it, unfortunately, but I do know it had to be free, since I don't buy fonts. (No sense buying when there are so many freebies!)

In Fireworks, I created my document at 700 px wide by 150 px tall, and gave it a transparent background because I really wanted the clouds on the template to show. I then found a color that I felt complemented the blog colors, and used that for the text, adding a raised emboss, inner bevel, and drop shadow. I was seeking a monochromatic look, but was unable to change the color of the links in this particular template. I may try again after I submit this, but I don't know if I'll have time.

For the raised emboss, I used width of 6, contrast of 45%, softness of 2, and angle of 135 degrees.

For the inner bevel, I used Smooth, width of 12, contrast of 45%, softness of 4, angle of 135 degrees, and button preset of highlighted.

For the drop shadow, I used a width of 3, contrast of 54%, softness of 3, and angle of 315 degrees.

I also made some modifications to the actual template, because I felt I wanted it to be a little less busy, but I really liked the clouds (for now).

1. I took out the graphic of the lighthouse. I also removed the little lighthouses on each post. I reused the link to the side panel background in place of the background image of the lighthouse. This worked fine except on the right edge, if I opened the page too wide, there's a line.

2. I changed the fonts to Verdana, to coincide better with my new header. I also changed the colors to be a bit more monochromatic, got rid of the red, which felt distracting.

Overall, I'm really happy with how it all came together.