If you are looking to start a craft blog, here is a simple, easy to follow guide that will take you through the steps to creating your own blog at Google.com. There are many other options for blogging platforms, but I chose Blogger since it is owned by Google.
If you would like to set up your craft blog at Wordpress, Typepad or some other platform, the setup should be very similar. Go ahead and follow through this guide and you should be able to set one up at one of those other locations.
Click on the orange arrow that says “Create Your Blog Now.”
Create Your Account
Now you will come to a page that looks like this.
If you already have a Google account, you can go ahead and sign in. If not you will need to create an account. Simply fill in all the fields on this page. First you need to provide an active email account that you have, and then retype it.
Next you’ll choose a password for your account. Try to come up with something that is easy for you to remember, but difficult for someone else to guess. You are required to retype this password to be certain you haven’t made a typo.
Now you need to choose a display name. This is the name that will show up on your blog posts. I use my first name for this and I believe that is the most common choice by most people. Some people may choose to use their first and last name or pseudonym. For greater credibility I recommend using your first name rather than some made up name.
There is also a visual verification to be certain you are a human and not a computer creating an account. Simply type the characters you see into the box. If you have difficulty reading the characters, there is a little Disabled icon next to the box you can click on for assistance.
Lastly, have a gander at the terms of service and check the box saying you agree. Then click the orange arrow that says, “Continue.”
Name Your Craft Blog
It is time to think up a title for your craft blog. Ideally your title should reflect the purpose or topic of your blog. If your blog will be about needlepoint, then you should try to have the word “needlepoint” in your title.
After you enter the title of your blog, you need to enter the blog address or URL of your site. Hopefully this will be the same as your title or a portion of your title.
For instance, if you have chosen “Card Making Fun” as your title, it is a good idea to use something like “cardmakingfun.blogspot.com” as your address. You simple enter “cardmakingfun” in the space provided and blogger will add the “blogspot.com” to the end.
After you type in the address you want, click on the “Check Availability” button below. If that address is in use you will be told it is unavailable and instructed to choose another. You will also be given some alternative suggestions.
Once you happy with the blog address you have chosen, click on the orange arrow that says “Continue.”
Choose a Template
This next screen is where you choose a template for your craft site. A template is the overall look and navigation of your blog. There are several for you to choose from. Just pick the one you like best, and check the box below it.
Don’t get too concerned about this step. You can change your blog’s template at any time quite easily. I will cover how to do that later. Once you have picked your template, click on the orange “Continue” button.
Your Blog Has Been Created!
You should now see a screen that says your blog has been created. Go ahead and click on the orange arrow that says, “Start Posting.” Don’t worry. You don’t have to start posting yet, if you’re not ready. But you do want to see your new blog, don’t you?
If you did everything correctly, you should now be at your blog control panel. This is where you make posts and administer you site.
From your control panel, you should see three main tabs, Posting, Settings and Template. Next to the Template tab you should see an option to View Blog. Go ahead and click on View Blog.
View Your New Craft Blog
You should now be viewing your new craft blog. Here is what mine looks like so far. Yours will look differently, depending on which template you have chosen.
It is not very exciting so far. I need to add some posts and dress it up a bit. Notice the user bar at the top of the blog? The stuff to the left is for browsing other Blogger blogs.
Whenever you are logged in there will also be some links on the right side. New Post will take you back to the control panel where we just were. Customize will also take you back to the control panel, but to the template tab where you can make changes to the look of your site. A third option is to Sign Out. If you access your site while not logged in, you would see a Sign In option rather than the three previous options.
Customize Your Blog
For now, let’s click on Customize and make some changes.
Now when I created my blog, there was no title bar at the top. That may not be the case depending on which template you use. I want to add a title to the top of my blog so I am going to click on “Add a Page Element.” It doesn’t really matter which one I click on because I can drag it around later to put it where I want. Go ahead and click on “Add a Page Element.”
This will cause a new window to open up. If this doesn’t happen you may need to turn off your pop up blocker temporarily. You should now see a new screen that looks like this:
Scroll down to the bottom of the pop up window until you see the Page Header option.
Click on “Add to Blog.” Now you will see a new window for configuring your title.
You can change the title of your blog if you would like (this will not change the URL address, however). You can also add a short description or catch phrase if you would like. This will be in a smaller font and just below your title. It is a good idea to add a description especially if your title is not very descriptive itself.
Another option is to add an image to your header. Feel free to do this if you have an image you would like to have on your header. If you don’t like how it looks, you can always edit it later.
Now click on “Save Changes” and your header will be added to your blog. The pop up window will now close and you will see the new Header Page Element in your layout.
New elements are always added at the bottom of whichever column you added it to. We need the header to be at the top of the page so click and hold somewhere on the Page Header element and drag it to just above the Blog Posts element.
When you get the Header element in place, you will see a blank white box appear where it will go when you release it. Go ahead and let go of your mouse button and it should drop into place. If it doesn’t work, or goes somewhere unintended, don’t worry. Just move it again until you get it right.
When you get the header in place, click on the orange “Save” button. If you forget to do this, your header will not be saved in the correct position and you will have to go back and do it again.
While in the edit template section of your control panel, you can also use the menu bar directly under the template tab to navigate to areas where you may edit the fonts and colors of your blog, edit the HTML of your template or even change to a new template.
I won’t go into how to do those things at this point. Just be aware that you have the option to go in and make changes to those areas at any time you like.
Settings
Now click on the “Settings” tab. There is not much you need to change here at this point, but take a look around and get familiar with all the different settings. The one thing I do recommend changing is who can leave comments on your craft blog.
Navigate to the “Comments” section. In the “Who can comment” section it is probably set to “Only Google Users” can comment. I suggest switching to allowing anyone to comment. This will make it more likely that viewers will comment.
After making that change, scroll to the bottom of the page click on “Save Settings.”
Make Your First Post
Now it is time to make a post. Click on the “Posting” tab and you should be taken back to this screen -
From here you can create new posts or click on one of the links to “Edit Posts” or “Moderate Comments.” For now we will create the first post.
Above the editing box is an area to write your post title. Go ahead and enter the title you would like to use for your first post.
At the top of the editing box are two tabs, “Edit HTML” and “Compose.” I usually write my posts while in the compose mode, but if you are familiar with html you can use that feature. I recommend only editing your html if there is some specific task you cannot perform in the compose mode.
Just below the “Compose” tab is an option to “Preview.” You can click on that any time for a preview of your post. You will have to click on “Hide Preview” to return to the compose mode.
You can begin entering your text in the text area of the editing box. All the little icons above the text area are for formatting and adding links, photos and video. I recommend experimenting with all these formatting options to develop familiarity with them.
Blogger will auto save drafts of your post, but you can force a save before navigating away from the page by clicking on the save button. After you have completed your post you have to click on the “Publish” button before it will be live on the web.
Also, if you want to go back later and edit a post, you can do that by navigating to the “Edit Posts” section and selecting the post you would like to edit. Once you make changes to a post, those changes will not show up to your viewers until you “Publish” again.
It is important to note that there is a difference between saving and publishing. Saving will save the post so that you can return to it later and make changes, but it will not be “on the web” until you publish it.
Now You're Finished
So that is a very basic guide to starting a craft blog using Blogger. Be sure to bookmark it before you sign out and leave. You can sign back in anytime by entering the email address and password you used to create your account.
There is a lot you can do to customize your blog, by adding link lists, ads. You can even sell your own crafts directly from your blog by using Pay Pal or some other merchant service.
