For the first week of the “Improve your Blog” month I am going to concentrate on my template. To that end I want to provide you with a selection of FREE templates that I have found.
As a disclaimer-I have not used any of these templates, and have no idea how easy they are, if they work, if there are bugs, etc etc etc. I am simply providing you with some links. I found a ton of them by simply “Googling” the phrase “free blog template”. If you are using a platform other than blogger, you can do the same by adding in a phrase to include your particular platform (ie wordpress, typepad, myspace etc etc etc) and see what you come up with.
Oh, and as a clarification-there are several different phrases used on the “net” to refer to the templates. You will see “Templates”, “Themes”, “Skins”, and maybe even “Schemes”, although that last is not as popular. When you are mining for information on the web, it is a good idea to try different variations-so for my search I tried “Free Blog* Templates”, “Free Blog* Skins”, “Free Blog* Themes” etc. (The asterisk (*) is used as a wild card in computer language-it means that the computer can fill in anything for it-so when it did a search for Blog* it could fill in Blog or Blogger. That’s a useful little tip to know when doing a search and you aren’t sure if something is spelled with an S on the end or not, or if there is an ING etc etc-just stick the * on the end and it will include all variations. You can also put it at the beginning of a word, or in the middle. . . .)
Here are some sites that I found which seem really interesting. Most of them are for Blogger, a few are for WordPress:
Zoots Designs-This lady has some very lovely 2 column designs for Blogger. She says she will be adding some other platforms eventually.
Isnaini Dot Com’s free Classic blogger templates has a ton of templates-I’m a little nervous that the code might not be in English though. The directions are in English, but if you click on any of the other links they are obviously, well, not. He has some 3 column designs that I like and I will probably try some of these.
Free Blogger Skins seems well laid out and has a couple of 3 column designs as well as some interesting 2 column ones.
Final Sense is sortable by the categories on the left hand side-again, quite a collection of Blogger templates.
Point of Focus-some very unusual blog themes. A couple are very, uh, bright.
Thur’s Templates apparently has a way to do a 3 column template, but lets me still have the layout option in the dashboard (as opposed to having to mess around in html every time. . . . ) hmmm, those 3 columns might be the way for me to go. . . .
For WordPress there is the WordPress Theme Viewer (is that official?) There are TONS here. If I had a WordPress blog (which I may eventually if I ever start a second, more life/mommy oriented one) I would spend hours here picking out the perfect scheme. . .
This Article has a list of what they consider the 10 best WordPress Themes, with links at the bottom to some notable “runner ups”.
Blogging Themes has 30 free WordPress themes to download.
And who could resist an article titled “83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You Probably Haven’t Seen”
And if you are really, really feeling ambitious-Here is an article from a blog called “PhotoShop Support” where a lady named Jennifer talks you through how to make your own custom Blog Banner/Template. (At the bottom of the article she has tons more links to all sorts of other info on blogs, blog templates, and even other blogs that she recommends looking at just because they have nice design.)
What, you don’t have Photoshop you say? And you don’t feel like running out and spending $600 on it-Well, fret not! There is a frugal alternative. Yes, there is a FREEWARE version of photoshop called GIMP out there that anyone can download for, well, free! I have yet to use it, and my understanding is it doesn’t work exactly the same (ie some commands are slightly different) but the price is much more up my alley!
Or you could just go to PsycHo and use their template generator to make your very own template!
Now that I’ve given you about 6 hours worth of template browsing to do, don’t you just hate me?
Aaagh. My eyes are bugging out, and I’m quickly becoming overwhelmed by themes.
But this I love about your blog:
What, you don’t have Photoshop you say? And you don’t feel like running out and spending $600 on it-Well, fret not! There is a frugal alternative.
How’d you read my mind?
Rebecca-I’m just good that way!
I like this template for your blog:
http://themes.wordpress.net/columns/3-columns/2195/beauty-bling-10/
but maybe it’s not your personal look 🙂
I’d like to remind people who download and use templates to please give credit to the creator. Also, include credits to photographers, etc, whose pictures you are using. I also have made it a policy to try to locate the owner of a picture and ask permission before using it on my blog.
The template makers are being very generous by offering templates for frugal folks like us. We would like to encourage them to continue their generosity by giving them proper credit if we use their stuff!
I have tried and tried before in the past to change my format to 3-column and have been unable to do so!! What is your take on that?? Where any of the 3-column ones you listed easy to do?
elleabelle-The templates at Thur’s and at Free Blogger Skins (links above) specifically have 3 columns that are set up to work with the new blogger (ie blogger beta, now out of beta) what I like about that is when I go into my “dashboard” I get the whole “layout” thing where I can drag and drop stuff around in the three columns now. It was pretty darn easy.
Of course save your template before you start, and in each of the separate “sections” you have now, open it in the layout, and change it over to “HTML” and then copy and paste it into the “notebook” program (not word, that will try to format it into something readable). Do that with each extra section you have set up. I did it with my blogrolls, my lunchbox report, my library bag, my feedburner tags etc etc- I typed in a label above it so I would remember what it was and then left plenty of space in between. Then when I put the new template in and stuff disappeared, I just had to cut and paste it back in.
Wow, this is basically a post! I better copy this and repost it for all those goobers who don’t read the comments!
GIMP is an awesome program. I have GIMP and PhotoShop and I use both! Sometimes I use both programs for the same image. Lots of professional photographers use GIMP, too, so don’t think that because it’s free it’s not as good. I love it!
“Now that I’ve given you about 6 hours worth of template browsing to do, don’t you just hate me?”
Indeed 🙂
I spent hours long googling “free templates” but have not found the links that you mentioned above.
Thanks for sharing those great links.
I used some of Isnaini Dot Com’s template code. I don’t have a problem with the code, because he speaks my language 🙂
Nice blog you have here.
Regards,
Sheila