I am so stoked about PIXLR! It is a great free online program. It is the best free online program that I have found thus far. In this tutorial, I am going to show you how I made this cute header (SO EASY!)
Step #1: Go to Pixlr.com and click on “Open Image Editor”.
Click on “Create a new image”.
I made changed my size to 850px by 300px, but you can size it however you choose.
Now it should look something like this:
Step #2: Find your Graphics/Pictures. I went to the Pugly Pixel for my graphics (LOVE her site!). I found these great bunting flags!
Now, you can use graphics in your header… Photos…. Digital Scrapbook elements… ANYTHING you like!
Step#3: Open up your image(s)/graphic(s). File > Open image…
Now I moved my Graphic on to my header by clicking on the Layer, and dragging it onto my header file.
Now I need to size and rotate my graphic. Edit > Free Transform…
Then hold down the shift key while you size it (click and drag the corners to size)
Once you have sized, you can rotate your graphic using the corners (there is a little rotate tool). When you are finished sizing and rotating, click off of the graphic, and Click YES.
Now I need to duplicate my graphic, because I want rows of flags, so I am going to drag my flag layer to the New Layer icon.
Now I am going to reposition my new layer, by dragging the flags, and rotating them, like I did before.
Step#4: Text. Add text by clicking on the Text Tool on the lower left.
Now just click somewhere on your header, and type…. Then you can change your font, and color (when you change your color, you can click on your graphic, to grab an exact color from your graphic).
It seems to have a funny glitch where part of the front and end of your text can get cut off, so I just added a space before and after. If it is cutting of the top and bottom, you can add a hard return before, or after.
Now, I need my header to be a little taller, because I don’t quite have enough white space (for my liking) underneath the flags. So if you click on Image > Canvas Size… You will get this box, where you can adjust the size of your Canvas. I just changed 300 to 350px.
Now, I just added another line of text, and adjusted where I put my text, and my Header looks like this:
Now to save, I am going to save it in 2 different file types: First, a PXD file, so that I can make changes if I like later. File > Save
Second, a PNG file (the file that you will need to upload to your blog). **If you used photos in your header, save it as a JPEG instead.
And there you go!! A beautiful Custom Header for FREE!!!
