How to…make a blog badge with IPiccy

Yesterday two of my friends came up with the idea to make a blog badge which their followers can show off in their sidebar. I like this! You can offer extra support to someone’s blog, or collect them in your sidebar!

They cooked this up on the WordPress Facebook page! (check out the image in my sidebar if you want to join, it’s so much fun!)

Thank you, Jade and Eddie, for this lovely idea!

I thought it would be nice to show you how to make one of those! 🙂

This is how mine looks like: (feel free to use it if you want!) 🙂

Photo editing programs can be a bit hard to work with when you are not used to them.

IPiccy is a free program on internet that’s very easy to use and has a lot of great possibility’s.

I hope you will have fun with it! 🙂

Need:

• Photo editing program IPiccy. (use for free on internet). Just go to  http://ipiccy.com/, make a free account and start editing.
• Photo or picture you would like to use as your blog badge. Note!!! Always choose a picture of photo with a high-resolution! When searching for pictures, pay attention to the pixels. For a good quality, only use pictures with 400 by 500 pixels at the least! Bigger is always better! If you are making a badge for your blog, choose a picture that represents your blog.
• Text for your badge.

Steps:

1. Open IPiccy by going to http://ipiccy.com/ (pic. 1)
2. Click on ‘Start Editing’.
3. If you are using this program for the first time, Your photo library will be empty of. IPiccy remembers all the pictures you upload if you use the online storage feature, so if you return next time, you can always re-use your pictures. Just save IPiccy to your favorites.
4. Choose ‘Upload photo’ and choose your picture from the directory of your computer. (pic. 2) If you want to use more than one picture for your badge (like I do) upload all the pictures you want to use.
5. Your picture will be uploaded to your Photo Library. Double click on the picture you want to edit. (pic. 3) The program will open that picture.
6. In the next window (pic. 4) you can start editing your picture. You can use photo effects, adjust the size, insert text and other pictures and lots and lots more. Just choose the ‘Layer’ button for now.
7. Here you can insert text, pictures and stickers. First, we are going to add another picture, so choose the ‘add photo’ button. (pic. 5) (If you don’t want to add another picture to your badge, go straight to step 11 )
8. If you already have uploaded some pictures, they will be displayed in the menu on the left. Otherwise, you have to choose ‘upload photo’ first. The picture you upload will be added to the menu. Click on the photo you would like to add and drag it to the big picture.
9. You can adjust the size of the second picture by dragging the lines surrounding it. (pic. 6) To replace it, just click and drag the entire picture.
10. On the left menu you can adjust the picture you added. I am going to fade it a bit so it will be part of the big picture. Just drag the balk where it says ‘fade’. (pic. 07)
11. When you are satisfied with the added picture (or pictures, I added 2), we are going to add some text. (you can always adjust the picture some more later on by clicking on it again) Click the ‘add text button’. (pic. 08) On the left you see a box where you can add your text. Your text is going to be displayed in the middle of your picture, always in black, but you can adjust the size and color later. Just type the text you want in the box on the left.
12. When you are done typing, choose the colored box to adjust the color. (pic. 09) Below the colors you can adjust the font. Try some of them out until you find the right one.
13. Let’s edit some more text! You can give each piece his own color, size and font and drag it around to the place you want it to be in your picture. You can even turn the text to make it diagonal! With the button’s on top of the page, you can always go a step backwards. (pic. 10)
14. Finish editing your picture with text.
15. When you are all done, choose the save icon on the top menu. If you want to give your picture a frame, choose the frame button first and choose a nice frame for your blog badge! (pic. 11) The program will ask if you want to merge the layers. *Attention* when you choose ‘yes’ you can’t go back editing the layers anymore! So if you are certain, choose ‘yes’.
16. If you want a frame, choose your frame and click ‘appy’ if you found the right one. (pic. 12a) Then click the ‘save’ button. If you don’t want a frame, skip the frame button and go directly to saving.
17. You will get another window where you can change the name of your picture and choose the save destination on your computer. Don’t forget to adjust the quality to 100%! (pic. 12b)
18. IPicci will save the picture (pic. 13) for you and then asks if you would like to continue editing the picture. If you choose ‘yes’, you will go back to your previous picture. If you choose ‘no’, you will go back to your photo library. (Check out the steps below the pictures if you want to know how to place an image in your sidebar!)

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How to place a picture in your sidebar:

1. Open your Dashboard, choose Appearances and then Widgets (pic. 14)
2. Here you can find your Primary Sidebar and your widgets. (pic. 15)
3. Choose the ‘Image’ widget and drag it to the place in your sidebar where you want it to be. A menu will open up. (pic. 16)
4. You can give your badge a title that will show above the picture on your blog. Next,  you will have to have a ‘Image Url’ from the picture you want to show. (Pic. 17)
5. To get the Image Url, you will have to go to the image you want to show. Go to your Images and choose ‘add new’. (pic. 18)
6. Select the image from your computer by clicking ‘Select file’. After uploading the picture, click ‘edit’ besides the picture’s name. (pic. 19)
7. A new window opens. On the right side you can find the ‘file url’. Copy this url by selecting it with your mouse and right-click, choose ‘copy’. (pic. 20)
8. Go back to the widgets and insert the file url in the Image url (pic. 21)
9. Link URL (when the image is clicked):pic. 22)
10. After inserting the url, click ‘save’ and you are done! (pic. 23)

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Tips:

• Save your work in-between.
• Try different things to see what goes best with your style.
• Pay attention to the readability of the text!
• Be creative and Have Fun! 🙂

Lots of Holliday Love,

Patty