Create your own Header

Sometimes you may want to create your own header for your website.

Before you create your header, you need to set your site up. Go to More and then Manage Site

On the General Tab- uncheck Show site name at top of page, then hit Save

Go back to you Home page of your site

On this home page, go to More, then Edit site layout

Click on the Header portion of the site

On this Site Header dialogue box, choose no logo then OK.

Your Header should be blank. Click on Close in the upper left hand side.

Go to a site that has background. One that I use is Colour Lovers http://www.colourlovers.com/patterns

On this site, you have a thousands of patterns and color pallettes that you can choose from. I'm not that creative so I usually choose a pattern that is already made. If you like, you can make your own patterns based on color pallettes.

Once you find one you like, click on it and it will open in a new window.

On the left side, select "Get this pattern image" choose the one with a width of at least 1200 or 1600.

It will download automatically or open in a new window, depending on your browser. Pay attention to where the image is downloaded. The name usually includes the title, in this case "waves of sorrow".

Now we need to go to an outside photo editing site, such as Pixlr (http://pixlr.com/) to create our custom Header.

Click on Open Pixlr editor

Then Open Image from Computer and locate the background or image that you want to have as your header.

After it is uploaded into Pixlr, it will look like this:

Using the Cropping tool, crop a section of your pattern that is the entire width and 100 pixels high.

To check the size of your image...on the right hand side, there is "navigator" that tells you the width and the height of the area that you trying to crop.

When you have your area selected..click on the crop tool again and it will ask you if you want to apply the changes, choose Yes.

Your image now looks something like this:

From here, you can insert Text, by clicking on the A tool. You can move things around by using the Move tool

You will want to make sure that your title/logo, etc. are mostly on the right side of your header.

You can make your own logo at Online Logo Maker (http://www.onlinelogomaker.com/applet/logomaker/?sess=cd027816d6218797da28eed4da8a888b)

If you make a logo, you will want the proportions to be something like 50x50 or smaller. Remember the height of your header is only 100 pixels.

If you want to add a picture and/or logo to your header, click on Layer and then Open Image as Layer

Now that you have added an image...they are actually Layers. To move the objects, you need to select the layer thatyou want to move on the right hand side in Layers Dialogue Box- in this example, I'm moving the Text- Mrs. Schmalen's Site

After you have your header the way that you want it, you are ready to download it.

In the left hand side, click on File and then Save.

In the new dialogue box, rename it to something like Header. IMPORTANT, leave the extension. Do not remove it. Also, pay attention to where you saved this file.

Again, go back to your site, then click on More then manage site

Select Colors and Fonts

In the Customizations select Site header background and the radio button next to the image.

Click on the image icon and select your image.

Click on the down arrow next to options and set the header setting to the following: (Don't repeat- Horizonal Position Left, Vertical Position Top) then click on Save.

Should look something like this:

One last thing you need to check is the height of your site's header.

Click on More, then, Edit site layout

Click on the Header area again

In the Header Dialogue Box- change the site header's height to 100 (or whatever you indicated your header's height would be)