I thought it would be good to make a post about decorating your blog here at Bravenet. I remember how lost and confussed I was in that area, until Amanda helped me out ! My way is by no means the only way, but simply the way I personally found easiest.

First from your journal/ Blog choose Manage Blog

Then Log In

You will be taken to this page

Scroll down to this area, and choose BLOG

Then once it takes you to the next page choose Look and Feel editor

Then what I do is choose Select a theme, I select a theme closet in color to the ones I want to use, and will change it as needed later.

Then I go to layouts

I choose layout 2, you can choose whichever you want, but I find this layouts better for images and centering

Then I hit SAVE ALL CHANGES

You then can either view the changes made, or at this point I just hit the BACK TO EDITING button

Then I choose TEXT, and Code editor

I will now explain a few things, I save all images I will ever use in a Photobucket account. The reason for this is you have limited bandwith on Bravenet, and if you or your visitors use it up, your page will become a bunch of white squares with red X's in them.I also use Photobucket because it generates copy paste codes automatically, which makes posting and decorating VERY easy.I am telling you the rest of the steps based on having a photobucket account(which is free) . Once you have uploaded your header image or main picture, use the copy paste code that is listed on photobucket as HTML Tag, this is the code you will mostly want for use on Bravenet, except a few places I will explain later. Copy the Tag code for your header or Main image, and paste it in the Text section under code editor

Then choose VISUAL editor, you should see your picture or image, click on it, and choose center if you want it to be centered on your page.

Then I usually choose Save and then save all changes, view what I have done, and hit back on my browser to resume decorating

Now I go to IMAGES tab, this is the place you will use the URL codes given in your photobucket, but leave out the http:// part as bravenet already has it in there for you. In this section you put all backgrounds, and wallpapers.....choose wether you want it to scroll with background ect.

Then once more choose save and save all changes, I spend allot of time at this point going back and forth until the look is exactly what I wanted. Finally the colors and fonts section, again this is a place I spend allot of time saving viewing it on the page and then going back to change until its what I want. Be aware ussually I find I have to hit refresh a few times on my browser to see the new changes I make, this may not be the case with everyone, but it's worth trying if you dont see your changes right away.

These are the basics, the more familiar you get with things here and what they do, the sky is the limit, please keep a few facts in mind though as you decorate, people with slower systems tend to have trouble with graphics heavy pages, or animated pages, also if your inserting music into your header, please make sure you have an on off switch for people who choose to turn it off.I hope you have fun "playing" and making your page what you want it to be, below are a few links I use in decorating my blog, the color chart for codes to colors, and photobucket.

COLOR CHART

PHOTOBUCKET