Customise your Blog Background on Layout Templates

Looking for a great way to update the appearance of your blog?  One of the simplest ways to make your blog your own is to change the background - and that's what I'm going to look at in this post.

There are different things you can do if you're going to customise your background - and the way that you go about it will depend upon what template you're using, for this post, I'll cover the basics of changing your background if you're using one of the new layout templates. (If you're looking for my post on HTML background changes or changing an older template I've covered How to Customise your Blog Background in HTML in this post here).

Customising the background on a Layout Template
If you're using a layout  template then you have the option to do one of two things - update the colour or pick a photo background. In both instances, you need to start by going to your 'Design' tab and clicking on 'Template Designer'. The first thing you'll need to do is select a template on this page in order to make the changes.

To choose a colour only, click on the 'Background' option, then select a colour theme from the right.

If you want to pick a specific colour using a 'hex' number, then select after you select the main colour theme, select 'Advanced', 'Background' and enter that number there.

If you'd prefer to use a photos for your background, then you can pick one from the many different choices blogger offers, or you can upload your own image and use that to create a background all of you own.

To upload an image of your own, select the drop down menu at the side of the 'Background' button and at the top left of the pop out, you'll see a box that says 'Upload Image'. You then simply select your file and you'll be shown a preview of how it will look on your blog.

** Note - if you want a full screen image, blogger advises something no smaller than 1800 by 1600 pixels. If you do use something smaller it will be tiled or repeated on the background. On the plus side, you can adjust how this will happen, by changing alignment, tiling direction and whether the image scrolls.

If you're happy with the preview, then click 'Done' to continue with any other changes you wish to make, or go to the top right and select 'Apply to Blog' to finish!

If you have any questions, please let me know!