Headbands and Headers

Apparently I've been guilty of a major blog faux pau, the equivalent of wearing a headband. [Side note: I wore a headband three times this week. Once to mow the lawn, and twice in public helping people move. It got a lot of positive compliments. Someone asked if I was trying to make a statement. I am. The statement is "I like to keep sweat out of my eyes."]

So what was my bloggy blunder? I was using a text only header. Not only was it a plain text header, but it was, in Mandy's words, a "boring man-font" straight from the Blogger choices. Who knew you could make so many mistakes with just the header? What's so bad about this header? It's very functional.

Frankly, I've been thinking about a new header for a while now and artsy thoughts have been swirling around in my head. I finally had some time to sit down and Photoshop one out. First off, it's been a long time since I've used Photoshop and it threw me off for a while. I kept trying to use keyboard commands and shortcuts from AutoCAD and PowerPoint. I finally gave up and had Mandy give me a three minute tutorial. It was a bit humbling [and irritating], since I've always been "tech support" in our house.

Mandy: "You can copy with control C..."

Me, cutting her off: "I know about control C. It's not working."

Mandy: "You need to select what you want to copy."

Me: "Look, I am selecting it. It's not working."

Mandy: "You have to be on the active layer. Click in the lower right..."

Me, cutting her off again: "I know how to get to the active layer." [grumble, grumble...because she's right]

I started with the plain and simple, black and white version I concocted, but I've heard that it's a bit drab and needs color and a snazzier font. Mandy snuck on the computer in the middle of my Photoshop session and made a few tweaks. Her version is below. Note all the manly colors. And hearts. Nine hearts, to be exact. The font for "craft blogger" is also hers. I don't know why Arial isn't fancy enough for her. I even made it Arial Black, for emphasis.  Thoughts from the crowd and the two versions below compared with the one up top?

In addition to having a text only header, I've also been accused of having too plain of a background. Guilty as charged. Don't worry, I'm working on a tangerine tango and turquoise chevron background right now.  It's going to be epic.

Side note: I was trying to think of a simple way to communicate the difference between men and women and restroom signs came to mind. If you Google Image Search "restroom signs", there's some pretty funny stuff out there.