Christmas Movie Marathon - My Top 10 Favorite Christmas Movies | Blogmas 2016 - Day 2

Welcome to Blogmas day 2! Day 1 was My Top 15 Christmas Songs + My Ultimate Christmas Playlist. Since I covered what songs l listen to for the Holiday season now lets talk about the movies I watch.

I love Christmas movies. My dad and I have a tradition to watch Christmas Vacation on Thanksgiving and when we put of the Christmas tree. And we usually watch it after opening gifts too.

Today I'm going to take you through my top 10 favorite Christmas movies. I have to watch these movies every season or it just doesn't feel like Christmas.

My Top 15 Favorite Christmas Songs + My Ultimate Christmas Playlist | Blogmas 2016 - Day 1

Happy Blogmas! I'm so excited to do Blogmas year two! Let's get this Blogmas started!

I love Christmas! And I love Christmas Music even more! I usually start listening to Christmas music in August, sometimes earlier.

This year I've been humming Christmas tunes since March. I kept myself from really singing or listening to them until July. I just love Christmas music.

I have a huge Christmas playlist. During this time of year I love to put it on shuffle when I'm cleaning or cooking or writing.

Today I thought I'd share what Christmas songs I listen to the most this time of year and my Christmas playlist I play all season long.

Why I Use Affiliate Programs for Ads Instead of Google Adsence

Everyone wants to run ads on their blogs. There are so many options out there for running ads on your blog. There are companies like AdSense out there and now a lot of affiliate programs offer ad banners. The question is, which option is the best for you?

Most sites use AdSense. AdSense, if your aren't familiar, is a third party ad running company from Google. AdSense uses cookies to pull Ads from it's system and match them to the sites you have recently visited. 

You've probably see these ads on almost every site you visit. AdSense Ads are easy to spot. They have a little triangle symbol in the upper right corner for the ad.

A lot of people use this system as they see it as the best option since each visitor see a custom ad. I however am not a fan of AdSense, as a reader or blogger. 

How to Add the BlogLovin' Button to Your Blogger Blog

BlogLovin' is such a great way for your readers to follow you and get alerts about when you post! It's a really great platform for your reads to follow you and show support! 
     
But how can they follow you if they don't know your on the site. By adding the follow button and email signup widgets to your blog your readers can follow you and signup for email alerts without leaving your blog! 

If you are reading this post you probably already have your blog on BlogLovin' and are ready to add the button and/or email follow to your blog. If you aren't on BlogLovin' yet you can check out my post on how to add and claim you blog to BlogLovin' here.

Adding these gadgets is very easy. BlogLovin' makes the code for you than you just have to copy and paste it. So let's get started!

How to Add Your Blog to BlogLovin' and Claim it

What is BlogLovin' exactly? It is a social media site where you can follow your favorite blogs and see their newest posts in your feeds. You can add your blog and link it to your page and other users can follow your blog and see your post in their feeds as well as setup email alerts for your posts.

Why should you add your blog to BlogLovin? BlogLovin is a great way for your readers to "subscribe" your posts and show support by following you. Most of your favorite blogs are probably on BlogLovin. 

BlogLovin' has 8 Million Active users! That's a big base to send your posts out to. BlogLovin' puts your blog into a category and your posts can be found by any user on the site. 

BlogLovin is a great way to engage your current readers and be discovered by new readers.I have discovered so many of the blogs I read on BlogLovin' and I am always discovering knew ones.

Today I'm going to show you how to add your blog to BlogLovin' and claim it to your profile. BlogLovin' has a follow button and a BlogLovin Email subscription gadget that you can add to your blog. You can see both in my sidebar. You can check out my post on how to add them here.

How to Customize the Blogger Label Cloud - Change Font Size, Font Colors, Add Border Around Each Label

Today's tutorial is a very simple CSS code tutorial. There is very little editing to be done. There are two codes I'm going to share today. One Changes the font size and adds borders. And the other changes the colors.

I'm guessing if you are reading this tutorial you already have a label cloud widget. If you don't they are simple to add.


To Add A Label Cloud
 
1. Go to Dashboard>Layout>Click Add A Gadget where you'd like your cloud to go

2. Scroll down and select Labels>Choose how you'd like the labels and organized>Title it if you'd like>Then select Cloud>

3. Click save and move your cloud where you want it if necessary


Now on to customizing the Label Cloud.

How to Add Social Media Icons with a Hover Effect to Your Blog for Blogger & Wordpress

Having links to all of your social media pages front and center on your blog is very important. It let's readers know what pages are really your's and links them directly so they don't have to go searching. And when the code is right they can be linked to your social media without ever leaving your blog!

Today I'm going to show you a code that works for both blogger and wordpress blogs. Any blog that allows you to add HTML gadgets really. 

This code is fairly easy to edit and add it to your blog. It is also very easy to add more buttons once you've already posted it.

This code is a lot like the code from my other social media icons post. The only difference is that this one is designed for two images so when the a mouse cursor goes over the button it changes color. This one is just as simple as the last one to edit. I just needs two image URLs

Here is a demo of how the hover works:

How to Add Social Media Icons to Your Blog for Blogger & Wordpress

Having links to all of your social media pages front and center on your blog is very important. It let's readers know what pages are really your's and links them directly so they don't have to go searching. And when the code is right they can be linked to your social media without ever leaving your blog!

Today I'm going to show you a code that works for both blogger and wordpress blogs. Any blog that allows you to add HTML gadgets really. 

This code is fairly easy to edit and add it to your blog. It is also very easy to add more buttons once you've already posted it.

How to Make Your Blog Look Like It's Not on Blogger

My blog is hosted on blogger. Can you tell? Probably not. I have removed the blogger navbar, the attribution that says "powered by blogger" and I changed my favicon to my own logo instead of blogger's logo. 

I also removed almost every blogger gadget on my blog and replaced them with HTML gadgets that give me more customization and are easier to edit and from my point of view I got rid of those annoying little wrenches and pencils called "quick edit" tools. 

I've also edited my HTML itself. HTML is all the code that goes together to create your blog. I've added HTML Gadgets but I've also edited the HTML backbone itself. 

Today we are going to get into a little HTML editing and adding a little CSS code. Don't worry I'm not going to get to in depth with HTML editing. Today the HTML editing is all just search and delete.

How to Center Titles with CSS Code on Blogger

This one is a short and Simple Tutorial. For some reason Blogger really doesn't like to center things. I remember this being so frustrating when I started using Blogger. It's actually really simple fix. Just a few lines of CSS code and poof everything is centered.

How to Start a Blogger Blog + Why I Chose Blogger

Hello Everyone! Today is going to be a bit different than my usual beauty and lifestyle posts. I have decided to start a series about blogging. Things like my favorite blogging tips to code tutorials. All the little things I've learned since starting this blog. 
When I started I knew nothing about code, now my blog is completely customized by code and there is nothing left of the original template I started with. 

I actually started my blog on Tumblr and decided I need to switch over to a better blogging platform pretty early on. I had only heard of Blogger so I decided to make the switch over. I had to copy and paste all of my posts and publish them one by one. Lucky for me blogger has the option to set the date for a post. I was able to add the original date to each post. 

Monthly Favorites | July 2016

I can't believe it's August already. This year is going by in such a blur. I feel like July went by so fast I barely got time to even try things to favorite. This year is going to fast I hope it slows down in the fall months so I can really enjoy it. I may have mentioned it 2 or three times or 100 but I love fall. It's my favorite time of year! It's the perfect time of year. 

OK I'm rambling. Let's get to my favorites.