What I Learned Wednesday: Changing your Blog Background

Last week we started a new What I Learned Wednesday series. We started pimping up our blog and I showed you how you could create a signature for your blog. 

Notice anything new on my blog?  If you are reading this in a reader, click on over and see the new look.  What do you think?  (Don't worry, it's not done yet.)
Today I'm going to show you the easy way to change the background on your blog.

Notice I said the easy way ... because that's the only way I know how to do it so far.
(All this assumes you are blogging with Blogger.  If you are using Wordpress or some other platform, then you probably know more about this than I do.)

1. Your first step is to find a background you like.  Now you can pay for one of those, but why do that when there are tons out there for free!  Just Google "free blog backgrounds for Blogger" and you'll find a bunch of sites come up.  Look over them and find one you like.  Different sites have different styles.  Some are scrapbooky, some are more modern.  Find one that suites your taste and your blog.  I found mine on Hot Bliggity Blog.
2. The background you find should have a bunch of code with it.  Copy it to your clipboard (the site I used did the copying for me when I clicked the "Install" button).
3. Go back to Blogger, to your editor and click on the "Design" tab, then on "Page Elements."  Click on "Add a Gadget," then on "HTML."  Leave the title part blank and paste your code in the box.  You can preview your blog to make sure it looks like you want.  Then make sure you click on "Save."
4. If it doesn't look right for some reason, you can change the template of your blog to Minima.  To do that, click on "Edit HTML" under the Design tab.  Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.  Under the Old Templates heading, click on Select Template Layout.  Minima is the first choice.  
5. After you have changed to Minima, look at your blog again.  If you have a weird box at the top, go back to the Edit HTML section you were just in.  Scroll down til you see /* Header.  Look in that section, any time you see "header _px" change the number in the _ to a 0.  Do the same when you see "margin _px."  That should take care of your box.

I really hope all that works for you.  I'm certainly no expert and I'm learning right along with you.  So, good luck and let me know in the comments how it turned out.