Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

Thomas Paine

middle of the night photo shoot..

morning, ladies...

it was sure a busy week last week...

and the time flew by...

my nativity...

a little red bird...

I have been busy this morning...

going from one thing to another...

but I need a nap...

didn't get much sleep last night...

these shots all of the mantle in the kitchen...

and this is the tree in the living room...

my guys...

especially my DH...

loves colored lights...

and no theme trees for in here...

this is a family tree...

and it represents our lives together...

we add new ornaments every year...

but some of these have been with us since we were first together...

when we were first married...

and money was tighter than it is now...

all the Christmas stuff was bought the day after Christmas on the 50-75% racks...

can you believe that someone gave this tree away?...

it has a cast iron base with hearts in it...

it's 8 foot tall...

crazy cooters...

I'm glad they did...

we gave it a home...

and a new tradition begins...

happy day to you!

Setting up your template so the backgrounds work...

click on DESIGN

if you are unfortunate enough to have set  your blog up with a new template...

this is the best way I have found to do it...

BUT if you have not picked a new template, and are still using the old minima one...

DO NOT DO THIS!

because once you pick the new templates...

there is no going back...

now wait for this to load...

you should be able to see your blog as it is...

and all the changes you are going to do in the next steps...

for the rest of us...

here we go...

this template is the easiest to redo...

or eliminate...

these photos will show you what to do with each thing going down the list...

you can choose whichever one you want here...

I just like mine set up this way...

this is for the bottom of your blog...

again- your choice here...

look at the numbers...

and line your blog columns up with this...

now in the advanced...

I make all my text black...

then it goes with almost any background and I don't have to go back in here and change it all the time...

so pick a neutral color here...

see the little arrow next to the color?...

this will pop up a color board...

for more colors than what they show...

but at the bottom on the right...

it says transparent...

make sure everything I have marked transparent, that you do it to...

this will make the template go away...

so just go through the list and pick your colors...

here, do nothing...

I have used this for different things only to come  back in and delete it...

just doesn't work well for me...

now, very important...

click the orange APPLY TO BLOG  in the upper right hand corner...

and wait for it to show a little yellow thing at the top center that says APPLIED TO BLOG...

then click here and see what it looks like...

now you can use the post below to add a background...

and there is another post to begin with on finding a cool background...

my biggest advice on this is just to get in there and play around...

that's what I did...

and like I said before...

use a dummy blog...

and if you still have problems...

email me...

tetedennis@yahoo.com