Uploading your custom background image in Blogger

It’s a little tricky but worth the effort to use your own image to give your blog a unique identity, rather than the prefab ones anyone can use. I created a new blog for my children’s books yesterday, and wanted to use them for the background image. 


First you need to prepare an image. Mine is a photo of a stack of my books, laid as horizontal as possible so there won't be awkward visual jags when the image is “tiling,” that is, when the image repeats horizontally and vertically to fill the space. If you’re feeling ambitious, you can create a seamless image in Photoshop using the Offset filter (here is an online tutorial). The image is supposed to be less than 200K...more details about size are on the Use Your Own Photo etc. article linked below. Anyway, here’s the book stack image:

The template is Ethereal, with a 3-column layout as shown. (Not all templates have a background image.) 

I customized most of the colors, type, etc. in the new Template Designer, which is found under the Design tab. The Template Designer is great, it gives you a preview of your changes as you test them. 


However, if you click on Background in the Template Designer, there is no option to upload your own image, you can only choose from what is there. The answer is to go to Blogger in Draft to do it rather than the usual Blogger Dashboard. It looks the same, except there are a few additional options. Here are the steps:
Make sure you’re “signed in” to your Blogger Account and are in Blogger in Draft.
Click on Design, then on the Template Designer (right under the Design tab.)
Click on Background (upper left), then click ON the Image box itself.
You should see a button for Upload Image, so go ahead and upload your image.
Click Done, then choose Tile and check Scroll with page.
Click on the orange Apply to Blog button on upper right.
A yellow alert that says Template Applied should flash, then it will go away.
Click Back to Blogger (upper right) and your image should be on your blog.


If not try again, or check the article Use Your Own Photo for Your Blog’s Background and the Comments for clues, .


To see the actual blog we’re talking about, click here.


Good luck!