Where do I start...

[jennrz4]

You all have such great blogs and I'm wondering how do I get started with this? Are they free? If not how expensive are they? What kind of options should I look for? Any tips or hints?

TIA!!
Jenn

[crochetme]

Hi Jenn!

I'll keep this short, as I imagine most of the other bloggers will have more to say re: where to host a free blog -- there are a number of options, but I do mine the complicated way (I already had a website, and I installed and configured a program on the server).

Once you get set up, though, make sure you make your blog exactly what you want it to be, and not just what you think it should be. There are no rules!

Good luck, and keep us posted.

Cheers,
Kim

[Julie]

Hi Jenn -

There are lots of free hosting sites on the web. I use <a href="http://blogspot.com" target="_new">blogspot.com</a> for mine. They provide you with several different templates to choose from, and then you can change the colors around to suit your preferences. There are others that can be found easily, just a quick search on Google will pull them up.

If you want to post pictures to your blog, a good number of us use <a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_new">photobucket.com</a> for our photo hosting. They are free and practically have unlimited storage. Really easy to upload and use.

Hope this helps, all of us are happy to help, I promise! <img border=0 src="http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/tongue.gif" />

[Tiffany]

Hi Jenn!

Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) is connected to Blogspot and is where you would post to your blog from, if you should choose Blogspot as your free host. It's pretty easy to use, and I like how if you have more than one blog, you can access them all through your account with Blogger.

Good luck creating your blog, and have fun with it. :) It can quickly become an obsession. 8)

[shelbyro]

Hi jenn--

I started my blog about a month ago, and i use www.diaryland.com (http://www.diaryland.com) and www.imageshack.us (http://www.imageshack.us) for uploading photos.

you can google a search for free templates for background for your blog--they give you the coding that you just paste into your template.

to learn html, I love the site www.lissaexplains.com/ (http://www.lissaexplains.com/)
--it gives a great overview!

good luck!:woohoo

[jennrz4]

Great info everyone...

Thanks a bunch!

I was leaning towards some of the options that were recommended. Glad I got the second opinions though...thanks!!!!

Jenn