Blue Badge of Anticipation

So, I really put the LIAYF family out there in my last post. First, I want to thank all who read and commented. It's nice to know that you are thinking good thoughts for us and keeping us in mind as you carry on. Heck, there might even be a chance that one of you will hear about something along those line that you would normally have not thought twice about.  Maybe not today or tomorrow, but maybe one day.

Moving forward - and at some point we must move forward - the question became "How long should I leave that post up, before posting again?"    I mean, I want to give people ample opportunity to read the post, but at some point I do need to post again.  Then I had an idea.

This is the point where I tell you that old (emphasis on the old) bloggers can learn old tricks.

I decided that the best way to keep our adoption post out there, while moving forward with other content, would be to create a badge, that would live in my right hand column and also appear at the bottom of any new posts.  Here is the finished product:

Then I thought "Why stop there?"  I could even create a badge that other blogger, if they were so inclined, could post on their sites as well.

For those of you who, like me, have never created a badge before, here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to make your own.  Yes, with a quick google search you can find a more detailed tutorial, but I know you, and you don't have the time for that.

1. Create the image Pick a picture or background you want to use for the badge.  For mine, I just took this picture....

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loaded it to Picnik, cropped the upper right hand corner, sized to 175X175, added the text, then saved it to my computer.

2.  Load the Image to a Server - There are several ways to do this, but I just loaded it to imgur, which I was able to create an account on by signing in with Twitter.  After loading the image had it's own URL, which I then copied.

3.  Get the HTML code - I found the code I needed with  a search, and used my URL's to replace the text that indicated [Destination URL] and [Image URL] aready listed.

<a href="[Destination URL]"><img src="[Image URL]"/></a>

Then, if you want to create a text box to display so that other bloggers, if they are so inclined, can grab and display your badge, use the same steps for replacing URL's to create the following  text box code:

<textarea cols=”15? rows=”8? wrap=”virtual”><a href="[Destination URL here]"><img src="[Image URL here]"/></a></textarea>

4.  Add Code to Your Site - Now take the code you just created and add it to your site.  Here is my finished product.
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<a href="http://liayf.blogspot.com/2011/09/were-adopting-you-can-help.html"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hmNLN.jpg"/></a><br />

There you have it.  Not so hard, right?

Like I said, I will be using the first badge I created to anchor future posts.  And, of course, Mrs. LIAYF and I would greatly appreciate it if you grabbed our badge for display on your site as well.  If you do, please let me know. 

Thanks.