This DIY is geared towards all you bloggers! It does not particularly relate to nature (except the underwater shots!), but I feel this will be well received by some who are looking to create visually stunning posts on a beautiful layout with whatever free & inexpensive tools you have available. Surprise! You don’t need Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, and you don’t need to pay for expensive stock photo use or fonts. There are so many free resources available, and I’ll list my favorites right here as well as provide a link to the ones I don’t mention (but are still awesome and you may find useful!).
Hosting | Many of you likely already have a hosting platform, whether that be Blogger, WordPress or something else. I now host with WordPress.com (not the self hosting platform of WordPress.org $$$) and migrated my blog by myself over to WordPress fairly simply. This process could have cost me close to $200 if I paid someone else to do it, but instead I found some easy tutorials and then pieced together what applied to me, and viola! This did require some domain mapping, but WordPress walks you through that.
Photography | Naturally, I would first recommend investing in a nice camera. This does not have to be a DSLR camera, even a 12megapixel camera is sufficient. In fact, I get stunning photos from my Samsung Galaxy S5 and my GoPro Hero4 both of which are much cheaper than an entry level SLR (the image above was shot with the GoPro). If however, you feel that you really lack the photography edge (there does need to be a eye for composition!) but are a great wordsmith and just occasionally need some nice photos as introductions, I would suggest using this amazing Stock Photo site that provides all free images. I use this site periodically when I need a featured image that I don’t have from my own collection.
Templates | Your layout really sets the tone of the blog. Although many blog sites come with free templates, many times these don’t meet your needs or leave you begging for more. I would recommend either biting the bullet and paying for a nice one (mine cost $24), or checking out some free alternatives even if it means learning a little bit of code to install them. My favorite are these gorgeous responsive HTML templates (free, and for static sites if you use your blog for other purposes) but they do require your own hosting (perhaps try BitBalloon.com). For blog templates, I like this site.
Fonts | Most templates come with their own font suite. If you plan to use other fonts, you will need to have access to the settings that allow for this change. Assuming that you have this option, then check out FontSquirrel and DaFont for all kinds of free fonts in many styles.
Photo Editing | I used to use PicMonkey before I got Lightroom. I use Pixlr on my phone and noticed that they have a web based platform now too. If you host your photos on Flickr, you can use their feature Aviary to edit your photos nicely. As an example, see the two photos above (top:edited in Aviary; bottom:unedited). I highly highly highly recommend editing your photos before posting them on your blog. Whether it involves just some simple adjustments of color and brightness, or using presets to transform your images for all the same look and feel – it’s worth doing something. People are visual, and attracted to things that pop and show off color and design. I love this template I have now because it really brings the photo as the main focus on the post, and draws your eyes in before I captivate you with my words :)
The rest of the free stuff that I like to browse there can be found here. This list is predominantly for those involved in design and marketing, but there are so very useful tools that you may find appropriate to your blog too. happy hunting!
