I am so excited, relieved, and completely thrilled to announce that Berries and Cream Blog Design is now open for business.  From now on, we will be blogging at the Berries and Cream site.  We will leave this site up until the end of February when we will permanently redirect it to Berries and Cream Blog Design.

During our 2-week launch party (February 14-28), we are not only offering great prizes donated by wonderful sponsors, but our entire store is on sale, too.  All of our custom packages and products are on sale at 20% off, and all of our pre-made designs are on sale for 25% off.

Thank you to everyone who has encouraged and helped us in this venture.  We hope that you will continue to find us worthy of your support.

It’s almost here – today is the last day before we officially launch Berries and Cream Blog Design.  (The blog and store are finally finished!  I was beginning to be afraid I was going to miss the launch date.)  That means that today is the last day you can enter to win my Laughter unlimited blog design before you can buy it.  Entry is simple – just leave a comment at the giveaway post.

If you’d like to take a sneak peek at the new blog and store, feel free to do so.  I’d love to hear what you think.

"Laughter" Unlimited blog design screen shot

Last week, Linda posted her Valentine’s Day giveaway. Now it’s my turn. See, we love you guys!

I have been working hard to create new, attractive blog designs to sell at Berries and Cream Blog Design.  (I can’t believe the launch is only 5 days away!)  I am giving you a chance to win one of my new designs before you can buy it.

Although my Laughter Unlimited edition Blogger design was created with Valentine’s Day in mind, it’s more than a seasonal design.  The cheerful and bold colors (pink, orange, green, and yellow) are sure to lift your visitors’ spirits and make your blog memorable, and the cute word art included in the header will remind you and everyone else to take time to laugh daily.

Laughter is a 2-column Blogger design which features a custom background image, coordinating header (it doesn’t need any additional customization to properly display your blog title and description), and a coordinating heart and flourish post divider image.

To be entered to win this design, you must leave a comment at this post no later than 11:59 p.m. EDT on Friday, February 13, 2009.  The winner will be announced at Berries and Cream Blog Design on Monday, February 16, 2009.

If you want additional chances to win the Laughter design, you can earn one additional entry for each of the following tasks you complete. (Please leave a separate comment for each task.)

1. Sign up for our newsletter.  The sign up box is located in the right hand side of our header.  If you are already a subscriber, leave a comment letting us know that.
2. Add our Berries and Cream Blog Design button to your site.  Grab the code from our sidebar.
3. Blog about and link to this giveaway.
4. Blog about our Berries and Cream Blog Design launch (Saturday, February 14) and make sure you include a link to the site (http://berriesandcreamblogdesign.com).
5. Follow me on Twitter: @RS_Designs

You can combine steps 3 and 4 into one post, but leave a separate comment for each step you complete.

I wish you all the best.

Revka Stearns

I’m excited to announce that even though Berries and Cream Blog Design hasn’t officially launched yet, All Things Frugal is giving away a $60 credit to be used at Berries and Cream.  Entering is as simple as leaving a comment at the giveaway post (not here); you can earn an extra entry by blogging about the contest.

All entries must be received no later than midnight, February 15, 2009.  Go ahead – enter now.

We like giving  here at RS Designs and what better opportunity to show some love to our wonderful readers than at Valentine’s? That is why we are giving away a free beautiful design!

To win the design you have two options; leave a comment below and secondly sign up for our newsletter which will give you an extra entry and a higher chance of winning.  Our newsletter will tell you about everything that is happening here at RS Designs and at future Berries and Cream Blog Design and give you special deals that are not available for non- subscribers.

If you would like to help us spread the word about Berries and Cream we appreciate that! Donb’t forget you can win beautiful prizes!

The giveaway will close on Monday February 8 so leave your comment now!

Good luck!

I just updated our Berries and Cream Blog Design launch party prize page.

Karen of Thrifty Mommy donated a prize that your children are sure to love – a VeggiesTales‘ Jonah prize pack.  Included are the Jonah movie in VHS  format and a book, Jonah: Even Fish Slappers Need a Second Chance.

Thank you, Karen, for your donation.

It’s about time, isn’t it? I mean, there are only 11 days until Berries and Cream Blog Designs launches on February 14th!

So please grab our new button from our sidebar and put it in your blog. And if you’d like to write a post about our launch or donate a prize, that would be even better!

Here are some important things to remember and/or talk about:

• Our new site is Berries and Cream Blog Design – http://www.berriesandcreamblogdesign.com. Please update your bookmarks.
• The official launch date is February 14.  (Yes, that was intentional; we’re launching our sweet blog design website on the sweetest day of the year.)
• The launch party is scheduled for February 14-28.
• Prizes will be added daily; entries will be accepted for one week from the date the prize post was published.
• Our entire store will also be discounted during this time.

Let us know if you have any questions or comments.  We are excited about this change!

Because we are getting more prize donations, I have decided that I will post a daily update to let you know what new prizes were added to the pot the previous day.  You can view all prizes at our master prize list.

Here are the prizes added on or before Tuesday, January 20.

• a Mommy Calling Card design from Little Ladybug Designs
• a free basic logo and/or header graphic from IM Web Graphics
• handmade wool socks from Shady Side Farm
• $10 Starbucks gift card from Seeryus Mama
• 6 clips from the Uptown Collection at Sparkle and Charm Boutique
• one photographic letter from The Dusty Attic
• a book from Did You See That?
• a $15 Target gift card from Sisterly Savings
• a 2-year subscription to All You Magazine from Bargain Briana
• 3 bars of handmade goat milk soap from Goat Milk Stuff

*This is not the final logo but is very close to it*

I’m happy to announce that people are already generously donating prizes for Berries and Cream Blog Design’s launch party from February 14-28.  You can view the up-to-date list of sponsors and prizes at our prize page.

Prize sponsors receive the following benefits:

1. Sponsors receive free advertising in the form of a link to their site from the prize page.  This page will be heavily promoted in our newsletter and on our blog.
2. Each sponsor will be individually featured in an upcoming In the Spotlight post.  The posts will be scheduled in the order in which the prizes were donated.
3. All sponsors will receive a special 15%  discount code to be used on their next Berries and Cream Blog Design order.

Anyone can donate a prize.  Prizes do not need to be blog- or design-related; we just ask that they be family-friendly.  If you would like to donate a prize, please contact us with the button or text and the link URL you want us to use for the sponsor information, a description of the prize, and whether your prize is available to US, US and Canada, or world-wide participants.

I can’t believe how soon February 14 will be here.  I am excited about launching Berries and Cream Blog Design, and I hope you are excited about the party, too.  I’ll keep you posted.

*To view all of the posts in this series, either click on the following link, or type Blogger Tutorials into our search box.*

One of my most popular tutorials tells how to disable right-click at your site. However, several people have commented that while right-click is disabled at their Blogger blog, people are still able to left-click their pictures, which opens the picture in its own window from which the visitor can then download (steal) the picture.

I have the solution for your problem.  First, because people have asked, let me state that even if there was a way to do it, you would never want to disable left click.  Without left-click ability, links (including navigation links) would be useless, and you would lose readers faster than you can say boo.

The reason people can left click on your pictures and download the photo that appears that way is because when you upload an image Blogger automatically links your post image so that clicking on it brings up the image by itself.  You can fix this by doing the following for each picture. (I’m sorry there’s not a quick and easy fix that I know of.)

1. After you have uploaded the picture into your post, click on the Edit HTML tab of the writing area.
2. You should see code at the top of the page that looks something like this:
<a href="http://yoursiteurl.com/yourpicture.jpg"><img alt="S7302723" src="http://yoursiteurl.com/yourpicture.jpg" width="184" align="left" border="0" height="244"/></a>
3. Delete the following sections:
<a href="http://yoursiteurl.com/yourpicture.jpg">
and   </a>
Those are the parts that make the image into a link.
4. MAKE SURE you leave the img section:
<img alt="S7302723" src="http://yoursiteurl.com/yourpicture.jpg" width="184" align="left" border="0" height="244"/>
5. Preview your post.  If your image is still there and does not go to a separate page when you click on it, you did everything correctly and can
save your post or continue writing it.

You will have to make changes to each of your already published pictures individually, but if you really don’t want people to be able to bring them up on a separate page, it would be worth it.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments regarding this tutorial. I’d be happy to help you in any way that I can.

*To view all of the posts in this series, either click on the following link, or type Blogger Tutorials into our search box.*