Hi, and welcome to tutorial week for Quarter 3 of the Finish Along. For this first tutorial I thought I’d address a little challenge that people seem to have each quarter, namely how to link up to the finishes party, so here’s a few tips to help you along:
1. For each finish that you have you will need to have either a blog post dedicated to your finish OR a Flickr picture specifically for your finish. Note that the tool will NOT allow you to link up the same link (URL) more than once which is why they need separate posts/Flickr images.
2. In a separate window to the one for your finish post, click on the ‘Add Your Link’ button at the bottom of the Finishes Party Page
3. Go back to your finish post and copy the URL at the top of the screen by selecting it all and pressing + at the same time
4. Back in the Finishes Party Page you should see the ‘Add your link’ page.
5. Paste your link that you copied in step 3 into the box at the top that says ‘Link’. When you do this you’ll see that the tool picks up a lot of additional information:
6. It will automatically populate the link title with the title of your blog post if that’s what you’ve linked up. It would be really helpful if you could make sure your name is in here in some way, either your blog name or your real name, I don’t mind, but it makes it easier to match back to things later on:
7. Note that as I use this took a lot it pre-fills my e-mail address, but you might need to add this:
8. Now choose the thumbnail that will show up in the link party. The tool will grab every available image from your link page, including anything in your headers or side bars, just choose the one you want and click on the ‘Crop’ button:
9. In the ‘Crop’ window you will see a kind of grey frame which is your bounding box. The tool will only allow you to show a square image, so move the frame around until it suits you. It can also resize down if you want it to.
10. When you’re happy, click ‘Done and it will take you back to the link page, with your selected image in the top right box where the blue frog used to be
I hope it helps those who are having trouble linking up and so makes your life easier when tracking finishes!
Excellent tutorial Katy – Im sure people will find this helpful. (and hopefully if people can follow your instructions you'll still have all your hair by the time you've finished going through all this quarter's entries.)
You write the most thorough tutorials!!
wonderful instructions I will be saving these for use again. Unfortunately I have no actual finishes this time, just a "bit further along" items. Do I join the linky party or sit it out?
Thanks so much. I'm creating a blogsite for the first time and have no clue (yet) how to do even the most basic things. Sad, given I spend my days on a computer (and maybe a reason I've never created my own site!). Looking forward to my first finish-along! Now to google "how to make a mosaic"…