Magnolia Set Up

Social Media

Here you can add links to your social media handles. In the template are already pre-written links to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin and Email.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Social Media” gadget in the “Social Media And Search Form” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. If you want to add your link to pre-written icon, replace LINK with the link. Do not delete any the quotation marks. Tip: Copy it from your browser and make sure it starts with https://.
3. If you want to add your email address, replace ADDRESS with your email address. Do not add any spaces or quotation marks.
4. If you want to add more icons, follow this tutorial.
5. If you want to delete some icons, delete the whole line – starting with <a href… and ending with </a>.

Header

As header, you can display the title of your blog, enter a short description or upload your logo.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Header” gadget in the “Header” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. Optional: Enter a short description into “Blog Description” — this will be displayed below your Blog Title.
3. Optional: Upload your logo. Do not click on “Shrink to fit”. If you want to have a logo/image and a description, in “Placement” select “Have a description placed after the image”.
4. Save!

Navigation — Pages

Into the top menu, you can add four types of links — pages, label pages, external links or the blog link.

You can create two-level menu — pages, subpages and sub-subpages.

Adding pages

Important: The page must be already created on your blog. If you haven’t created the page yet, go to “Pages” and click on “New Page” to create it.

1. Find the URL link to your page → go to “Pages”, hover your cursor over the page and click on the eye icon, then copy the link from your browser.
2. Go to “Layout” and find the “Pages” gadget in the “Navigation” section. Click on “Edit”.
3. As “New Site Name” enter the title/name of the page.
4. As “New Site URL” paste the copied URL link.

Adding label pages

Label pages “collect” all posts that fall into the same category (like “Fashion”, “Lifestyle” and so on).

Important: Labels are case sensitive → labels “travel”, “Travel” and “TRAVEL” are three different labels. Always double check if you’re using the same label in your posts and in the top menu.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Pages” gadget in the “Navigation” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. As “New Site Name” enter the title/name of the label page.
3. As “New Site URL” paste the URL link to the page (copy it from your browser).

Adding external links

You can also add links outside your blog — if you have a shop website, you have a portfolio and so on.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Pages” gadget in the “Navigation” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. As “New Site Name” enter a name you want.
3. As “New Site URL” paste the URL link (copy it from your browser).

Adding a blog link

A blog link is good to have if you don’t want to display too many posts on your homepage. It displays the archive with all your published posts.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Pages” gadget in the “Navigation” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. As “New Site Name” enter a name you want (like “blog” or “new posts”).
3. As “New Site URL” paste the following link (you can change the “6” to any number you want):

   /search?max-results=6

Creating a drop-down menu

You can create two-level menu to help you organize your links.

The URL link stays the same, you only need to add underscores before the link’s name → one underscore (_) for first subpages and two underscores (_ _) for sub-subpages.

If you don’t have a link and you only want to trigger to open the menu, you can add the hashtag symbol (#).

Your final menu should look like this:

Featured Post

At the top of the homepage is a Featured Post. You can choose if you want to highlight the most recent post on your blog or you can select any post from the archive.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Featured” gadget in the “Featured” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. In “Post Snippet” make sure “Show post title” and “Show image” are checked.
3. If you want to display the latest post, in “Featured post” choose “Use the most recently published post”.
4. If you want to display a specific post, in “Featured post” choose “Select a featured post” and find the post which you want to include.
5. Save!

Category Boxes

Here you showcase five of your main categories.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “One” gadget in the “Categories” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. Change the text in the box by changing the “Title”.
3. Into “Link” add the URL link of the label you want to display. Tip: Copy it from your browser to make sure you don’t make any mistakes.
4. Add your image by uploading it from your device or paste the URL. Do not click on “Shrink to fit”.
5. Save and follow the same tutorial for the other four boxes.

Blog Posts

You can change the number of posts per page as well as the post date style.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Blog Posts” gadget in the “Main” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. If you want to display more or less posts on homepage, you can change the number in “Number of posts on main page”.
3. Select the post date style in the first drop-down in “Post Page Options”.
4. Make sure the option “Show Share Buttons” is checked as well.
5. And save!

Have image wider than text

If you want to have the same result as it’s on the demo blog or listing photos, where the images are wider than text, follow this tutorial:

1. Have all images set to “Original size”.
2. Select a block/paragraph of text → only one paragraph and without images.
3. In the formatting menu, click on “Normal” to open the drop-down menu ale select “Paragraph”.
4. Do this for all paragraphs in your post and save.

Sidebar — Profile

Here you can introduce yourself to your readers.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Profile” gadget in the “Sidebar” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. You can change the text “Profile” by changing the “Title”.
3. If you want to add some short description, enter it in the “Caption” section.
4. If you want add a link to a page about yourself, you can paste the URL into “Link”. This will be displayed as the “Read More” button below the description.
5. Add your image by uploading it from your device or paste the URL. Do not click on “Shrink to fit”.
6. Save!

Sidebar — Labels

Here you can display all or some of your labels which you use in the posts.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Labels” gadget in the “Sidebar” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. If you want to display all your labels, in “Show” select “All Labels”.
3. If you want to display only some of your labels, in “Show” select “Selected Labels”, then select the labels from the list.
4. In “Label sorting” you can choose if you want your labels organized alphabetically or by frequency.
5. In “Display” select “List”.
6. Save!

Sidebar — Archive

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Archive” gadget in the “Sidebar” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. In “Style” select “Dropdown Menu” and customize the settings to your preference.
3. Save!

Sidebar — Pinterest

If you have a Pinterest account, you can display your latest pins. If your profile/boards on Pinterest are private, you won’t be able to see your pins in this widget.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Pinterest” gadget in the “Sidebar” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. In the sixth line of the code (not counting the instructions at the top) you should see the URL address.
3. Find USERNAME in this line and replace it with your Pinterest username.
4. Save!

Popular Posts

Here you & your readers will find the most read posts.

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Popular Posts” gadget in the “Popular Posts” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. In “Most viewed” you can select the period of time from which the popular posts will be selected.
3. In “Show” select “image thumbnail”.
4. In “Display up until… post(s)” you can choose how many posts you want to display. Tip: Choose 5 to achieve the same result as on the demo blog.
5. Save!

Newsletter

This template supports MailChimp as the default mailing service.

If you’re using MailChimp for the first time, follow this tutorial → link.

You can also change the text that’s displayed above the newsletter form → open the “Join our newsletter” gadget and change the title and content.

1. Get the embed code on your MailChimp account.
2. Copy the part of the code that’s highlighted.

3. Open your Blogger, go to “Layout” and find the “Newsletter” gadget in the “Newsletter” section. Click on “Edit”.
4. Replace YOUR MAILCHIMP CODE with the link you copied.
5. Save the widget.

Instagram

This template supports SnapWidget as Instagram widget.

Important: Your Instagram account must be public, otherwise the widget will not be visible.

Creating the widget on SnapWidget.com

1. Go to Snapwidget.com and create an account by clicking on “Sign Up” in top right corner.
2. Click on “Choose a service”, then on “Instagram” and select the first style “Grid”. After that, click on “Configure widget”.
3. Important: You do not need to have a premium account. The widget can work with free account as well — click on the link below the form:

4. Add your Instagram account and desired settings. We recommend changing the following:
   • Layout (Columns X Rows) — 8 X 1
   • Photo Padding — 0 px
   • Hover Effect — Fade Out
   • Sharing Buttons — No
   • Responsive — Yes
5. Click on “Get Widget” and copy the HTML code.

Adding the code to your blog

1. Go to “Layout” and find the “Instagram” gadget in the “Instagram” section. Click on “Edit”.
2. Into “Content” add the copied code.
3. Save!

Customization

You can easily customize all colours in the template and pick any colours you want.

1. Go to “Theme” and click on “Customize”.
2. Click on “Advanced” in the left menu.
3. Click on “Body” to open the drop-down menu, then go section by section and pick your colours.
4. Save by clicking on the save icon in bottom right corner.