Aykayem's Pond - Blog Background

ok ... if you just clicked on the "Aykayem's dodgy web design" link on one of my blogs, because you actaully like that background - yes - you can use it on your blog if you like, that is why I have written these instructions ... but ... first a disclaimer: I am no html expert, just someone who likes fiddling around with stuff that I probably shouldn't mess with ... anyway - this is how I did the background image thingy ... I think:

Log into blogger and go to your dashboard and ... if you are not sure about what you are doing you might actually want to create a whole new blog just for using to try out silly stuff like this without messing up your real one (which is why I originally created this particular blog!) ... then, on that new blog (or whatever one you want to add this background to) click on "Layout" and then "page elements" (the place where you add all those widgets/gadgets/whatever they are calling them today) ...
btw - I am not sure this works with all of the different blogger templates/etc either - the website I found some instructions on (I sort of found a couple different explanations of how to do similar things and then kind of half did bits of both of them and fiddled until it worked) said that it only works with blogger's Minima template - but my blog was already using a version of that anyway so I didn't need to change it.
... anyway ... then if you click on "add a gadget" (on the sidebar bit - it might work on the bottom too but I have not tried that, so it might not) you will then get a page where you can choose what sort to add - choose the one called "HTML/JavaScript" ... then, in the thingy that comes up, you can type "Blog Background" (or whatever else you want to call it I guess) for the title, and then copy and paste this in the box:

<style type="text/css">body {background-image: url("http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh371/aykayem/Aykayem-PondBackground01.jpg"); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; }</style>

Made by <a href="http://messing-around-with-stuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/aykayems-pond-blog-background.html"/>Aykayem's dodgy web design!</a>

of course if you have been reading this on my ?normal blog and you have followed those links and worked out how to make your own image, then feel free to put the URL for your image in there instead of for mine ... then, if you want to, you can remove my "Made by ... " link and/or replace it with one of yours (seeing it won't have been me who made your background) ... or type some text about your background photo or something in there, or whatever ...
(I guess I can't stop you using my background picture and not linking to me ... but it would be kind of nice if you do give me credit ... even if it IS only a dogdy first attempt at something I know next to nothing about)


btw ... are you trying to work out how I got the < > to appear in here? - much tearing my hair out and fiddling with typing & lt; and & gt; (but without the space after the & ... (I had to put the space there else it just does what it is meant to and comes up as a pointy bracket!) and hoping blogger doesn't change it on me while I am going back and forth between editing modes ... lol

later edit (a day later) ... I have made another background image ... the code/URLs for those is in the next post on this blog - at