1. First, I went to Fotoflexer. If you have Adobe PhotoShop or Adobe Illustrator, you can use that. But I don't have either, so I use (& love) Fotoflexer. Upload your photo. Blog buttons are usually 150 x 150 and if you crop in Fotoflexer, you will be able to see the dimensions. If you don't crop, you can select re-size, also on the upper right in the tool bar.
2. Next you will want to add text. Click Decorate in the toolbar and Text. A Text box will pop up and you can choose fonts and colors, transparent background, font sizes, etc. If you are new to this, I find writing each line in it's own text box to be the way to go!
3. When you are happy with it, save it to your computer.
4. I use Photobucket, so I then uploaded my picture to Photobucket. Once it is uploaded, click on the photo, Photobucket will give you ways of sharing your photo: Email, Direct Link, HTML. For the purposes of making a blog button, you want the Direct Link.
I then went to Oikology and followed directions for steps 3 through 5...and it worked...and I am VERY excited...oh, the possibilities!
