Liebster Award

Woke up today to a lovely message from Dani at The Stay at Work Housewife who has kindly nominated me for a Liebster Award. My first ever blogging award! Liebster is a German word that means dearest or beloved and is an unofficial award given to up and coming bloggers with under 200 followers by fellow bloggers. It's a way to pay it forward and I'm over the moon that Daisy Bisley has been noticed and nominated, so now it's my turn to pay it forward.

Here are the basic rules for being nominated:

•  Share 11 random facts about yourself
•  Answer the 11 questions the blogger who nominated you asked
•  Create 11 questions to ask the 11 people you nominate
• Nominate 11 bloggers with under 200 followers and let them know they’ve been nominated

11 Random Facts about me:

I'm rubbish at maths // One of my dreams, since childhood is to swim with dolphins // I love elephants and have my own herd // I once sold Terrence Stamp a DVD //  I have a fear of werewolves // I'm an obsessive Lord of the Rings fan // I love Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry and Hanna Barbera cartoons  // One day I will go to Africa and see an elephant in the wild  //  I've almost completed my Disney Classics collection - only 4 to go // I have 1 brother and 17 first cousins  //  The best pizza I've ever eaten was in Cetraro, Itlay

My herd

And my answer to Dani's questions: 

What is your favorite movie?

This is a very difficult one to answer for me as I'm a huge movie nerd, but I think one of my favourites that I've watched recently is Little Miss Sunshine. 

Why did you start a blog?

I started DaisyBisley to share my design work and updates, but since I started the Blog Everyday in May challenge it's become more than that. It's a chance for me to connect with new people, learn and engage.

Who has had the biggest influence on your life?

My parents and family.

Would you rather be hot or cold?

As a pale, red haired Scot I struggle with the heat, I'm built for the cold. Think it's my ancient Scandinavian roots.

If you could give yourself, 10 years ago, advice what would you say?

Do something that scares you once in a while and step out of you comfort zone. Try something new and don't be afraid to be yourself!

Name one small thing you do for yourself that brightens your day.
Taking time out to read really relaxes me, or if it's sunny I'll head out for a walk.

What is one dream you hope to achieve in your lifetime?
Ever since I was 8 or 9, whenever it was The Lion King came out, I've been obsessed with Africa's wildlife and have dreamt of one day going there to see it.

If you could be an animal for a day, what kind of animal would you be?
I think I'd like to be an eagle or a dolphin, or maybe a combination of both so I can fly and be an awesome swimmer.

Has anyone ever told you that you look like a celebrity, if so, who?
I answered this one in a post a few days ago. I'm still sticking to it - A lovely old lady and a lookee-likey generator both said I looked like Rita Hayworth.

Name one bad habit you have.
I'm a bit of a procrastinator and can be a bit messy!!

What do you hope to achieve with your blog?
I hope to connect with new people and make bloggy friends. I also want to get my work out there too as I hope to make DaisyBisley a successful design shop.

Here are my list of nominees:
Am Bothan
Bake Good
In Social We Trust
The Social Exchange
SianLouise
Fettbot
Precious Impressions
Junk Mail
My Dearest Friend
My Life in Scotland
Trying for Sighs

And their questions:
1.  What is your favourite book?
2.  What's the one city you've always wanted to visit?
3.  What are you're top 3 albums of all time?
4.  Why did you start blogging?
5.  Star Trek or Star Wars?
6.  What's your favourite blog at the moment?
7.  What's your favourite recipe?
8.  If you could learn a new skill what would it be?
9.  If you could invent anything you want, what would it be?
10.  Favourite TV show of all time?
11.  If this character was a real person, what fictional chracter would be your best friend?

Many thanks to Dani again for nominating me, you've really made my week!!

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Letting Go

Day 30: React to this term: Letting Go

I have to admit I'm finding it hard to put this one in to words, so a list will have to do. Here are a few things I'd like to let go of:

• The negative part of my brain that tells me I'm crap at something or that I "can't" do something. I'm working on this one with a lot of research in to mindfulness and meditation... hope it works.

• The 15lbs I've gained in the past two years - I'd like to get back to my fitter, healthier state.

• The evil procrastinator in me that has a hand in why nothing has been done about the previous statement.
• The annoyance I feel when someone from Glasgow asks how I spell my last name.
•  The nerd rage that builds up when someone bashes Lord of the Rings - I'm looking at you Peter! - It's the source of my nerd power.

Other than that I don't think I need to let anything else go. However I would like to pick a few things up; a wee boost in self confidence, a 100% foolproof regime for my unpredictable auburn curls, another tattoo and to improve my cooking repertoire. So if anyone has any tips on feeling more confident, tricks on taming curls or some really good recipes please feel free to share and I'll get started!

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5 Songs

With our challenge quickly nearing its end I'm a little bit sad. It's been a great month of prompts, meeting new folk and learning more about myself and writing. I'm looking forward to continuing the blog without so many prompts and coming up with my own features, but I have to admit I'm nervous about it!

On to today's topic: Five songs or pieces of music that speak to you or bring back memories. I love music and it has been a constant friend throughout my life, working like a therapist during the bad times and enhancing the good times by association. Helping to mould me in to the person I am. It was difficult to pick just five songs that mean something to me as there are so many, so I thought it might be best if I choose those that kind of sum up feelings and memories as a whole. Let's see how I do.

T Rex and 20th Century Boy in particular takes me back to high school and specifically one night during a concert that my best friends and I put on. You know who you are and you know what moment of the night I'm talking about. I put the Placebo version in too as they remind me of the 90s indie child rebelliousness we all had.


Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Price's Summertime is essential to my summer. We don't get many sunny days in Scotland so we have to make the best of them and this is part if my sunshine playlist. It's kind of the same thing at Christmas - It's not Christmas until Noddy Holder screams it and Die Hard is on telly. Summer isn't summer without this track and Boom Shake the Room wouldn't go a miss either.

Let's get a bit soppy for a moment. This is our song, we danced together for the first time to it and it pretty much sums up how we feel.


DeVotchKa came in to my life in late 2005 when I heard How it Ends in the trailer for Everything is Illuminated and I went on an internet treasure hunt to find out what/who it was. Much to my joy they did a lot of work on the soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine with Michael Danna - both these movies are also two of my favourites and Everything is Illuminated is also a fantastic and beautiful book you should read.

I've also added We're Leaving as it was a track they played at one of their gigs. They jumped down and in amongst us and performed it acoustically. it was and still is one the best gigs I've ever been to.

No musical journey of my life would be complete without Bon Jovi. I have loved them since I can remember and they have been there through thick and thin. Many a day has been spent singing/screaming a long to Jon Bon.

I also wanted to add this little video.


It's my wee brother's birthday today and we both loved Spaced, hence the DaisyBisley name. He's 26 years young today and the sun is shining - so get Jazzy Jeff on and have a great day bruv!

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Home and Away - Only in Pictures

 

 

 

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Dear Reader...

Day 27 of the challenge is A Letter to Your Readers, so I wrote you all a wee letter.

 Apologies for any spelling mistakes and if you can't read my writing!

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Rita Hayworth and a Good Read

I missed yesterdays topic as it was just too sunny to stay inside so I'm posting both today starting with Day 25: Something someone told you about yourself that you'll never forget (good or bad). Now I suspect that this is in no way true, but I keep it in my mind as it made me pretty smug happy. One night at work in the theatre a truly wonderful lady of the older generation told me I looked like a young Rita Hayworth. A couple of years ago a doppleganger post was going around Facebook and when I did one of those "which celebrity do you look like" things I got Rita Hayworth. I was over the moon as I LOVE her, but took it all with a pinch of salt. However, the fact that this kind older lady said the same makes it a fact and I'm sticking to it!!

Moving swiftly on: Day 26: Share something you've read online. I love a good Infographic, especially funny ones. I found this one today and have used it to decipher my inner geeky/nerdyness. According to this I am in fact not a nerd, but some kind of Geek/Nerd hybrid a Gerd or a Neek perhaps  - Excellent!!

Any other Gerds/Neeks out there?


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How To Make Social Buttons For Blogger

The other day I when looking through some rather lovely blogs I noticed they all had lovely wee social buttons. Well I decided I wanted some so with some trial and error and a tiny bit of HTML know-how I figured it out. It struck me {when I had finished sceaming at the code} just how simple it could be using Adobe Illustrator, Photobucket and Blogger. Hopefully that is made clear in this post which just happens to be my very first tutorial - hopefully of many more to come.

How To Make Your Own Social Buttons For Blogger

First decide on the look of your buttons make a little sketch time for them – I only wanted circles so I didn’t bother sketching, but if you're after soemthing a little more fancy then it's a good place to start.

Once you've sketched out your buttons, scan them and open them in Illustrator.
{I used Illustrator to create my buttons, but you could also use Photoshop.}

If you don’t want to use the Live Trace or are using Photoshop you can use the pen tool to draw your logos.

Repeat this for all your desired buttons and once you have them all it’s time to get them ready for Blogger.

Now open a new doc in Illustrator to the desired size of your buttons, mine were 40px x 40px. Copy your button from the previous document and rezise them to fit your new artboard.
{You could do this to begin with, but I was just being awkward}

Repeat this for all your buttons and once they are all exported as png files, upload them to your chosen image hosting site - I used Photobucket.

Once you’ve uploaded your images, it’s time to get them on to your blog.

Use this code:< a href=" YOUR WEB LINK" >< img border="0"src="YOUR DIRECT IMAGE LINK" />< /a >

Do this for each of your buttons and paste each segment of code in to the gadget box. Hit save and choose where in your layout you want the buttons to go.

If you want to centre them then just add < center> to the very top of the box and </ center>  after all the code.
{if you are copying and pasting the code from here don't forget to leave out the spaces}

I hope this makes sense. If not and/or if you have any questions please comment below, but be gentle it's my first tutorial.

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