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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Myself in 10 Words or Less

Nerd, Tattoo Doodler, Digital Art Monkey, Social Media Fiend

Day 11: Sell yourself in 10 words or less. Basically my Twitter bio, it's the best way to describe my self in a quick way and hopefully get most of my skills across in a quirky, fun way ;-)

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A Proper Introduction for 2012

What do I love more than designing, watching movies, discussing movies and geeking out about said things? Nothing! Which is why I want this blog to be a great place for folk interested in them too. I do plan to chuck in some things about my life, work, things I’m doing and experiencing and hopefully some guest posts from lovely readers (just ask).

Hopefully the blog will evolve into something informative and entertaining that readers find interesting and want to come back to.

I hope you will stay with me as I learn the ropes of blogging and how to be successful at it.

I'm also on a mission to teach myself all about the joys and skills of Social Media. I'm picking it up through my new job and getting to grips with how to make it work. It's all new to me, but really very interesting and I've got some lovely folk helping me along the way.

Image by the tartanpodcast via Flickr

The wonderful Leanne MacDuff has been fantastic in helping me get started and has also introduced me to the fab Gisele N. Mendez. Both of these lovely ladies have given me more of an insight in the last 2 weeks than any of the books I've read and continue to read. I suppose it's easier to see it put in to practice and working in real time than it is reading about it and blindly trying it for yourself. So a massive thanks to both of you. I would also recommend both of their blogs - they're great way to start a working day with a cup of tea!


Tweet me or visit the Facebook page for tattoo & design commissions

Back to Work & Social Media Training

It was my first week back at work in RTRP and it was good to be back!
I've been catching up on all my emails and posts and of course all the lovely crafters of the Kirstie's Handmade Britain community. It has been amazing getting to know some of them through emails and posts and seeing all the talented people we have out there. It has made planning a featured crafter every day very difficult!

I've also been continuing with my Social Media education. I enrolled on Nikki Pilkington's 30 Day Twitter course - Its only been 2 days, but its already making a difference.Can't wait to see where it goes over the next month!
This will add to the fantastic 12 Days of Twitter course I did at the end of last year with Reach Further. The course was great. We got daily notes to work through, did the work when it suited us and had the weekend to catch up on any missed homework. I know I'll keep the notes for reference on my desktop as they were so informative and structured really well. If you need any help with your social media & Twittering I would highly recommend Reach Further. Liz, Bryony, Lucy and all the Reach Further guys were on hand throughout the course to guide us and they were so supportive too.
(search for @reachfurther and #12DoT on Twitter if you want to find out more, check the website too)


Has anyone else done any really good social media training? Tweet me

Happy New Year!

Here it comes... every year I make a vow to be more active on my blog and social networks and fail miserably. The truth is I've been falling behind because over the past 5 months I've been caught up in some kind of whirlwind that has kept me away from my blog and working on other things.

In my last post I said I had been accepted to take part in the Gen Up Programme, well that has been and gone now and I have to say I enjoyed every minute! I was forced out of my shell and made more aware of the fact that I am actually good at what I do, something us creative folk have a bit of trouble owning up to! I met some great people and networked with industry folk and most importantly ended up with a job.
In my work placement week I spent time at Raise the Roof Productions helping out with release forms and press releases which was really quite interesting. I learned a lot in the short week I was there and really enjoyed it. I also worked on their social media networks and outlined a plan for them to try when I left and they must have liked it as they asked me to come back the day after I finished Gen up!
So that's where I've been since the 7th of October. I was supposed to be there until November, but got extended until December and then on my last day I was told I had been extended until March. So really it was a Christmas and birthday present all in one.
I suppose that now that my job title is Social Media Coordinator I have no excuse to be lacking in my social media endeavours and this blog should be more active and hopefully more interesting as I share my thoughts, works and interesting stuff I've found. At least, that's the plan!

In other news I finally passed my driving test this week after 2 previous attempts and almost 10 years of learning (on and off) what a relief it was to finally pass. I was gutted I failed in December - I had 3 minors and pretty much a perfect drive, if it hadn't been for the cyclist approaching the zebra crossing...
I'm now waiting for my lovely pink licence to arrive although I would have preferred to get a new picture. I am apparently to be stuck with the monstrosity that is my 16 year old self at a time when I was known to my friends as Claire "I HATE my hair" Glasgow for the next ten years, not to mention a signature that looks nothing like how I sign my name now. In fact this licence could possibly get me investigated for some sort of fraud! Let the fun begin :D

Over Christmas I managed to get the rebranding of Daisy*B Design off the ground. Still putting the finishing touches to it all, but overall I think it suits me a lot better than the floral designs I had before. I got rid of the name Daisy*B Design as it turns out there is at least 3 other folk on the net using it and have decided to just stick with DaisyBisley as my working name. Still trying to figure out how to go about changing the Facebook page though. Any thoughts?


Thanks for reading
DaisyB

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