two more blog awards

I'm happy, if a bit slow, to announce that I've received two more blog awards. :-)

My apologies, Cathy, aka KraftyKoolKat. I received an award from her just before the hectic holidays began and hadn't acknowledged it. Here it is....


The rules for this one are as follows: Link to whoever gave you the award and pass it on and link to 5 others. You also have to write down 5 things you are addicted to!

There are lots of fabulous blogs out there so here are five of the ones that I follow:

D world of Marlene

I Like Markers

Inkaland mixed media alterd art stamping

Mel Stampz
Stampin' Kub's Blog

As for my addictions:

1. my computer and the internet!
2. decorative papers and card stock, and one of these days I'll be able to make myself use them and not just collect them
3. embossing folders - Cuttlebug or the new Sizzix textured impressions
4. Nestabilities
5. reading - magazines, audiobooks, ebooks, fiction, non-fiction... I'll read it all and I have time to do it what with driving and waiting, and driving and waiting... (I have one teenage girl and one preteen girl.)

The next award is one that I received from Robin.

And here are my seven nominees for this one....

Artsy Visions
Creative Expressions
Diaries of a Stamper
Follow Your Bliss...
Mish Mash
one little spark...
Stamping Science

Thank you, Cathy, and thank you, Robin, for giving me these blog awards. I appreciate that you thought of Indigo Inklings when making your nominations. :-) I'll be adding both of these awards to my sidebar later.

Two awards from Down Under

It's the busy time of year around here as you might be able to tell from the lack of any new posts with my latest creations. We've been to Christmas parties and Christmas shows. I've been trying to finish my shopping and my brainstorming. I have managed to squeeze a little bit of cardmaking, but I actually sent them all off before snapping pics. Yeah, I was in a rush and a little too focused and determined to cross that off my list.

I've also received two more blog awards, and I wanted to acknowledge them before too much more time passes. This week promises to be even busier as we get closer to the holidays.

Here is the first one....


This was given to me by Wendy. Thanks so much! The rules for this award are as follows:

"These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I love the spirit behind this one. The internet certainly makes the world feel much smaller and others feel much closer. It never ceases to amaze me that meaningful relationships and friendships can take place over such vast distances of time and space.

This is the second one....


This was bestowed by MrsDB. Thank you! And here are the rules for this award....

The rules are you must post the award on your blog, name your bestower, then bestow the award upon 6 other bloggers and leave a message on their blog that they've received the award.

As with the first award, I really like the notion of an award being given for spreading love as well as spreading friendship. It's really neat, particularly this time of year. :-)

Now because of time constraints, I'm going to bend the rules a bit. When I first started this blog, I had a blog roll that grew by leaps and bounds. I thought it got a bit out of control after a while, so when I updated the look of my blog, I left it out. Now that Blogger has a nifty gadget for listing favorite blogs, I've decided to add this back. It's really simple to do if you use Google Reader. You can easily import the information that you want to include with just a few clicks. It's great! So simple. Give it a try!

So, I'd like to invite you to take a look over at the sidebar and scroll down a little ways to where I've listed some of the blogs that I enjoy reading. You're getting 24 suggestions, hm, actually recommendations is probably a better word, for blogs that I find to be worthwhile reads. I'll likely add to this list, but I think it's a good start for now.

Thanks again, Wendy and MrsDB! Appreciate you both thinking of me and presenting me with these lovely blog awards. :-)

another fun blog award

I received this award last weekend, from Deanne and Ikki. Thanks so much for coming by here and for giving me this award.

The rules for receiving the award are simple: 1. The winner may put the logo on their blog. 2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award. 3. Nominate 5 blogs. 4. Put links to their blogs. 5. Leave a message for your nominees.

Here are links to five blogs that I haven't nominated here before and some of which I've recently added to my Google Reader:

Kiyomi Krafts
Crafting Endeavors
A Touch of Grace
Thinking Inking
Walkin' on the Bad Side!

Please pop by and visit some of these blogs--lots of inspiration to be found there. I think it's a diverse group with many different styles represented. And thanks again, Deanne and Ikki, for the award. I appreciate it. :-)

many thanks

I've been remiss and have a couple of things that I need to give thanks for. So, first off, here's a card that fits the occasion.


The birds are by Stampendous. The greenery and the sentiment are by Verve. All were stamped using Memento dye inks. The flowers are just clear glue applied randomly with Flower Soft sprinkled on top. The embossing was made using a picket fence wood die cut and my Big Shot.

My apologies to the award-givers. I really appreciate the awards and I'd been hoping to find some time to link a number of blogs. Time keeps getting away from me though, and yesterday a Jeep Wrangler tangled with the back end of my minivan at a four-way stop. Probably wouldn't have been so bad if the jeep hadn't had the big winch on the front of it. ARGH! So now I'm dealing with insurance and repair estimates etc. Such fun. 'Nuff said about that though. I didn't want to let any more time go by without at least acknowledging the awards and the award givers.


This is the third time I've received this award. This time it comes from Heather G. Thank you so much, Heather!


This second one is from Lori, and isn't it a cute one! Thanks, Lori!

I appreciate the awards. Sometimes I still can't get over the idea that there are people who actually come by here regularly, so to be given awards on top of receiving comments or seeing the counter tick off visits is really kind of a thrill. Makes my day brighter. :-) Thanks again!

Now, back to making those phone calls....

a site award

LadyDoc stopped by earlier and left me some kind words about my blog. She also gave me an award! That was so cool.


Thanks, LadyDoc! :-)

What a weekend!

Yes, it was a fun Fourth here. We enjoyed fireworks and barbeque. We also took advantage of the unusually mild weather to catch up on yardwork. LOL! Yeah, we're wild. ;-) But seriously! It was almost chilly when we were outside watching the night sky light up with color! That's definitely NOT normal for Missouri in July. That's not what the title of my post is about though.

I'm excited because I had some blog awards land here this weekend. It's just a lot of fun to find out that people are dropping by, reading, and getting some inspiration and/or useful information from the posts I make here.

I received this award from Karen and from PeeJay, on the same day, no less! :-) Thank you both!


The rules for this one are as follows:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs you've nominated.

I also received an award from Barb. Thank you!


I couldn't track down any rules for this one in my quick search this morning, but please feel free to click on the links below to find more sources of inspiration out here in the blogosphere. I'm sure that some of the blogs that I'll link have probably already been award winners, but if someone comes across one that they'd perhaps not seen before, then great!

So, as they say on TV, here are my nominations, in no particular order:

KardKrazy
Chic n' Scratch
Clean & Simple Stamping
Just Stamp It!
Kristy's Musings
Mel Stampz
My Little Ink Spot

I think these blogs reflect the wide variety of stamping techniques and styles out there, and that's just scratching the surface! I have subscriptions to all of them (and many others!) in Google Reader so that I can keep up with what's going on and not miss a post.

That's another thing that I'll say for these awards though--they do inspire me to do more than just read these blogs. I need to leave more comments on the blogs that I visit, too. I'll confess that when I list blogs like this, I sometimes feel like I've been a stalker since a lot of them don't realize that I follow them regularly. LOL! But as a good friend of mine would say, if people are doing good things, why not let them know? :-)

So, I'm off to leave comments shortly, and to try to turn over a new leaf as far as leaving comments. Or at least I will after the thunderstorms here pass. I'm hoping that the humidity will let up a bit after that, too! Yep, the typical summer in Missouri is back.

Arte y Pico award

Things have been hopping around here, but I didn't want to let anymore time before acknowledging that Sarosa of Encouraging Impressions has nominated me for an Arte y Pico award! Thank you Sarosa!

As I understand it, there are 5 rules attached to this award, and they are as follows:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.

4. The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte Y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.

Hm, looks like I've covered three of the requirements. Just two to go. These are the hard ones though, making only 5 nominations.

In no particular order, I'd like to mention:

Brayergirl's Book of Banter
Ethel, The Paperquilter
Babsarella's Pocket Full of Sunshine
Sue's Wandering Star

I know I'm bending the rules a bit because this next person doesn't have a blog, but I find inspiration just looking through the lovely portraits at her site:

SueW of Art of Surprise

Thanks again, Sarosa!

My Day Was Made!

Last week was an unusually busy week around here. Didn't have much time for crafting. A lot of things were put on the back burner. There were a number of sleep-deprived nights added to the mix, and I just can't function well in a sleep-deprived state anymore. So, by the time Thursday had rolled around and I'd found out that there'd be folks coming over bright and early Saturday morning to work on a project here (ARGH!!), I was beat. Know what though? By Friday morning I was feeling better. I'd been tagged twice for an award. How cool!


Pearl tagged me first, and Judy was just a few minutes behind her. Both had such nice things to say. I may have received the "You Make My Day" award, but that made my day. :-) Thanks Pearl and Judy!

Now this is the part that gets tricky. Recipients of this award are supposed to pass it on to ten others. I do browse many blogs and find many sources of inspiration. I also know that most of these blog authors have already been tagged at some point, so it can be tough to come up with ten who've not received this award before. I'll go ahead and list the ten whose blogs make my day, but I'll only officially tag those who haven't been tagged for this award already so that they don't have to come up with yet another list of ten bloggers. I'd just hate for anyone to miss out on seeing some of the artwork posted at these sites.

Here they are, in no particular order:

InkaLand
Kristy's Musings
Arsty Visions
Hermine's Place
Ink Stains
Inkerbelle's
Llama Tales
Manic Stamper
Vintage Papers
Paperlicious

Have fun visiting these blogs, and prepare to be inspired! :-) I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

How Excellent!

Jackie has named me an Excellent Blogger!


Thanks for the fun surprise and for the great way to wind down my week! Now it's my turn to nominate some Excellent Bloggers:

• Sarosa
• Jacki
• Louise
• Nancy
• Rika

Please go and check out these blogs. There is amazing artwork of all kinds to be seen there and plenty of opportunities to find inspiration. :-)