My first award!

I love the networking that blogging provides. Within only a few days of first launching my blog I made several "blog" friends with whom I now keep in touch regularly. It's so much fun to see how other Etsians have transferred their craft to a blog (and/or to a twitter and facebook page!) and the stories behind it all. One way blogs keep each other in the spotlight ("blog lovin'," I like to call it) is to share awards with one another. It's kind of like a e-version of a chain letter, where someone nominates you and you have to nominate others in return. I dig it. That said, today Cherry Tart Designs awarded me with the My first award! Thanks so much, Cherry Tart - I am honored! Make sure you check out her blog, too = she does super cute graphic design and even features yummy looking recipes, too! So the rules now are that I have to list 15 other blogs that I dig and inform them that they have won the award, too :) So here they are, blog of people that I already know or have met along the way that I dig. And in no particular order:

SoMi Speaks My Sweet and Saucy Not Your Plain Jane Cheryl the Explorer Always Look on the Bright Side No Tea For You How About Orange 101 Things in 1001 Days Cup O' Cake designs Cleveland's a Plum Much to Say About Nothing Creative Kismet K-Tell Winter Rose Designs California Teen

(To be official, the Rules of Blog Award Acceptance: 1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. 2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.)

Awesome! Hope we can all check out each others' blogs and find new blogs in the process! On an unrelated note, I finished Yelping about the bead stores I visited in Baltimore and Chicago. In case you are new to Yelp, it's an online community that reviews everything from stores to restaurants to doctors to hotels, you get the picture. I have really found a fun and funky community there and was asked to be an Elite member earlier this year. Dig that, too! (If you are on Yelp, holler at a sister, I love reading others' reviews!). Beading clearly makes me happy :) Here I am in front of "Happy Beadium" in Chicago (and yes I am aware that I am wearing clashing colors!). I had hoped to get pictures in front of every shop we visited, but got so caught up in the moment that I forgot! That said, I plan to bead for the majority of the weekend and have lots of new things to post next week. I had hoped to finish more items this week, but I ended up selling several items I WORE TO WORK to some co-workers (they had to force me not to just hand them the items right off of my neck!) and spent my evenings filling their orders (while watching So You Think You Can Dance, of course). The only thing that might get in my way is that my parents are arriving tomorrow for a 3 week (yes, that's 21 days) visit. Riiiiiiight. So I might not get much work done after all. Fingers crossed. Here's to a great weekend!