It's my lucky day!

TODAY....my High Hopes stamps arrived! I have been waiting eagerly for these to come, but High Hopes has been swamped with orders the last few weeks. So when the envelope came, I was ecstatic! I have fallen completely in love with so many HH stamps, but especially the dragons - they're so stinkin' cute! So in my mailbox today was a large Ace stamp, Lenny's Love Me Nots, Baby Dragon, Gavin' the Givin' Dragon, Warm Wishes and the "Bewareth Ye of Dragons, For Thou Art Crunchy!" sentiment. Along for the ride came Leapfrogs, Fishing Santa, Woodland Santa, and Reindeer Games. If you've never visited High Hopes, you should; they've got some great stuff going on over there. They have a blog, too, that hosts challenges and has great inspiration. Hop over for a visit!

I decided to buy just rubber; no foam, no wood block...just rubber. Remind me in the future to at least get them already mounted on cling foam. I spent the better part of the evening getting them all mounted on the foam so I could clean them up and get to inkin'. It could be the fact that there were a grand total of 11 stamps to mount, but I'm of the mind that this was a sticky job (literally) that required a certain amount of care. So, as slow as the job was, I'm happy with the final outcome. Thank goodness for Honey Bee scissors from EK Success - just a few wipes of some rubbing alcohol and all the sticky was gone!

So nooooowwwww, I get to play with my new stamps. And since it was my lucky day TODAY, it will be someone else's lucky day here pretty soon.... (yes, I'm teasing you for what's coming later this week!)

Keep coming back, because I have a special somethin' for someone in a few more days!

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So the last thing for today is this: I noticed Sunday when I was checking the hits on my blog, that the numbers really jumped, and again today they've jumped. As of right now, I'm at 573; on Saturday it was only 520. I started this blog at the beginning of October, and it took me 2 1/2 months to get to 500, but in the last two days I had 53 hits (and I haven't done much in the way of challenges lately, either, which generates more hits than usual).

So I was wondering why all the increased traffic? My followers haven't changed. No one with lots of traffic has posted about my blog (that I'm aware of). I checked the webmaster tool for my blog and nothing seems to have changed. So what gives? I googled myself and my blog, but only one of my posts is showing up so far. Then I scrolled down a bit and found my blog listed on someone else's blog - one I didn't recognize! I followed the link - lo and behold - there's my blog hyperlinked in a list of a few other blogs. Allison over at Stampin' When I Can posts "Newly Discovered" blogs on a fairly frequent basis, and I made her list on Saturday. I was floored! The fact that she's got some beautiful stuff going' on over there humbled me. As I strive to improve what I create, her creations are the kind of thing I look to for inspiration. So, Allison...I don't know how often you visit, but thank you! And in the process, I found another source of great work to find inspiration.