my favourite things: board games

scrabble tribute via Scarycrow's photostream

gosh... I just LOVE board games! i pretty much love playing board games anytime, anywhere, anyhow. monopoli money via jjjohn's photostream board games & fun memories so often go hand-in-hand for me! memories of playing one of my early faves, the game sorry, with my grandma in florida , seemingly for hours and hours each time we visited it. we both loved that game! of sleepover 80’s board games over the years with pjs and pops and chips and payday & life until the wee hours of the night! of trying to learn all the tricks with my dad and uncle on Friday nights as a child playing cribbage. of crokinole, one of my other faves, at our wedding reception (that’s how much we love games!) and on summery nights @ home. fortunately, little rikrak loves board games just as much as mr. rikrak and I do. we have lots of after dinner board game parties @ our home. these days it’s uno or blokus or cribbage for the 3 of us! vintage picnic game by Picnic by Ellie's photostream …………………….. and so I asked around to see what other cyberly folksloved in the way of board games… here are the results: from 64 comments between my etsy thread here and on twitter, and the top 4 faves were: scrabble with 14 faves trivial pursuit with 7 faves monopoly with 6 faves and clue with 5 faves numerous games received 2 or 3 votes. interestingly, monopoly was both a fave, and the most popular NON fave (folks chimed in that any game except monopoly would be great!) ........................ here are some etsyans and their faves: xenotees, leavesofglass, emmsgems, niftyknits, & andreacreates all love scrabble! adoreneko , thepurplehouse , fawn&forest & more all mentioned loving monopoly. chess was neblik’s fave mybonnie mentioned loving pictionary & backgammon! artmind, happysquashtoys & aranndil adore settlers of catan scrappincorner, & myhools loves sorry kimiko611,& sewsillydesigns, love clue! ontheround adores cribbage. fivelittlegems stumped me with a new-to-me game: quelf thanks for your votes, everyone! ..................... upcycled checkers by Jupita what's your favourite board game?

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the answers: an *inspiring* little game {part one}

yay!
i'm so glad some folks added their fun answers to part one of the *inspiring* little game post from yesterday!

PLEASE NOTE! if you haven't had a chance to play the game yet,
please stop reading this post lickity-splitly and head on over to the game post here!

then you can come back here to see the answers!

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the answers to the game are:

A3: laura bucci
B4: mundo flo
C6: yvestown
D2: marion hearts
E7: photo bird
F1: patchwork pottery
G5: erin lang norris

thanks so much to everyone who played!

and special kudos to the wonderful nesting emily, who played, and had 5 of 7 guesses correct! woohoo! go see emily's beautiful shop to be inspired!

Silk Star Stitch porcelain VASE by nestingemily

look for future *inspiration* wall posts in the future... and be sure to add your own to the comments so i can feature some of them!

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the answers: an * inspiring * little game { part 2 }

yay! everyone did a great job guessing!

PLEASE NOTE! if you haven't had a chance to play :
an *inspiring* little game part 2 yet,
please stop reading this post lickity-splitly and head on over to the game post here!

then you can come back here to see the answers!

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the answers to round #2 of the game are:

A3 . B1 . C4 . D5 . E2

i'm excited to say that 3 fun folks got all 5 answers correct! good guessing! something of note: all 3 of those winners were also all stationers. hmmmm... interesting!

this leads me to theorize that a) stationers are especially brilliant :) b) have a great eye for seeing how an artist & their inspirations go hand in hand and c) are inspired by others papery boards! bravo!

since we have 3 winners - i'm excited to feature them all!

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first up, congrats to the lovely & talented dre of willowcat studio. willowcat is home to beautiful paper delights, cards, designs and more. her handmade work is lovely and i've been fortunate to come to know this supermommy thru the wonderful Trans-Canada Etsy team. she's a brilliant cheerleader for the handmade movement. be sure to visit her lovely shop.... just look @ these adorable cards she's made for spring!

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next up, congrats also to the wonderful StuffbySteph, maker of lovely paper goodies, cards, tags & more! i first met steph in the ever-delightful Canadian buy n' sell thread on etsy. (looking for a great bunch of the friendliest folks around? visit that thread daily!) she's a wonderful part of that great group of folks supporting one another with cheers & encouragement! and what pretty papery goods she makes. congrats!

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and finally, congrats to the wonderful upup, the lovely shop that features handmade stationery & print-your-own recipe cards, feelgood lists, and more! i'm a great fan of her inspiring, modern designs! what a wonderful adddition they'd make to any home! and the stories behind her works are inspiring on their own! just fabulous!

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so congratulations! and thanks to everyone for playing!

tune in next week when i take the rikrak studio blog on the road. lots of little travel adventures, explorey fun & more! have a great weekend!

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the answers: an *inspiring* little game { part 3}: sketchbooks

question mark cross stitch pattern by andwabisabi

yay!
i'm so glad some folks added their fun answers to part three of the *inspiring* little game post from yesterday!

PLEASE NOTE! if you haven't had a chance to play the game yet,
please stop reading this post lickity-splitly and head on over to the game post here!

then you can come back here to see the answers!

.............................................

the answers to the sketchbook & artists matches are...
A5: tad carpenter
B6: carina envoldsen-harris
C4: ouou
D1: mondopanno
E3: alanna risse / angrypirate
F2: senyol

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many congrats to two entries who both guessed 4 out of 6 matches correctly!
here's to:

the lovely eNVe jewelry shop!
just look @ her beautiful creations. so pretty & with so many great deals in the shop.... she has a new clearance section, too! hurry & shop & save! great guessing!



and congrats to
annemarie, of the shop dinah's friends,
who makes these adorable teeny tiny needlefelted sweeties! oh heavens! aren't they so sweet?!


and congrats to the wonderful ouou, who guessed 4 of 6 correctly as well,
including her own fun sketchbook entry! :) thanks, nicey!

great guessing everyone! and thanks for playing!

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the answers: an *inspiring* little game {part 4}: bloggers

what talented match-makers you all are!
thanks so much to everyone who played monday's fun guessing game.
the correct bloggers & their matching inspiration walls are:

wall A + 3 = welcome to summersville
wall B + 5 = clever karen
wall C + 1 = desire to inspire
wall D + 4 = Sea Embraces
wall E + 2 = she.likes.cute
i'm delighted to say that 4 folks got all 5 answers correct! yay! so i'm excited to feature:

the talented karley: who has her own sweet blog, she sews lovely! you'll just love karley's eco friendly, reusable coffee sleeve shop, filled with gorgeous fabrics, lovely colours and beautiful handiwork! she also has a fabulously budget-saavy SALE section in the shop, with deals deals deals!



next up, congrats to donna VW, blogger at "the rock" paper, scissors, a fun new paper projects site! :) check out her current works!






the next congrats goes out to guesser, the empty nest, one of my wonderful sponsors! you'll want to hurry right over to janet's beautiful shop, filled with fiber, fabric & paint creations. i am in dreamland just swooning over her gorgeous handmade scarves..... *sigh!* i LOVE big scarfs! wonderful work, nicey!






and our final congrats goes out to lyn @ the it is what it is blog! lyn has a supercute etsy shop filled with fabric goodies... and if you're a lilly pulitzer fan.... you'll be swoooning!

great guessing, cuties! thanks for playing!

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an *inspiring* little game! {part one}

wall A

I love games.
and i love seeing others' inspirations!

so here's a fun game for all of us.

i've become very fascinated of late with the idea of inspiration boards or idea walls. i've seen images of many amazing little walls or boards dedicated to carefully collecting different little goodies that inspire the artist! i love it! i see amazing ones all of the time on flickr from some of my fabulous contacts. i see folks talking about them in the news and in lovely magazines. and in the past few weeks, i've seen some great posts about inspiration boards
(i'm thinking here especially of kotori's great post!)

i'm fascintated with how they look. how they feel, and what folks choose to add to them. i'm also interested in how they relate (or not!) to the artist's work! i love it!
so i found some of my faves in the blogosphere, and I thought we could do something fun with them!
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the FUN RULES:
take a look @ the images below (and the one at the top!) .... each inspiration board or wall belongs to a fun artist whose work I’ve featured at the end of this post in the *the artists* section.

see if you can, without looking/researching, match the inspiration board to the artist. (i.e. A1, B2, etc).... please post your guesses below in the comments! it’ll be fun!

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each image links to the artists’ photostream... BUT try not to look until after you’ve entered your guesses. it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong - i just thought it'd be fun to try and guess!

thanks so much to the artists for sharing their amazing boards and work.

i’ll be posting the answers later today in a separate post.

(but if you're REALLY eager to know .... just click on the board photos!)

wall B

wall C

wall D

wall E

wall F

wall G

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the artists! :


artist 1: the amazing patchwork pottery





artist 2: the wonderful marion of the marionhearts blog



artist 3: the talented laura of laura bucci.etsy.com

artist 4: the wonderful adriana of mundo flo




artist 5: the incredible erin lang norris



artist 6: the brilliant yvestown


artist 7: the oh-so-talented simply photo/photobird

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PS: do you have an inspiration board? where do you keep your inspiring goodies? please share a link to a photo of it with us and i’ll use as many of them as I can in the next inspiration board post guessing game!
please tune in next week for MORE!

have fun!

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kissing friends tales

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1. YeeHaw 2. rollandtumblepress 3. oliverpoodle

4. TheConnArtist 5. pugnotes 6. tinatarnoff

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gosh how i love love!

ain't it a many splendored thing indeed! 

well today is mr. rikrak + my meeting anniversary  {+ then a year later-to-the-day kissing anniversary!} 

17 years!

good heavens. 

last year i told my tale of how i met my kissssssing friend, and asked to hear YOURS!

how delightful your answers are!

hope you'll enjoy these inspiring kissing friends tales by fabulous handmakers from around the world.

and please add yours in the comments!

hope your weekend is filled with lotsa love, nicies!

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i asked... how did you meet your kissing friend! :)

paisley baby: I tried to sell Mr. Paisley some life insurance 20 years ago - one of my past careers! 

bird trouble: Me and my man met on the L-train in Chicago. We were both going to the same punk rock show. He was with an ex-girlfriend and I was with my boyfriend at the time. We stayed internet friends for 3 years, then I became single and I wanted to travel... so I flew out here to Philly on a whim. The rest was history!

alex keller : we met....at a pub actually. i was shooting pool, and he was admiring my game. he still remembers what i was wearing, and i remember being thrilled that the most handsome guy in the place was interested in me. he's still the most handsome. 

lori : As you know, we met at my cousin's wedding. He was wearing such a crazy suit. I KNEW I just had to get on the dance floor with HIM!!!!

mountain man:  Mrs mountain and I met on the internet (not a dating site) almost 13 years ago 

jlr designs: My other half and I actually met 14 years ago in high school in an English class. We became great friends, and 6 years later we went on our first date :) 

the monkey's mama: My husband (ahem, kissing friend) and I met when I was a junior in high school and he was a freshman in college. My twin and I were touring our future college campus and ran into him and a friend. Fast forward two years--now I was a freshman (in college) and he was a junior. He and that same friend were the game leaders at our InterVarsity freshmen retreat. One of the games they had us play ended up breaking my thumb so, naturally, he felt badly and had to check on me.
Instant friendship for 2 years, then dating, then marriage 2 months after I graduated from college.

Ahh, kissing friends. 

dawn correspondence : My kissing friend interviewed me for a job! *Scandalous* I got the job...and he asked me out multiple times before I finally agreed to go out with him a couple of months after him asking. We are now the best of friends and I couldn't live without him!

nessagurl: We met in grade 10 computer class, but didn't become best buds (we were only friends) until 11th grade art class. We spent all of our time together for the next 5 years until I went to Switzerland to be a nanny for a year. After one year I invited him to be a nanny as well for a family down the road from us. He came to Switzerland... fell in love with me and 10 years later we have 2 beautiful children and are still best friends to this day.

ness: I met him at dinner my freshman year of college almost 16 years ago My friend whispered that she wanted to date him when he went for a drink re-fill and a fateful discussion of what kind of girl he liked transpired. He asked me out the next day.

We said we were just friends, but we couldn't stop kissing each other.

tanis alexis: my mister and I met when we worked on the set of 'I, Robot' as painters. I met him a number of times later on in many different places.He was the only person to laugh when I got sassy with him.. and he wound up being my 'last man standing'..the sole human who stood by my side as my world fell apart. I knew that he was a one of a kind human being by then. 

karin: My love and I met in a bar. I didn't want to go out that night, I really didn't, but a friend felt sad and needed a talk, so I went along with her.

He didn't want to go out that night, he had to study, but a friend was feeling sad and needed some distraction, so he went along with him.

I never believed in love at first sight, until I met him. Since that evening, we hardly spent a day or night without eachother. This was almost 12 years ago.

 margo (editor's note: WHO WAS PRESENT ON THE NIGHT MR. RIKRAK + i met!!!!) : I met my husband in high school, he sat beside me in math class and flirted with me by playing with the hair on the back of my neck.. we were friends for a couple of years and started dating in grade 12. our first kiss was on a four-wheeler 

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1.emilianoboga 2. skippydesigns 3.drawingsbykatie

4.Linrob60 5.Eannand 6.rosiemusic

7. EmmieBean 8.holli

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cosmic creatures: I met mine at the bus stop at work. We'd both done the late evening and were the only two there. I could hear his music and I knew what it was! And then I HAD to ask him what he was listening to so I knew if I was right or not. 

He took his earphone out, told me and smiled. We talked on the bus all the way home and met up for lunch a few times at work and just got closer and closer. That was 3 years ago now! Still very happy =D

tabbytoo: I met mine years before we even thought about dating each other.

I met him in 9th grade drafting class. Later I sat behind him in 12 grade Calculus. Then he asked me to the prom. We didn't go, but we did start dating. And smooching in the courtyard at school.
Wow, I met him about 37 years ago. 

allegro arts: i met mrs Arts at the zoo.

i was a single dad at the time, took the daughter there for a day trip. we were wating for the bears to get fed and started talking.

then she said "you're cute, i like you, we're going out on Saturday. Pick me up at 3." 

bambisMinis: I met my guy when I bid on and got an online job to do a costume for this model guy. Part of the costume involved actually paining latex over a body suit while the guy was wearing it. The model and I hit it off, and have been living together 8 years as of last May.

fancypantsandmore: Met mine online. Was reading some profiles and read his, love his quote. Saw he was online so I sent him an IM to tell him. I also told him he didn't need to respond, just wanted to let him know. That was the truth. I was not really looking for anyone.

He did respond though and we started talking online daily and emailing each other. Decided to met about a month later. I was already pretty much falling for him and according to him, him for me as well.

We moved in together 2 months after the first date, got married 8 months after that. Been married 12 years now.
He is sometimes grumpy, has a hothead, takes everything too seriously and is just the opposite of me for the most part. He is also romantic, loving and would give his right arm to help anyone. I adore him!

ara133photography 

 i met my husband at work. i was dating someone else at the time, and it wasn't going well - we really weren't compatible (he was a nice guy, but we just would have been better off being friends and not dating!)...

anyway, when i started working at the company, I sat kitty-corner from my now-husband. we used to chat a lot during the day and became friends. i ended up breaking up with that other guy i had been dating and not long after that started dating the guy at work! it was kind of not all that dissimilar to pam and jim from the office :)

i left that company a few years later and went back to graduate school and we got married :) 

 summerscreations: He ordered me over the phone actually. Lol!
A friend of mine had recently started dating a friend of his. They were having a bbq and she called to see if there was anything they wanted her to pick up on her way over. My husband asked if she could pick up a blue-eyed blonde of the curvy sort. She said she had one of those and invited me over. We've been together since that night. :)

elbeading: Middle school sweethearts here. We started dating when I was in 8th grade, he was in 7th; we met thru mutual friends. I broke up with him because he kept banging his head into the lockers for fun. (Hey, I was 13, and had an "image" to uphold, or so I thought.) Dated a few more times throughout highschool, have been together seriously since right before I graduated (7 years). Only been married 4 months, but hey, at least we know we can stay together thru a bunch of crap!

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an *inspiring* little game! { part 4 }

wall A

it's time again for another fun round of gaming!
a little while ago we played the 1st 3 parts, seen here. so try your hand @ round four and be inspired! the person who guesses the most correct matches wins a little feature here on the blog!!

..............................................

i love games.
and i love seeing others' inspirations!
so here's a fun game for all of us.
i've become very fascinated of late with the idea of inspiration boards or idea walls. i've seen images of many amazing little walls or boards dedicated to carefully collecting different little goodies that inspire the artist!

i love it! i'm fascintated with how they look. how they feel, and what folks choose to add to them. i'm also interested in how they relate (or not!) to the artist's work! so i found some of my faves in the blogosphere, and I thought we could do something fun with them!

........................................

the FUN RULES:

take a look @ the images below (and the one at the top!) .... each inspiration board or wall belongs to a fun artist who is, this round, also a brilliant blogger! i've featured the accompanying blogs at the end of this post in the *the bloggers* section. see if you can, without looking/researching, match the inspiration board to the blogger. (i.e. A1, B2, etc)
and please post your guesses below in the comments!

...................................

each image links to the artists’ photostream... BUT try not to look until after you’ve entered your guesses. it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong - i just thought it'd be fun to try and guess! thanks so much to the artists/bloggers for sharing their amazing boards and work. i’ll be posting the answers later (wednesday-ish) in a separate post.

at that time, i'll also feature the person who commented with the most correct answers! so be sure to play! (but if you're REALLY eager to know which belongs to who.... just click on the board photos!
HAVE FUN!

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wall B

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wall C

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wall D

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wall E


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and now for the crafty bloggers!....

blogger 1: the fabulously talented kim of desire to inspire.

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blogger 2: the brilliant she.likes.cute.

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blogger 3: the lovely lu summers of summersville

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blogger 4: the inspiring seaembraces of the seaembraces blog.

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blogger 5: the wonderful cleverkaren

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ps: have an inspiration board? let me know!
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