I’ve been awarded the Blogger Recognition Award – not once but twice!

Something rather lovely happened the other day, my Travels with My Art blog, was nominated for the Blogger Recognition Award – not once, but twice.

I would like to say thank you to both Sara from MALINČICA and Joelee from Joeleepost  for nominating me for the award – it is always a pleasure to receive positive feedback and it really does give me the impetus and encouragement to continue with both my blog and my artwork.

So what is the Blogger Recognition Award?                          The Blogger Recognition Award is an award given to bloggers by other bloggers for all their love and hard work they put into their blogs. It also motivates bloggers and helps them to connect to many new readers. The recipient must then share their blogging background and two pieces of advice for those starting to blog, and nominates other bloggers.

How and why did I started blogging?
I have kept travel art journals, sketchbooks and photo albums ever since I can remember and I found a great way for me to share these images, initially with friends and family, but later with followers from all over the world, was via a blog – which was how Travels With My Art began. My blog is ultimately a gallery of my paintings, sketchbooks and photographs, but it is also a mish-mash of my musings on travel, art, expat life, teaching and motherhood.

Two pieces of advice for all the newcomers:

• The first piece of advice I would give to new bloggers is make sure you link up with other bloggers. Whether you do this by following lots of other blogs, commenting on blogs, joining blogging groups on social media or researching existing blogs in your subject area – however you do it, be sure to link up. Fellow bloggers can be supportive, encouraging and a great source of ideas too.

• The other piece of advice I would give to new bloggers is to think about content. It is important to remember why you are writing your blog, who you are writing in for, why should they read what you are writing and more to the point why should they care enough to come back for more. Try to make your blog interesting both in words and pictures and ensure you caption everything you include, so your blog post is clear and easy to follow. Editing your work is also very important – always read through your work to check for silly mistakes – people can judge very quickly and they can click off your page, just a easily as they clicked on it!

And finally, here are my nominees for the Blogger Recognition Award:
A Woman Afoot
Wanders Miles 
Off the Clock Nurse
Globetrotter Joe 
Do Travel More 
Lost in Maps
The World in a Weekend 
Travelling Book Junkie
Girl With The Passport 
Art Travel Eat Repeat 
Travel Between the Pages
Miss Wanderlust
Africa Expat Wives Club
Borderlass
Sky Blue With Daisies
Here are the rules for the nominees:

• Write a post to show your award.
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and leave a link to their blog.
• Give a brief story of how and why you started blogging.
• Give two pieces of advice you would give to brand new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog letting them know you have nominated them giving the link to the post you have created.

Congratulations, enjoy and happy blogging!