Blogosphere etiquette

Happy weekend, writing friends!  It is finally getting cold here in Florida, and being a native of the sunshine state I am already wishing it was Spring so I could wear tank tops again... not that I won't be able to sneak in a few here and there throughout the winter.  I am regularly chastised by my friends from the north that it is actually not cold in Florida and I should quit my complaining, which I'm sure is a valid argument.

So, this week I've been thinking about how much I don't know about blogging.  I got my first blog award from the lovely Rachna of Rachna's Scriptorium and realized I didn't know the deal with awards and etiquette.  Before I get into all that, I'd like to say a big thank you to Rachna for giving me my first award.  Rachna is a fellow writer and always has delightful, knowledgeable and inspiring posts about writing.

Back to my dilemma - I did a great deal of Googling and wasn't having much luck finding rules on giving and receiving awards. I've seen some blog posts where accepting an award involves sharing things about yourself and then passing the award on to others, but then some don't seem to follow that same format. Then ironically enough I found some posts on the subject on Rachna's own blog, which was really helpful!

I still have a few questions though, so I'm asking for everyone's help.  Do you have to receive one in order to pass one on?  How do you know which blog awards you can use and which ones are copyrighted or whatever?  For instance, if you use Google images you can find a ton of awesome awards, but can you just pick one and use it?  And, can I design my own award to give to my writing peeps?

Any input anyone has would be awesome!