Every year I say "This is the year I'm going to be organized for the holiday season" and every year, I let the holidays sneak up on me. I am always on a quest for the perfect gift for every member of our family (which happens to include 25 nieces and nephews). Every year we forget to take a holiday picture in time and we never get Christmas cards out. This has lead me to send out New Years cards in the past. But guess what. This year I am going to set holiday goals and achieve them! My first goal is going to be to take a family picture and get it on an Holiday card which I will send out at the beginning of the holiday season. This will be a first!
Did you know that Tiny Prints has a HUGE selection of holiday cards? It was so hard to choose from their 400+ designs but I have decided that I am going to get these round adorable ornament cards. Isn't this a cute idea! I love the thought of our family picture hanging on the trees of our friends and family!
(I am going to wait till I have the photo to choose the perfect card to go with it, these are my top 3 design choices)
I'm glad I'm so organized this year because Tiny Prints note on their site that this cut out design takes a little longer to process than their normal cards. Also, I will need to tie on the ribbons so I'll have to factor that into my timeline as well. The last thing they warn me about on their site is that if I choose their square evelopes, the USPS will charge me an extra 20c per envelope to send.
I'm excited about these cards. Super luxe!
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post in connection with Tiny Prints, I will be receiving TinyPrints products for my participation. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.
It's my favorite part of the month again.. It's the What'd You Win Linkup September Edition co-hosted by myself,Tales from the Nursery (Darcy probably won't make it this month, if you are a regular reader of her blog you will know that she is in the hospital right now. We already miss you Darcy! Get Well Soon!) and Eco Baby Mama Drama. If you would like to participate, grab our button, blog about your wins and then come back and link up!
This past month, I hosted my first giveaway. It was awesome! I love giving stuff away. I gained a ton of followers and hope to get some more sponsors soon! I have even signed up for some upcoming giveaway hops (more on than later)
Ok so now on to my wins! I'm still trying to get back into a groove and start winning like I did earlier this year. I love Rafflecopter but I think it made entering so easy that everyone's in now ... oh well.
(Thank you to all the hardworking bloggers and generous sponsors!)
And a Feature....We will also be featuring a reader and their favorite giveaway blogger every month! Fill out our form if you are interested in being featured and thanking a giveaway blogger for what they do!
Tell us about your giveaway entering. I would call myself a Sweeps veteran for sure. I have been entering contests and giveaways on and off now for about 4 years. My daily habits were to enter about 200 contests a day or more
using my favorite tool Roboform. OMG I hear the "Oh thats cheating" and gasps already lol. Oh well If others are doing it and I am going to be left with not so great odds you better believe I
am jumping on the bandwagon.
Up until about 5 months ago I would enter your standard contests and sweepstakes until one day I happened upon Blog Giveaways. Oh how confusing for me at first. The odd time I would enter an option or 2 not really knowing what I was doing. I decided one day to delve into it a bit more and learn all about it. I got the hang of it and one day I won a prize. WOOHOO the congratulatory email came. Oh wow you really can win these. I then decided I needed more ways to enter so I created a blog, I signed up to some social sites and the rest is pretty much history. I am now proud owner of Linkies Contest Linkies a blog that is all about advertising contests, sweeps and giveaways to both Canadians and Americans.
My favorite type of giveaways to win are products I can personally try out such as sunscreens, food products, new products and the like. I then can turn around and do my own review on my blog. Last product I personally won was awesome Shian Naturals products from 50plussinglebbw. I have tried the products out and already done a review on them. Yup its so much more work than I thought it would be but I absolutely Love it. Blogging has opened up a whole new world to me. I can only hope to one day turn around and help other newbies get on to this fabulous journey of blogging. You meet so many fantastic people along the way.
My favorite tip to winning would have to be really read the rules. Its a pain sometimes but you can find other entry options sometimes that you never new existed. The fine print is sometimes your friend.
Please stop by, I am currently hosting my very first giveaway!
Kevin would like to specially thank… Pawsitive Living (link: http://pawsitiveliving.ca)
Why do you want to thank them? Did you win something cool? Do you like what they offer?
I would like to thank pawsitiveliving.ca formerly known as pawberrylane for allowing me to creep her blog and learn as much as I could. Also I would like to mention Multitesting Mommy (link: Multi-testingmommy.blogspot.com) This girl rocks! I had some problems with my blog not loading. She took the time out to help me figure out what was wrong and testing out my blog for me. What a fantastic person for taking time from busy blogging to help out another.
Final thanks to you three for taking your time out of your busy schedule to want to feature me. You also rock!! Thanks so much for getting to know me.
Looking forward to today, tomorrow and watching you all win some fabulous prizes.Thank you!
SometimesUWin.com is a PR friendly website. If you have a product you would like reviewed on this website, please email me at sometimesuwin@hotmail.com for consideration! I love giving stuff away to my readers so please consider sponsoring a giveaway too.
Who are we?
We are a multi-cultural young family living in the suburbs of San Diego.
I am a 33 years young Caucasian SAHM. I enjoy blogging, entering giveaways, reading and spending time playing with my boys.
My husband is a 33 year Mexican American working in the utilities industry. He enjoys watching movies, playing basketball and gardening/home improvement.
Our first born son is 6 years old and in first grade. He loves video games, math and playing with his toys (current favs include Pokemon and Beyblade)
Our younger son is 2 years old. He loves copying his brother, playing outside on the slide or his bike and puzzles! He is learning new things every day! (current favs are Elmo and Chuggington)
We are currently paperwork ready for adoption! We plan on adopting an infant girl in the very near future and are busy getting ready for baby!
We aren't crunchy but we try to incorporate green products into our everyday life. We will be bottlefeeding and most likely will not be cloth diapering. We love healthy snacks but indulge ourselves sometimes as well. We love educational toys but almost any toy can spark the boys imagination. We love reading, watching movies (blu-ray or dvd) and playing video games. We currently have the Wii, PS3 and the DS. We celebrate Christian holidays but are not religious. Please contact me if you think our family profile fits your needs.
I recently started this blog. I work everyday at enhancing my social media reach. Check my current stats below:
I contacted the 10 winners of the PaperCoterie giveaway on Wednesday! Unfortunately I have only heard from 6 of you so far. I will be sending a last chance notice to the remaining 4. Please be sure to check your email and your spam folder if you entered the giveaway. Your winners notification subject line would read:
You won! $40 Paper Coterie from SomtimesUWin.com
Winners will have 24 hours from the last chance notice. New winners will be drawn on Sunday if necessary.
Yesterday I had the weirdest day. It was one of those twilight zone kinda days. First, I realized that one of the blogs I read... is actually written by someone I went to high school with, someone I knew, someone I had a class with... and I hadn't realized till the moment I saw her name... and it all came together. I tweeted her about it and she said she remembered me too (Our school was huge, at least 1500 students). What a small world!
If that wasn't weird enough last night, I went to our PTA meeting and the lady next to me said "You look familiar". I get that all the time (my son went to 4 different preschools, was involved in several extracurricular activities and loved to go to new parks so I have been all over San Diego and have meet tons of moms). I told her I thought that too when she sat down. But as I kept thinking about, I couldn't place her anywhere. I usually know right away where I know someone from (On a side note, can I just say I have meet the same family 4 different times at 4 different parks and they don't ever remember me? That is the weirdest thing!) So anyway.. it seemed like a really far away memory. So I asked her if she used to work where I used to work and she said No, not even close. She is a sign language interpreter. I thought this was strange because I studied Sign Language back in college, back home.. 150 miles from here so I asked her "Are you from LA?" and She looked kinda surprised but said yes. Then I asked her if she studied at the school I studied at and she said Yes. This girl lady had a class with me in college! 15 years ago, 150 miles from here! A program that only included 50 students. It was so weird! Not just that it happened but that she remembered, that she sat next to me, that she spoke up... that we figured it out. It was pretty cool :-)
Please join me and Darcy from Tales from the Nursery and Bri from Eco Baby Mama Drama next Wednesday for our monthly Winners link-up! We will be sharing our wins and we would like to see what you won also! (You can see our last linkup here)
Here's what you need to do...
Blog about your September wins (blog, sweepstakes, raffles.. etc). We'd love for you to include our link-up button.
Come back next Wednesday (September 29th) and enter your blog post's url into our linky tool. Your entry will be displayed on each blog participating. Lots of fun and a great way to network your blog!
Hey wait, did I also tell you, we feature a blog winner and their favorite giveaway blogger each month? Hey it could be you, fill out the form here if you're interested.
Wouldn't it be great to not have to pay for costumes this Halloween? Well that just might happen with a little planing ahead. Since I'm already seeing Halloween giveaways already, I thought I'd start a Halloween linky.
I know I'm going to need a Vampire costume this year and something comfy for my 2 year old because he refuses to wear almost anything.
Please feel free to add your Halloween related giveaway (It does not have to be for a costume).
All non Halloween related giveaways will be removed. Thanks!
In Pursuit of Style is hosting her first blog giveaway and it's a good one! Stop by to check out her makeover and enter to win a $125 gift basket full of amazing Arrojo products from the Arrojo Salon.
(items pictures aren't necessarily included in prize)
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It is my promise to you all that whenever I come across a giveaway that looks THIS DELICIOUS, I will share the information with you. Behold Nikid Homemade Treats!
You may remember that last month I won a Blue Hawaiian MoneyPenny clamshell soy melt from Out of the Box Sampler Blog. I received it a couple of days ago and I have to share! It smells delicious. I have a secret to share with you... when I was little, I ate a lot of Kool-Aid (yea, ate... not drank) My dad would buy the already sugared canister and I would just eat it straight out of there. Always the blue one, what is it...
Oh yes, Tropical Punch Kool-Aid that's what this delicious melt smells like .. it also has a little hint of coconut. Ok, imagine drinking tropical punch koolaid (or eating it, whatever floats your boat) on a tropical beach... It's like heaven!
It's pretty strong too. I can simply open it and smell it throughout the room. I decided to melt one (the clamshell pack has 6) and I had to extinguish it after 30 minutes because it completely filled my small house with fragance. This is the first time I can remember wanting to actually eat a candle, LOL.
MoneyPenny is a family owned company based in Illinois. Their prices are extremely reasonable!
These pure soy bars are packaged in a convenient 6 pack clamshell and each cube lasts approximately 10-12 hours! Only $2.50! And they have some limited edition scents for $2.00.
Shipping is free if you're order is over $25. They also have a storefront in Clinton and offer free delivery to the local area, see their homepage for more detail. Along with free shipping they currently have the these discount codes:
$30.00-$49.99-15% off entire order with the code JOYOFSOY15
$50.00-$99.99-20% off entire order with the code JOYOFSOY20
$100.00+ -25% off entire order with the code JOYOFSOY25
Disclaimer: I received this item free through a giveaway. I was not compensated in any way to provide this review.
Yea, school is back in session! I finally have a few hours a week to do what I want... and guess what that is.. BLOG! If you haven't noticed, it's totally addicting. I am getting really excited about where my blog is headed.
Besides hosting my first giveaway this month, I also purchased (eeerrr... leased) my domain so now you can also find my site at www.sometimesuwin.com. (If you're thinking about doing this and have questions, feel free to contact me on twitter or email. It's only $10/year and can be done directly through blogger.) I have another giveaway that I will be starting soon too. It will be self sponsored and here's a hint.. it's something fun for young boys (but my husband won't share it with our kids, ha ha). I will be actively trying to get more and more giveaways for you all because giving stuff away is almost as fun as winning it! I even signed up for a few events with Tales from the Nursery. The first one is 12 Days of Gifts Galore (Nov 25-Dec6). I'm not sure what I will be offering yet but I can promise you that it will be worth at least $25. I am also participating in their Christmas Kinection giveaway for you guessed it... Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Bundle! It's open to US and Canada, woo hoo! It runs simultaneously with the 12 Day event.
If you haven't joined us in our monthly What'd You Win Linkup. I'd love to personally invite you to come by on the last Wednesday of the month to link up your winning post for what you won this month. I have hardly won anything this month so I better get on it! This is an awesome linkup co-hosted by Tales from the Nursery and Eco Baby Mama Drama!
Oh and one more exciting thing, I started another blog that links up baby related giveaways, kinda like a virtual baby shower. So if you're expecting or you just want to stock up your gift closet, please visit my new blog at Expectingtowin.blogspot.com
I want to thank everyone who has helped me to get to this point by following my blog, visiting my advertisers and sponsors and leaving blog comments.
Yea, I'm so excited. It's my first giveaway right here at Sometimes U Win!
Paper Coterie was kind enough to let me try anything from their website. If you aren't familiar with Paper Coterie, they are a website specializing in personalized photo gifts. Their designs are very modern and totally cute! I love them all! I had a very hard time deciding. In the end, I decided on these two items:
Personalized Photo Journal - Classic Stripes (retails for $15)
I love Journals, although I don't keep a diary, I like to use these as special notebooks. You can find things like my monthly budget, things to do and goals in my notebook.
About a Boy: A to Z (hardcover, retails for $29)
This product totally intimidated me at first. I thought I would love to have this for my son but it's just too much work. I definitely don't have a picture for every letter to put in there (Sorry to break it to you all but I am not *that* mom, I totally wish I were but I AM the person who lost a ton of photos when my computer crashed... and wasn't backed up. I AM the kinda of person who always forgets to bring my camera) That being said, I was ecstatic when I realized that all of the letters ALREADY have cute, stock pictures and you can simply replace the ones you want with your own photos. I personalized 10 photos. All you have to do is upload your photo and then place it on top of their photo and it will size itself. It was super easy. I only had a problem once when I tried to use a photo I texted from my phone and the resolution was too low. It probably wouldn't work if you grab pictures off the internet also because those are usually low resolution (there's also some copywrite issues there as well).
[I is for ice cream cone (stock), J is for jumpy house (customized)]
Isn't it adorable? It makes a super cute gift as well. My husband loved how I put his parents on the first page (A for abuelitos!). I'm going to have to make another one of these books for my older son. He really wants one now too!
There was one feature, or rather lack of feature, that I did not like and that is... once you upload a picture into My Photos section, there is no way to delete it. I was sure I was missing something here but I utilized their chat feature (very convenient) to ask and they said it isn't possible right now. This doesn't really affect anything, it could just make your My Photos kinda cluttered if you use it a lot. Also, if there are pictures in there that you just can't stand to look at (think ex boyfriend) then you can just create a new account. I bet Paper Coterie adds this feature soon. I can't see them hosting all those photos forever, especially if the user doesn't even want them.
Shipping was super fast. I submitted by order on Tuesday and it was already here on Saturday!! Not only that but they package their products so pretty! You don't even need to wrap it if you are going to give it to someone as a gift.
Ok now on to the totally awesome part. The Giveaway! Can you believe that Paper Coterie is SO generous that we are going to have 10 *yes, T-E-N* winners of the $40 gift code and this includes free shipping to a US address. In addition to photo books and journals they also have customizable growth charts, posters, calendars and more! Below are a couple of products from my Paper Coterie wishlist:
I am participating in the Alexa Drop Hop sponsored by Measuring Flower, Mommy Mind Spa, and Aubut Family. I want to thank them for hosting this great hop! Click here if you want to join up. You must have the Alexa toolbar installed to participate.
Can't wait till the 22nd to see if you are one of our lucky 10 winners?! Don't worry, PaperCoterie.com has an incredible offer this month for you! Right now, you can receive 40% off your purchase AND free shipping to the 48 contiguous states by using the Promo Code: TELLYOURSTORY. (Unfortunately you can not combine this offer with any other offers or gift codes)
