Sunday, January 9, 2011

The Great 2010 Sweeps Wrap-Up...

I think I finally hit "critical mass" in the Sweeps-&-Contest Department.
For several years, I, the Sweeps & Contest Queen of Landgraff, West Virginia, figured that if I entered enough of them, eventually I'd hit "critical mass" and the wins would start pouring in, and it look like that finally occurred! This blog-post is a love poem and a great, big Thank You! to all the great companies and blogs that host fabulous sweepstakes and contests!
Our gorgeous Aspinal Wine Collar!
Internet sweeps and contests seemed more lucrative to me than midnight computer solitaire, and they gradually became more and more addictive... Much more so after I won that first "big one"- a fabulous long weekend at the Golden Door Spa at the Boulders in Arizona- complete with plane tickets and spa treatments!- in an Oil of Olay contest ("my most romantic summer"), back in 2002. Since then, I've kind of become a "sweeper", and basically enter anything and everything- as long as it's:
1.) for a prize I truly want to win, and
2.) if the prize is a trip, it's for 2 and comes with plane tickets.
(I have these rules now as I've won stuff like a case of condoms, and several trips for one and land-package-only prizes that we couldn't use, and those were bummers).
My excellent Ergonomic Ball Chair!


My gorgeous AuraLee bracelet!
The LeCreuset (we picked Flame Red!) I won in a Brickfish contest!

My Fabulous Santana "shooties" from Princess Dominique's Blog!


Last year was pretty fabulous, what with our Feb. trip to San Diego (thanks to winning GameStop's "World At War" Sweeps www.gamestop.com ), the totally magnificent $525 Mary Norton www.marynorton.com fur-&-Swarovski crystal pumps from the FABULOUS http://www.shuzsociety.com/ weekly sweeps (which yes, I wore in San Diego...), a set of great Hamilton Beach pots and pans for Chef Dan (which arrived while we were in San Diego!), and then a truly incredible guitar signed by everyone at the Country Music Awards, in the TurboTax www.turbotax.com "super status" contest on Facebook!
But this year started with a bang and never let up!
On Jan 1st I won a gorgeous Aspinal sterling silver wine collar (that we use All the time at the Elkhorn Inn- silly as it may seem, it's really practical as well as elegant- the velvet lining really does stop wine from dribbling all over the table!) in a poetry contest (my winning entry: "Ode to a Wine Collar") on The Examiner's Wine Blog.
My hand, wearing my gorgeous Auralee pearl bracelet!
Then I won a pair of fab $250 Santana "shooties" in a sweeps on Princess Dominique's excellent fashion blog: http://www.princessdominique.com/fashionblog/

And them came THE biggie: Dan won us my dream: 2 tickets to Israel from Ben Gurion University of the Negev! http://web.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Home/ (And yes, we're going!)

I love to enter contests on www.brickfish.com, for although they are often rather time consuming to enter, they're interesting and fun, and this year I won a  Remington Hairdryer, a check for $400, and a magnificent $350 LeCreuset Dutch Oven for Chef Dan!
Me in my Fab Santana "shooties"!

Right after I got out of the hospital this fall I won a gorgeous silver and pearl AuraLee bracelet from http://www.auralee-company.com/ in their Facebook sweeps, which cheered me up immensely!

My other wins this year included a hilarious tee-shirt from www.CheapStingyBargains.com on Facebook; Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil from the Burp! Where Food Happens Blog www.eatatburp.com for Chef Dan; for a friend: TriLash Eyelash Serum from the BusyWorkingMama blog www.busyworkingmama.com; a sample of Phytomer Skincare from www.healinglifestyles.com; and a lovely sampler set of Jaime Earl skin care products (that I REALLY like) from www.JaimeEarl.com on one of the "mommy blogs" that's linked right here on my blog!

Just in time for Hanukkah, I won 2 great gift certificates: 
$250 at Buckle www.buckle.com (got incredible jeans with "angel wings" embroidered on the butt, sky-high peep-toe "gladiator" heels, and two "way cool" tops), and $100 at Tilly's www.tillys.com  in the "Levi's & Tilly's Front Flips & the Vegas Strip Sweepstakes" (got a pair of great, warm Aussie Dogs winter boots, a totally cuckoo shredded "bondage" dress, & a pair of "jeggings") - a wardrobe of young, fun clothes that I'd NEVER own if I hadn't won them!
I also won a wonderful book during a delightful Lubavitch (www.lubavitch.com  and www.chabad.org)
Hanukkah #FrumChat on Twitter: Victory of Light, a Chassidic discourse by Rabbi Menachem Schneerson!
And to wrap up 2010 I won a $20 gift cert. for a Maidenform www.maidenform.com bra from Elle Magazine on-line: http://www.elle.com/- and I'm going to go find myself a bra Right Now!!
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?!
The downside is, of course, that I have to go thru and delte 1000+ emails a day...
The upside is that, among other things, I get to, B"H, take Dan home to Israel! 
So, like, yeah, you should enter! :-)