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!
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| 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).
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| My excellent Ergonomic Ball Chair! |
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| My gorgeous AuraLee bracelet! |
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| The LeCreuset (we picked Flame Red!) I won in a Brickfish contest! |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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! :-)
