Creative Bloggers' Party & Hop 06.21.11 + MyRubberStamp Giveaway

{Update: Giveaway is closed and winner is Melanie from Lucky 7 Design.}

Hello, friends! Happy Fathers' Day to all the great daddies of the world. This past week was one of the best weeks I've ever had as a blogger. First, I snagged a $25 Starbucks gift card giveaway from Bungalov...and then successfully influence random.org so that my number showed to win a rubberstamp from Life In the Thrifty Lane! How cool is that? This good karma continues to you my readers, because Eunice from My Rubber Stamp is also giving away one rubber stamp design to you! (Can you say that last phrase 5 times more? LOL!) The awesome thing here is she will ship worldwide so this giveaway is open to everybody, even if you're in Timbuktu.

Giveaway
Eunice and Ian are the forces behind My Rubber Stamp and their business was featured at the Knitting Today Magazine.

Not only that, they consistently make it to the Etsy Front Page.

One notable thing about My Rubber Stamp is for every time you shop in their etsy store, they will contribute $5 to the Tsunami victim in Japan through American Red Cross. What a good way of giving back to the community!

(Disclosure: Eunice and Ian didn't compensate me for doing this giveaway. I'm happily doing this to share the love with you, my awesome readers, and at the same time, to give a shoutout to excellent online businesses like theirs. I won one rubber stamp fair and square and I'm happily sharing with you my good experience with this company.)

Here are a few of the items in their Etsy store, just to tickle your fancy:

Things related to kids and people.



A few exotic wood rubber stamps.



And more designs that my heart so desires.



I received my stamp within two days after confirming my choice. Talk about excellent customer service! As you can see, the design is so elegant and so ME.



It's a great and easy way to snag a beautifully designed stamp and experience quality customer service simply by doing the following:
Mandatory entries
1. Go to My Rubber Stamp, choose which product you would like to win, then leave a comment. (1 entry)
2. Like My Rubber Stamps in Facebook and let Eunice know I sent you there. Come back here and leave a comment that you did so. (1 entry)
3. Follow her blog and let her know I sent you there. Leave me another comment. (1 entry)
For extra entries,
5. Add me in your blog roll, and leave a comment. (1 entry)
6. Follow me and leave me a comment that you're doing so. If you're already a follower, leave a comment, too. (1 entry)
7. Like me in facebook, and leave a comment. (1 entry)
8. Follow me in Twitter, and leave a comment. (1 entry)

Eight ways for you to win this wonderful giveaway, BFFs! It ends on June 29 at 11:59 pm, PST. Thank you, Eunice and Ian, for this wonderful giveaway :)

Co-host
Tracy from Screaming Sardine is my marvelous co-host this week. I love her Lazy Chef Recipes and the recipe that stands out among the rest is her Root Beer Float Cake. Her blog is a great source of inspiration for entrepreneurs because she interviews artisans and small business owners and then shares the highlights to her readers. If you're a business owner and want to spread the word, just email Tracy and she'll be more than happy to feature you. One indicator that she has that indomitable entrepreneurial spirit is her being an Independent Scentsy Consultant. One gal worth following.

Blog Tips
I came across this blog which is totally outside my DIY niche but worth learning from. Posh On A Budget, the queen of giveaways herself, made 2 videos on how to write and promote your giveaway. She enumerated the steps on conducting "proper" giveaways and how to market them through FB, Twitter, and blog parties dedicated to giveaways.

Favorite Blog
You clicked, inlinkz tallied. The readers' favorite blog this past week out of 217 links, being the most viewed post, is Before Meets After's bathroom nook re-do. Lisa bought a $3 curtain from Goodwill and shopped around her house for accessories and voila! A prettified nook.



Our Party
To the main course of this post.
For those of you joining us for the first time, we only have 2 easy, simple rules:

1) Link up your creative post - can be a DIY project, decor, photography, crafts, recipes, poem, thrift finds, link party, or that informative syndicated post that can make us laugh, or cry - in short, whatever you're proud of! And if you like to link more creative posts, go for it! We'd love to see them :) (No links to businesses or giveaways. We have another party for these exclusively this Tuesday called Market Your Biz & Giveaways at 5 pm, PST.)

2) Follow as many blogs as you desire, preferably starting first with the one who linked before you and after you, before branching out, and let them know by leaving a comment. (Following me and the co-host will be very much appreciated, and we definitely follow back. Just let us know you're following.)

Displaying the party button on your blog, while optional, is very much appreciated :)

Link opens up every Sunday at 5:00 pm, PST and ends Friday at 11:59 pm.

Because I like something different, I'm using the reverse entry for inlinkz - so the most recent participant will show up as number 1, thus giving everybody a chance to have the #1 spot.


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Friends, go ahead and mingle with one another :) Happy partying!





Burning question: Do you enter giveaways? Why or why not?

Before, not much because my thought was, "I'm never going to win anyway." When I started changing this thought pattern, then that's when I won 2 giveaways this week. How about you?