We Have a Winner!

Or more precisely, winners, six of them. Once my husband arrived home from work yesterday, I had him pull the numbers. He was actually quite annoyed that the random number generator didn't pull a diverse enough grouping and went back to try again. He ended up going with the first set because he felt that trying again would taint the results even though he never actually saw the entries list. I'm telling you all this partly so you'll blame him if you didn't win and partly because I wanted you to know he took his job seriously.

So without further ado, the winners. First the winners of the 3 Fully Bloomed pendants are Wychbury, RockLove and Crites.

Next up the winner of the Viva La Reine necklace is Nullalux.

The winner of the Queen's Feet Barefoot Sandals is beri03.

The winner and the very first person to own a pair of the coveted In Bloom Ankle Corsets is Jennifer Nicole.

Congrats to everyone that won and condolences for those that didn't. Even with the fairly even odds there were bound to be a lot of people on that list. As a bit of a consolation prize, I've decided to offer all entrants my In Bloom pendant for just $5 including shipping until Sunday. If you choose to take me up on the offer, just purchase the pendant and leave your entry name and mention 'prize' in the notes to seller. I will refund the discount through paypal.

If you won one of these amazing prizes, you should be hearing from me soon, if you haven't yet and I hope to have all the prizes out by Monday. Thanks to everyone for helping make this giveaway a grand success. My shop has garnered quite a few new hearts, my blog a healthy dose of new followers and I even got some sales out of the event. Let's hope many of you stick around after the free stuff is all gone. I am now quite done will all of this nonsense and am ready to get back to some calm quiet tatting and stop checking my comments and email every 2 minutes. Maybe I'll host someone elses giveaway next...anyone?

Time

Alright children, pencils down. Wow, that was quite a week of giveaway and sale madness. I've already mentioned several times my shock at getting so many entries. I got a few more over night so I don't have the final tally ready yet, but we passed 151 yesterday. That means I added another pendant to the prize pool, giving us a total of 6 prizes. I will compile all the entries today and my husband has been charged with pulling the winning numbers using a random number generator since I don't want to be blamed for any ones loss. I should be able to list all the winners tomorrow morning.

Aside from a couple of folks, everyone followed my rules very well. The funny thing about the ones who didn't follow the rules is that they also failed to make sure I had contact information for them so I guess it doesn't matter anyway. Since we're talking about the rules and you still don't know who won, I have a few questions for you. What did you think of my rules, particularly my little twist? Were they clever, or did I simply try too hard? I'm certain I'm not the first to try prizes based on entry levels, but since I've not seen it before, I want to know what you thought. Were the prizes good? If you didn't enter, what would have made you do so? Did I do anything really wrong, really right? Any opinions are greatly appreciated. I hope to also provide some details about the success of the giveaway after its all said and done.

I'll keep it brief today. I haven't been tatting and they giveaway has taken a lot of energy. I'll probably even limit my ever increasing twitter time today as well. As soon as the winners are announced, I'll start sending out the prizes and that should keep me busy for a while too. I guess what I'm saying, is that I'm tired.

That's It Then

Okay, I get it. I should have set the bar much higher. I have a confession, when I set the last entry level at 91 people, I assumed that was a ridiculously high number that was likely not to be reached. I thought if I put the ankle corsets up as a prize, there was a slight chance that toward the end of the week it might be reached, but I wasn't holding my breath. It is absolutely crazy that there are well over 100 entrants just three days in...three days.
The last prize has been added, a pair of In Bloom Ankle Corsets! I'd just like to point out here that I sell these suckers for over $90, I'm just saying.

The sale portion of my anniversary event is doing fairly well now too. Of course now that I've said something, I'll get no more sales. That's just the way it works. Since we've reached the final prize level, I can also stop going on and on about the giveaway everyday, but I do have one more little bit to share. I have decided that I will continue to add additional pendants to the giveaway with every 30 entrants. Since I can't really add any more large prizes to the pot, but I don't want the entries to dry up, this seems the best way to continue a bit of momentum. I guess that means your chances of winning something are about one in thirty no matter what, so keep spreading the word.

I guess I should go add that info to the giveaway post now so everyone knows what's up. I did also want to say how happy I am that I am also getting word from several people that my work is prompting them to either start tatting again or to pick up a needle or shuttle for the first time. If you're new around here, you haven't heard my grand plan to make tatting the next crafting craze. I know that it's not very likely, but one should always maintain at least one nice unattainable goal and this is mine. Every time I hear one of these stories, I think that it's not as ridiculous as I thought, so thanks for sharing!

Oh, How I Love Mail!

When I first began my blogging adventure, I spent a lot of time reading and commenting on other peoples' blogs. I suppose I had a bunch of different reasons for doing so, but partly it was very informal research. I wanted to write a blog worth reading. I would run down the lists of blogs left in threads at esty fairly quickly and I'm sorry to say most of them were not worth a second look. My free time has become a scarce commodity and I can't afford to waste time reading hundreds of blogs just because I listed mine in the blog roll call thread and it would be the polite thing to do.

There are a few that I return to when I get a few spare moments and those all have something special that makes me want to read again and again. It's not something I can quantify, they range in styles and content widely, but there is just something about the writing and the people that is engaging and real. When I do visit a blog whether it is for the first or fiftieth time, I like to comment. This is mostly because I have a big mouth and crave attention, but also partly because I like people to know that I've been there and I'm listening. I never assumed that a comment would pay off.

Okay, I know that this has been a really wordy segue, but I left a comment on the Girlscantell blog quite some time ago with a guess for a "how much change in the jar" contest. Apparently I was gifted with an amazing moment of foresight and I won. Yesterday the lovely postman brought me my prize. An exceptional and surprising collection of goodies was awaiting me inside. So, thank you Sara for your unabashed generosity. You made my day and I hope that I can do the same for someone else in the future.

Please visit Sara's blog and her etsy store, Girlscantell, I love her stuff, it is top shelf and she deserves the love!