{Giveaway} For HGTV Lovers!

So, I know I've been talking about houses and home decor inspiration a lot lately. Annnnndddd, it's probably not going to stop anytime soon!

But I know a lot you guys enjoy house stuff and HGTV just as much as I do, and I thought I'd thank you for being my blog friends and reading along.

So next week, I'm giving away a subscription to HGTV Magazine!

Source

I ordered a subscription for myself too. I've been trying to go more "unplugged" on the weekends, and I figured this would be a good way to still get my home decor inspiration, and not be glued to my computer. Especially when it's getting nice enough outside to go read on the deck!

Here’s how you can win:

• Enter by posting a comment telling me your favorite show or designer on HGTV.
• Get a bonus entry by tweeting this: “I entered to win a subscription to HGTV Magazine via The Handcrafted Life, and you can too! http://bit.ly/HCLife" and then coming back here and posting a separate comment with a link to your tweet (to find the link to your tweet, you can click the timestamp on the tweet, which will take you to just that particular tweet).

This contest will end at 11:59PM PST, Thursday, March 1st. I'll use random.org to choose the winner, and announce it on Friday, March 2nd.

Good luck!

{Giveaway Winner} Missoni Accessories

Congratulations to commenter #34!

Margie, Random.org picked your 34th comment out of 92 as the winner of the Missoni Accessories giveaway!

Please email me your shipping address (handcraftedlife@gmail.com) and I'll send your package out this week.

Thanks for entering!

{Giveaway} Missoni Accessories

It's time for another giveaway, to thank you guys for all that you do: reading this little blog, your support and comments, and your friendship. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my online community of blogging friends!

And, I think my Target must have restocked some of the Missoni accessories, because the other day I was able to pick up a few items for this giveaway (and I picked up some tights for myself!).

Yep, I'm giving away Missoni gloves, a makeup tote and an eye mask--perfect for all of your upcoming holiday travels!

In case you're curious about the inside of the bag, it's plastic lined, with two deep zippered pockets on either side.

Here’s how you can win this Missoni loot:

• Enter by posting a comment telling me your favorite travel accessory. Do you never leave home without a book or your Kindle? Maybe it's your makeup bag, or your iPod? I know I'm never one to travel light, but my priority is always having extra chapstick with me, especially on a long flight.
• Get a bonus entry by following this blog and then posting a separate comment telling me how you're following it (through Blogger, subscribing through Google Reader, etc).
• Get another bonus entry by tweeting this: “I entered to win Missoni accessories via @MsColaBee at The Handcrafted Life, and you can too! http://bit.ly/HCLife" and then coming back here and posting a separate comment with a link to your tweet (to find the link to your tweet, you can click the timestamp on the tweet, which will take you to just that particular tweet).

This contest will end at 11:59PM PST, Thursday, October 13th. I'll use random.org to choose the winner, and announce it on Friday, October 14th.

Good luck!

Giveaway Winner!

I'm so glad so many of you share my love for wine and wine openers! But as we know, there can only be one winner for this giveaway for a cordless electric wine opener.

Drum roll please.....

And the lucky 58th comment on the giveaway post was:

Sarah Mck!

Congrats Sarah! Please email me (handcraftedlife@gmail.com) with your shipping address so I can send you your very own electric wine opener.

And for everyone else, please have a glass of your favorite wine tonight as your consolation prize! :)

A Product I'm Loving {and a Giveaway!}

Since I know a lot of you are wine lovers (myself included), I just had to share this awesome new wine opener we got last month!

I'd never seen this opener until I was at my in laws this past Christmas, but they quickly turned me into a believer. At first I was pretty skeptic, since I'd been burned by both the CO2 Pressure Openers and the expensive Rabbit bottle opener several years ago, with it's promises of super-easy opening. I discarded the Rabbit in the back of a cupboard not long after getting it because I had to grip the wine bottle between my knees and use every ounce of strength I had to get bottles open with it. Not easy at all when it took more effort than a regular corkscrew. And well, the CO2 opener worked really infrequently, and most of the time would just shoot a pressurized stream of wine up onto my ceiling, from the little hole it made through the cork, so it's been thrown away a long time.

But this new opener, my friends, this new opener is magic!

The Oster Cordless Rechargeable Electric Wine Opener has seriously changed my wine-opening life! There's zero effort involved, and now instead of sweetly asking my husband to open my wine bottles for me with our old fashioned corkscrew, now I actually ask him if I can open his bottles for him because it's fun!

But since you can't really get a feel for how easy it is from just the picture of it on my counter, I took a quick video to show you all. And yes, there's no shame in drinking extra large bottles of Sutter Home. Especially when it's their deliciously sweet Moscato and it was on sale for only $3!



See? Ridiculously easy, right? You don't even have do anything other than push the down button to open the wine, and then push the up button to spit out the cork!

And now, in honor of our one year wedding anniversary this weekend, I'm giving away one of these electric wine openers to one of you guys! So get excited! :)

Here’s how you can get up to 3 entries to win your own magically-easy electric wine opener:

• Get 1 entry by following this blog and then posting a comment telling me how you're following it (through Blogger, subscribing through Google Reader, etc).
• Get 1 entry by tweeting this: “I entered to win a Cordless Electric Wine Opener from The Handcrafted Life (http://bit.ly/HCLife)" and then coming back here and posting a separate comment with a link to your tweet (to find the link to your tweet, you can click the timestamp on the tweet, which will take you to just that particular tweet).
• Get 1 more entry by posting a separate comment with your favorite type of wine! Are you a red or white lover, or do you like both like I do? (In case you're curious, my favorite wines are Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Noir)

This contest will end at 11:59PM PST, Wednesday, June 15th. I'll use random.org to choose the winner, and announce it on Thursday, June 16th.

Cheers and good luck!

(And no, I'm not being paid or sponsored or anything for sharing this, it's just an amazing product that I think you should all know about, and hopefully one of you will get to try it yourself if you're lucky)

Winner, Winner, {Make Yourself A} Chicken Dinner

Sorry this post is a little late, but I was traveling all of last week, and we didn't get home until about 1:30am this morning. That is, 1:30am Pacific time, when we'd been on east coast time all week. So needless to say, I'm a little slow and tired today!

But anyway, I'm here now to announce the winner of The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook from the giveaway I did last week. I was drooling while on vacation all week, as your recipe suggestions popped up in my email!

{Source}

Commenter #20 was Hannah, from Gator Tales!


Hannah, I'll be in touch to get your mailing address soon.

Now it's time for me to get caught up on the work I missed last week, as well as catch up on my blog reading. I'm fearing opening Google Reader--I just know it's hit the 1000+ mark!

And hopefully later this week I'll get caught up on my own blogging as well, I have a ton of exciting news to share! :)

Giveaway Time: For Those Who Like To Cook (Or Want To Learn)

You know what’s funny about having too much stuff in your house? You sometimes forget that you have something, and then you end up with two of the same thing!

This happens to me a lot when I haven’t cleaned out my cupboards for a while. I’ll forget I have lots of, say, salad dressing, or a certain spice. So I buy it at the grocery store, only to end up with twice as much as I really need. I think this even happened at least 3 times with salsa, because earlier this fall we had 6 cans of salsa in the cupboard, since I kept buying it when it was on sale for buy one get one free. I’ve since been banned from buying salsa, and I think we’re finally down to only one jar.

Anyway, it happens.

And this week, because of our tendency to accumulate multiples of the same items, I’m going to turn it into a giveaway!

For a few years now I’ve had a great cookbook in my collection, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, full of easy to follow recipes, in a durable spiral bound hardcover. You can read the reviews on Amazon, but I agree with them completely--it’s one of my top 3 favorite cookbooks I own.

Well, as you may know, my husband and I have been on a mission the past couple months to de-clutter our house, and have been actively getting rid of anything we don’t need. Recently we were cleaning out the closet in our 3rd bedroom, which was mostly full of my husband’s old boxes that he hasn’t opened in years. We’re talking ancient electronics, college textbooks, puzzle/mind teaser game things, about a billion random cables, and a copy of The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook! Still in its shrink wrapping!

My husband claims to have no idea where it came from, and I am certain I didn’t buy it, but since we already own a well-loved copy in our kitchen, he gave it to me to pass along to one of my blog friends!

So here’s how you can get up to 4 entries to win a copy of this great cookbook:

1. Get 1 entry by following this blog and then posting a comment telling me how you're following it (through Blogger, subscribing through Google Reader, etc).
2. Get 1 entry by tweeting this: “I entered to win The America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook from The Handcrafted Life (http://bit.ly/HCLife)" and then coming back here and posting a separate comment with a link to your tweet (to find the link to your tweet, you can click the timestamp on the tweet, which will take you to just that particular tweet).
3. Get up to 2 entries by posting separate comments with your favorite recipes in it, and tell me why they’re your favorite. Max of 2 recipes can be submitted, with one recipe per comment (since I’m counting each comment as an entry). You can either write the recipe in the comment box, or just paste a link to it.
   

This contest will end at 11:59PM PST, Sunday, March 20th. I'll use random.org to choose the winner, and announce it on Monday, March 21st.

Good luck! I can’t wait to read everyone’s favorite recipes!

And the Winners Are....

It was so fun to read everyone's comments on my giveaway! It sounds like our significant others, our pets, and our friends and family brightens everyone's days.

To figure out the winners, I used random.org to select random numbers, and whichever number comments corresponded to the random numbers are the winners!

First up, for the Target gift card:

And for the Starbucks card:

Congrats to Mrs. B-P and Robin! I'm off to see if I can find your contact info through your blogs, but if not, just email me your mailing address to handcraftedlife@gmail.com, and I'll mail out your gift cards. :)

It was so fun doing this giveaway, and getting to check out a bunch of new blogs through your entries, that I think I'll try to do another giveaway soon, maybe next month!

Happy Friday everyone!

Hooray, It's Time For a Giveaway!

I thought it was about time to do my first giveaway on this blog!

I've got 2 gift cards for this giveaway, that I won in my company's New Year's raffle. And since I've already finished all of my post-holiday shopping, and am taking a break from coffee, I decided to pass them along to my lovely readers, to brighten your day! :)

(My kitty sticking her tongue out and wearing a princess tiara brightens my day, in case you were wondering. I also just wanted to share this silly picture of her....she is seriously always sticking out her tongue for some reason!)

So, here's your chance to win one of these two gift cards:

• $40 Target gift card (Come on, who doesn't love Target?! They've got everything there! Except maybe cats in tiaras.*)
• $40 Starbucks gift card (Something to warm you up this winter! And now you can treat that friend you've been promising to meet for coffee. Or spend it all on yourself, I'm not gonna judge!)

You'll have up to 4 chances to enter, by:

1. Commenting on this blog post, and telling me something that brightens your day.
   
2. Following this blog, and then posting a separate comment telling me how you're following it (through Blogger, subscribing through Google Reader, etc).
3. Tweeting this: "I entered to win a Starbucks or Target gift card from The Handcrafted Life (http://bit.ly/HCLife)," and then coming back here and posting a separate comment with a link to your tweet (to find the link to your tweet, you can click the timestamp on the tweet, which will take you to just that particular tweet).
4. Writing a blog post about this giveaway, and posting a link to your blog as a separate comment here.

Please make sure all of your entries are separate comments, so I can count each one as a different entry!

This contest will end at 11:59PM PST, Thursday, January 20th. I'll announce the two winners on Friday, January 21st.

Now, who wants a free gift card?

*OK, I just searched Target.com for "cat tiara" and it turns out they DO have a T-shirt with a cat wearing a tiara (but my kitty is much cuter). I guess Target really does have everything!