I won!

I wanted to share with you something I just received in the mail from Meaghan who blogs Edible Crafts at CraftGossip.com! Meaghan had a giveaway of a “I love you so forkin’ much!” serving fork from Lorelei’s Esty shop. I loved it the minute I saw the picture so I left a comment to enter.

I won but didn’t know it! Thankfully, Meaghan is persistent because her original email ended up in my Spam folder. She sent one more email and it got through. Thank you Meaghan! Check out her other blog The Decorated Cookie and her book Sugarlious! Meaghan is one of several bloggers who write at CraftGossip.com.  It is a site worth digging around even if you are not a crafter (look at the left column for all the topics) – and they are always having all types of giveaways!

I intended to give hubby this for Valentine’s Day, but I was too excited to hold out till Thursday! It brought a big smile to his face. Isn’t this just fabulous?

“I love you so forkin’ much!” serving fork I won. It measures about 10.5″ long.

Close-up of the hand stamping!

Check out Lorelei’s Esty shop for other hand-stamped items!

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. Just sharing what I won and where!

New Shoes Flowchart

Found this over on Allposters.com! Gotta love a good flowchart.

My Glorious Haul!

I’ve needed to refresh and update my wardrobe for a while. The problem is I don’t like to shop. That wasn’t always the case. When my daughter was still at home she would help me find all sorts of great outfits. She knew what looked flattering on me and was quite honest when it didn’t! She was good. Now we are 1500 miles apart. I haven’t put much effort in these last couple of years.

Well, I was belly-aching at work about clothes again and a co-worker sent me this blog post from Pocket Your Dollars titled, “Do You Hate Clothes Shopping As Much As I Do? You May Not Have To Do It Ever. Again.” WHAT?! A woman after my own heart! I read the post and found out I could have the services of  a personal shopper for FREE! I had nothing to lose so I made an appointment but had a three month wait.

My appointment finally happened. Enter Michelle from ARC’s Value Village personal shopper extraordinaire! To prepare for the appointment I filled out a questionnaire which she used to pull together a bunch of outfits and single items based on my preferences. Well, let me tell you it was well worth the wait! Michelle did an amazing job pulling outfits for me to try on. I still can’t believe the service is FREE. As a side note there is no pressure to buy but I did end up purchasing many of the items that Michelle picked out.

I now have 19 new pieces to add to my wardrobe. To break it down for you I purchased two pair of shoes, five necklaces, twelve pieces of clothing (one pair of pants, one spring jacket, two dresses, four blazers, and four tops). I spent about $160. Almost all the things I purchased are new (with tags) or have absolutely no signs of wear! Here’s a few of the items I brought home.

Pair One – Brown Heels

Pair Two – Black Wedges

Five Necklaces

Michelle put together this versatile jacket, brown dress and necklace.

Spring jacket – can’t wait to wear this!!

Here’s another combo: black jacket, print top, and accent necklace!

Michelle the miracle worker and me.

Michelle and me in one of the outfits she put together. This is a sleeve dress, jean jacket, and scarf.

Bottom line, I’m going to schedule another appointment with Michelle. During the appointment I forgot I didn’t like shopping. True story.

Have you worked with a personal shopper? Are you a thrifter? What’s your favorite “find”? I’m guessing you know mine is Michelle!

Here’s a link to ARC’s Value Village scheduler!

Problem Solved

This past riding season I met a few female motorcyclists as I was out and about. My problem was I would ask them about sharing their story on my blog, but usually I didn’t have a pen and paper to write down my blog address and neither did the gal I met. There was many a missed opportunity to connect. Well enter Moo.com.

My mini-Moo blog cards!

Moo.com has a couple of different sizes and paper choices. And it gives you the opportunity to personalize both sides! Woot-woot. I choose the mini-Moo cards with a matte finish, then created five sayings in two different colors on one side and put my blog URL on the other side. Yay! Now I’m ready to connect with more lady riders!

P.S. I’m still looking to add stories to Profile of a Female Motorcyclist! Let me know if you are interested. Leave a comment or email me at: pamela.court@gmail.com

P.P.S. The link to Moo.com is a referral link. You’ll get 10% off your first order.

Seasonal Fashion Help

I don’t know about you, but I find adding a scarf an easy way to update or dress-up an outfit. I found this video from Eileen Fisher demonstrating a nice variety of ways to tie a scarf. What do you like to do to accent an outfit?

Tis the Season

I’m not familiar with Wieden + Kennedy, but love the Advent Calendar they created for the neighborhood! Check out this short video.

Winners to the Giveaway!

I used the random number generator and the winners to the Essentia giveaway are:

1. Trobairtitz
2. Caroline
3. Denice
4. Happygrape2

Congratulations ladies! I’ll be sending the one ounce jar of Essentia out this week!

Giveaway!

Woot-woot! I was thinking I’d like to do a giveaway, but didn’t know what it would be. Then a friend gave me a new product to try, Essentia an all natural ingredient face, hand, and body cream and BINGO this was it! I had to share this product because I like supporting companies that consider the social impact of their product. And this one does!

Essentia contains essential oils, moisturizers and vitamins, blended with natural Moroccan Argan Oil. Argan Oil is just beginning to hit the United States cosmetic world. Its moisturizing and nourishing benefits for skin are many and at my age I’m needing all the help I can get. Seeds of Innovation Technologies, exclusively carries this product and is very reasonable priced at $7 for 1 ounce jar. (FYI Sephora carries Josie Maran Argan Oil 0.5 ounce for $14.)

Back to the giveaway. I have four 1 ounce jars of Essentia to giveaway! To enter leave me a comment and share what you use for face moisturizer, don’t forget to add your email address! I will pick four winners on Sunday using a random number generator and post the winners names. One entry per person. Limited to Continental United States AND Canada (unless you want to pay postage).

Essentia with Argan Oil

P.S. This is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to share this great product.

Planning for my Winter Projects

The weather these last few days has been chilly and windy. No denying that winter is on its way to Minnesota. Ours days are getting shorter with the sun setting just a little past 6:30 p.m. And my motorcycle is beginning to collect dust sitting in the garage. I’m still hoping for another ride or two before I have to let it go for the season. Sounds like we may see 60 degrees here this weekend.

So begins the planning process to decide what homemade projects I’d like to make. Here are a few that I have on my Etsy shop.

These are some infinity scarves I made from t-shirts.

These are an easy way to add a pop of color to a plain tee or shirt. A friend of mine wears the clip-on flower in her hair rather than on the scarf. I’m not very good with the camera so I named the colors what I think would best describe it.

This next project I crocheted this past summer one piece at a time. I didn’t really have a pattern, just saw a picture on a blog and tried to duplicate the motif. I made mine in black, grey, and white but thought it needed a pop of color so I added one red flower.

Flower Star Afghan

Here’s a tote bag in navy blue, teal, and white. The pattern gives an illusion of Subway tiles. This is another one I made without a pattern.

Subway Tile Bag

Now off to Pinterest looking for my next project. Any suggestions? Do share! One idea I have is to crochet a neck cowl to wear motorcycling in cool weather. Something I can wear to keep the wind from coming in around my collar on my riding jacket. I’m thinking PINK!

Do share if you have any ideas for me!

To Publish or Not To Publish … That is the Question.

I tweeted and asked a couple of bloggers this question, but wanted to see what y’all think about the (beta) Kindle Publishing for Blogs too.

What is it? According to the web site, “Amazon Kindle Publishing for Blogs is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets you add and sell your blogs on the Kindle Store.”

I set-up an account just to be able to get to the fine print. The disclaimers and legal jargon were enough to put me off. Definitely not written to be understood by the average person.

Here is the link to the Kindle Publishing for Bloggers. What do you think? Are you in? What potential benefits or hazards do you see? Me? I blog for the fun of it so not today.

Image source