Anodyne Design » Contests & Giveaways

Happy Monday! (And did you know about this giveaway?)

Shannon — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:43:13 +0000

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend. My weekend was a bit spotty. Saturday I set up shop at the Peoria Heights Art Fair. On the upside, I got to meet all sorts of wonderful people. On the downside, it was ridiculously cold and windy! It took me hours to thaw out. The weather was much nicer on Sunday, and SciFi Man and I went out to celebrate a little holiday my family created to celebrate one particularly lucky day back in 1997. We had some delicious Japanese hibachi food. You know, the sort that is cooked right at your table and involves flames and the squirting of sake into the diner’s mouths. Yum!

This week started out with the lovely surprise that Liesl (of Liesl Made, and whose work I adore!) really likes the Little Birds Journal she bought from me awhile ago. I discovered this via her interview on Whimsy House. It’s a good interview– you should take a moment to check it out. As if that weren’t cool enough, the interview is paired with a giveaway. Leave a comment over there and be entered to win one of Liesl’s marvelous Butcher’s Aprons. I’d like to win one myself. I love the combination of gorgeous fabric and simple, clean styling.

The Fancy Schmancy Market is coming up this Saturday, so I’ve got a lot of work to do to prepare for that! Also, the Bloomington Farmer’s Market is starting up this Saturday. And since I can’t be in two places at once, my good friend from yellow dragonfly designs will be there with her jewelry and some lovelies from Anodyne Design. (And in reverse, I’ll have some of her awesome earrings on display at Fancy Schmancy!) The Farmer’s Market runs from 7:30 a.m. until noon, and the Fancy Schmancy Market runs from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. You should stop by and see at least one of us!

Is There Anything Lovelier…

Shannon — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:13:54 +0000

…than a hand-written note?

A small bit of my stationery stash.

I have always had a special place in my heart for pretty stationery. Over the years, I have created a collection of pretty papers and note cards that seems to outpace my opportunities for sending little notes and letters. I will often glance at my stationery stash and wish for a reason to send someone a note by mail. I finally found a reason with a post on IndieFixx this week, in which Jen proposed the Penpal Project. Inspired by some e-mail problems, she thought it would be great to connect IndieFixx readers with one another to exchange real, snail mail letters. I love it! I have already arranged to be penpals with a couple of people, but if you are also interested, send me a message (there’s a link to my email just over there, on the left)! (I’m serious. Let’s be penpals. Who doesn’t love mail?)

Sometimes, it seems like things snowball. And this handwritten-note/stationery love thing is one of them. Just today, I stumbled across a giveaway on Elephantine for some really lovely note cards and gift tags made by Kristin Sanchez. You should definitely take a peek at her charming Etsy shop and sign up for the giveaway. If you win, you can use one of the note cards to send a letter to your new penpal!

Happy Weekend!

Shannon — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:26:38 +0000

It’s Friday, and although for some reason I feel like it was just Sunday, it’s about to be the weekend again. I’ve got some fun lunch plans and a craft show I’m planning on visiting this weekend. I plan on doing lots of sewing, too. It’s been awhile since I sat down on my sewing machine, and I really need to fix that.

Some notes from the week…

Did you see the giveaway Olive Manna and Hooray Design are doing together? It seems like such a lovely idea to team up like that, and the little cans of goodies are so sweet! You should check out the giveaway, and then stay for the blog, or something like that. They both have great blogs.

If you like chickpeas at all, you need to give this recipe for Lemony Chickpea Stir-fry a try. Soon. It’s so very good, and easy. I made it on a last-minute whim this week, and I liked it so much I made it a second time. I served it with some brown rice, cooked in veggie broth. And while you are cooking, make a batch of these Ultimate Double Chocolate Cookies. You won’t regret it, although your waist might.

Are you on Twitter? I am, and I was thinking this week that if you aren’t following me on Twitter, you might be missing out on some of the little updates that I don’t think merit a whole blog post, but are still awesome. Like when I tweeted about this fashion no-no. I’d love for you to be my Twitter friend. :)
I really loved this post on Cicada Daydream, Anatomy of a Cost Effective Project.

What are your weekend plans? Are you relaxing, doing something fun? Going somewhere interesting? Whatever they are, I hope it’s a wonderful weekend!

Quilt Giveaway at Don’t Look Now

Shannon — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:11:27 +0000

To celebrate her 100th post on Don’t Look Now, Kellie is having a super generous giveaway! Don’t Look Now is one of my regular blog reads, and I am routinely amazed at the beautiful, creative, high quality work I see there. Her intricate quilting and applique designs are just so pretty.

Kelly is offering one lucky person who comments on the giveaway post the chance to take home her lovely Lilly Pilly quilt. Check out this pretty quilt:

Lilly Pilly Quilt (Image borrowed from Don't Look Now)

What are you waiting for? Go enter (and spend some time checking out the rest of the blog, it’s worth it)!

True Up Side Bet

Shannon — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:31:17 +0000

You may have heard, Sew, Mama, Sew! hosted this massive May Giveaway Day. Lots of great blogs participated and I was amazed at the generosity of creative bloggers. So many amazing people were giving away amazing things. Quilts, patterns, supplies, bags, jewelry. So much goodness. Of course, I’m a sucker for giveaways and I entered a few with little expectation of winning. I’m not the luckiest girl around.

Kim at True Up was so suprised by how many people entered her giveaway for scrap bags that she decided to have a side bet on twitter (@trueup), and invited her followers to guess how many comments she would get by the end of the giveaway. I bet 833, and someone else bet 879, and apparently we were both exactly 23 comments away from the actual number she received. Which makes us both winners! Hooray for winning, and those scrap bags look fabulous. I can’t wait to see what sort of goodies are hiding in there.

This also gives me an excellent opportunity to mention True Up, which is a great blog about all things fabric. Just recently, I’ve learned all about silk and gotten a peek in the Quilt Market. True Up also regularly posts about US and international fabric shop sales, and it’s been great having all that information collected and neatly presented. It’s one of my regular blogs that I follow in my feed reader, and it you haven’t checked it out, I recommend you do so now.

Win an Anodyne Design Tote!

Shannon — Thu, 07 May 2009 21:35:15 +0000

Chia’s House of Stirfry (which is a great blog you ought to be visiting anyway) is having a contest! Chia has declared May to be Reader Appreciation Month and to celebrate, she’s going to give away an Anodyne Design tote bag to one of her readers. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on her blog sometime during the month of May. Maybe you’ll win a cool tote bag, and you’ll definitely discover a cool new blog full of paper and rubber-stamp art info, posts on desert life, tutorials, templates, and more. To learn more about the contest, click here.

I’m so pleased that Chia decided to thank her readers with one of my bags, and I hope the winner loves it!

A Few Bloggy Giveaways

Shannon — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:23:36 +0000

Check out some of these giveaways I’ve come across on some of my favorite blogs lately:

Sew Gracious is giving away a lovely tote bag. Just check out her Etsy shop and leave a comment about which item is your favorite–but hurry! The giveaway ends tonight.
Modish is also having a giveaway and you’ll have at least two chances to win this one, because she’ll be choosing two winners. But you can also enter more than once, so you can increase your chances of winning even more. You have a chance to win a lot of cool handmade goodies.
And finally, Kleas is having a little fat quarter giveaway to celebrate her 200th post. If you like adorable fabric, you should check this one out.

Apron Giveaway

Shannon — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:09:53 +0000

Do you like adorable aprons? I’m not always so good about wearing aprons, but I do love the way they look. I found out about this Summer Holiday Apron Giveaway at The Apronista via a post on And She Can’t Even Cook! Check out the giveaway–you get to choose which apron you like best from Carolyn’s Kitchen and you can enter up to three times–and then check out And She Can’t Even Cook!, which is one of the blogs I keep tabs on in my feed reader.

(And yes, this post signals my return from my extended “vacation.”) I’ve been busy moving, sewing, cooking, and container gardening, and it’s high time I got back into blogging!

Defying the Odds

Shannon — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:00:58 +0000

My more statistically-inclined friend has informed me that I have defied the odds. The bloggy giveaway was awesome, both in terms of being able to give something away, interacting with so many other participants, exploring new blogs, and in being a winner. There were so many incredible giveaways going on last week and I entered quite a few of them. I’m now the happy recipient of a credit on PaperBackSwap, from Kacie over at Sense to Save, which I have already used to claim a copy of Ann Hood’s Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time. I’ve been wanting to read that book for sometime, so thank you, Kacie!

Obviously, since I started this post by talking about defying the odds, I won a couple more giveaways. That was statistically unexpected, but very exciting for me. I won a beautiful pair of “Pretty in Pink” earrings from Jennifer at Jezebel’s Jewels. Be sure to check out her blog, and all the pretty designs she has in her Etsy shop, too! Her pieces have a classic, simple design that definitely appeals to my sense of style. I also won a Starbucks gift card from M.C. over at Milk in the Closet. And you know that is going straight to my vanilla bean iced frappucino habit. Be sure to check out her blog. I love what she had to say about You’ve Got Mail and blogging.

And finally, I ended up in a trade with another giveaway host! Laura, over at Knittinchick’s Musings, makes these adorable Baby Uggs. I so admire anyone who can knit a scarf, let alone shoes. No, I don’t have a secret baby, and I’m not pregnant. But I plan to have one in the not-so-distant future, and one of the perks I imagine is dressing them up to be cute, so Baby Uggs it is! I’ll be sending a to-be-determined bag to Laura.

Thanks to everyone–Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer, each giveaway host, and everyone who left wonderful comments–for making the giveaway such a fun experience!

Drumroll, Please.

Shannon — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:00:11 +0000

(Psst. If you didn’t win, keep reading anyway. There’s a deal at the end that’s totally for you!)

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for the Modern Diamonds card wallet or an as-yet-to-be made card wallet! I am amazed that so many of you entered, and absolutely thrilled that almost all of you followed the rules. It was incredibly hard to choose just one comment for the Modern Diamonds card wallet. Those of you who thought you should win because you followed the rules–I think you should, too! But there was more than one of you, so that didn’t seem like a sufficient criterion for choosing the winner. Every reason you offered was a great reason to need a card wallet, and I truly wish it was in my budget to give one to each of you. I really do. Unfortunately for you, I’m a broke student, so that’s not happening.

To those of you who volunteered for the guerrilla marketing program (remember, you said you’d casually wave around your new card wallet in front of all your friends, until they just had to know where you got it?) — Thank you! It’s a fabulous idea! Once Anodyne Design makes it big, I’ll have to start that program.

I totally understand those of you who need new wallets to match your new bags, those of you who need something cute in your lives, and those of you who value something handmade as a little more special than something you buy at the mall. All of your wonderful, generous compliments made me smile all week long. As for the one who called fire (I’m talking about you, #88) you have no idea how funny that was — after the fiasco where I spilled wine all over my monitor (don’t ask), my husband was convinced it would burst into flames at any minute. It hasn’t yet.

So after much soul searching and personal turmoil, I have made my choice. It was close, but the winning comment, from SomeoneBeingMe, is:

I love that wallet. Pink and brown are so cute. I should win because I am so not the crafty type and could never make anything that cute myself. I come from a line of crafty women who can make beautiful creations with 3 straws, glitter, and a glue gun and I’m the one who would end up with a straw glue gunned to my hair.

Girl, this wallet is way cooler than anything made out of 3 straws, glitter, and a glue gun. Plus, now you’re a winner. (Have I ever mentioned that I’ve always wanted to be a winner? It’s pretty awesome.)

And according to Random.org, our lucky randomly selected winner is: Comment #80! Comment 80 comes to us from Kristine, who wrote: “I could use something like this for my diaper bag! My fave color is purple.” Just you wait. Soon, you’ll be rockin’ an awesome purple card wallet!

For those of you who didn’t win, let’s still be friends, okay? This giveaway was so much fun, I suspect I’ll be doing it again soon! And really, with all those great reasons for needing a card wallet, maybe you should treat yourself to one? In fact, for everyone who entered this giveaway, if you buy a card wallet from my Etsy shop (and don’t worry, I’ll be restocking this weekend!) during the month of February, I’ll give you free shipping on your order. Just leave a note when you place your order saying you participated in the giveaway and I’ll refund the shipping cost through PayPal.

Thanks for playing, everyone!