In-Between Porch Decor and a Winner

It's such an odd time of year, one might call it the "In-Between Season." There are no holidays in sight, it's too cold to decorate for spring, and decorating with the grays and browns of winter has gotten old. To cure the winter blahs that one gets in the in-between season, I pulled out my brightest spray paint colors and some old, very old, thrifted items.
First I gave an old frame and a piece of scrap beadboard a fresh coat of bright orange. Then I painted the legs of a stool with a creamy yellow and finished the top off with gray.The beadboard is now the ideal spicy backdrop for an average woody wreath.Faux ranunculus in a crusty pot resting on a silver tray are appropriate for this time of year. Fun Fact: Ranunculus flowers season is usually from January till May. The flowers look so pretty framed in orange with a bright yellow little bird that seems to be enjoying the scene.Even though the flowers are fake I couldn't resist adding a cheery teal watering can into the vignette, along with an over-sized lantern to shed a little light in the crisp early evenings of this time of year.I now have a bright, delightful, and perfect In-Between Season porch.According to Random Generator, the winner of the Thirty-One Gifts Giveaway is number 35. Hooray Gayle! Gayle is a very talented rug hooker and loooong-time reader of my blog. I'm so excited for her. Giving prizes is always fun but when it's someone I "kindda" know (we've never met in person but I saw her on TV), it makes it even more exciting!
Thank you Diana from Thirty-One Gifts for hosting this giveaway.

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Sharing The Love

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I hope you don't mind if I speak from the heart for a bit. Recently I have had the pleasure of hosting a few giveaways. I enjoy using my blog as a means to help others grow their business. But it's so hard for me to hit the "generate" button on random generator when it's time to pick a winner. I want all of my readers to win. Most of all I want you to know that you are all winners in my book! I am humbled that you take the time to check on my blog. I am thankful when you leave a comment and very understanding when you don't. Blogging takes time and following blogs takes even more. We live in a busy world with so many demands on our time. I hope that you find your time here at my blog worthwhile. My family and I experienced a rough year last year and blogging took a low priority. Thankfully things are getting better. I hope to be sharing some fun projects in the next few months. It feels so good to be able to turn back on the creative side of my brain again (the survival side was in high gear for a while there). Please know that I value your loyalty and time! I am thankful that you do not judge me if it takes me a while to return an email or if I can't come visit each one of you (oh how I wish I could). You are all very important to me. I may not know your name but I do know that you have left an impression on my heart which motivates me to be a better blogger, but more than that, a better person. I cannot express enough gratitude to you for that. It does not seem enough to just say thank you. . . but I do THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!! And I appreciate you letting me ramble on a bit before I announce another winner and giveaway.

Random generator picked #1 (how rare does that seem?) to be the winner of the M.Bellish'd giveaway. Candace at We Are Glad For Many Things, you will be contacted soon for information about delivering your prize. Now onto another giveaway. . .

Diana from Thirty-One Gifts is sponsoring this weeks giveaway. Thirty-One Gifts is a faith based company and the name comes from Proverbs 31 that speaks of a virtuous woman. The goal of the company is to celebrate, encourage, and reward women for all that they do for their friends, family, and coworkers. Thirty-One Gifts offers so many beautiful items! I picked just a few that are both pretty and practical.Diana is offering my readers the chance to win a $30 gift certificate along with FREE monogramming. In order to win go view their catalog and pick what you would choose if you won the $30 certificate. Come back here and leave a comment with your choice. If you "like" Diana on her Facebook page then you can leave another comment for another entry. On top of all of this, if you find something you love and don't want to wait to see if you win, Diana has set up an event called "Joy's Giveaway Event" where you can place an order online. If you place an order through this event you can come back to this post and add THREE extra entries. That's a total of FIVE possibilities to win (pretty good odds I would say).

BEST OF LUCK TO YOU ALL!!!
***Giveaway ends Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at midnight***

Remember that Tuesday, February 15th is the last day for the awesome 20% discount on Scentsy orders.
And one more thing. . . if you want to spread a little love today, here are two good causes that you may want to get involved with.

http://welovejennyauction.blogspot.com/
http://expectingablessing.blogspot.com/

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M.Bellish'd Giveaway and Scentsy Winner

***GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED***

Meet Melanie, one of the co-owners of M.Bellish'd, a unique and fabulous line of fashionable accessories. They carry an original line of stylish products with a beautiful variety of textures, colors and styles to choose---feminine or edgy, vintage or modern, whatever your style is, you'll love M.Bellish'd!You can be part of the M.Bellish'd team. They offer opportunities to be a stylist so you can have a home based career that lets YOU be the boss.To get you familiar with the M.Bellish'd line of products, they are offering one of you lucky readers a beautiful watch and cuff similar to these shown. The watch interchanges so you can wear it with a cuff that suits your style. They also offer brooches that interchange.To be entered in the giveaway first go check out their products and then come back here and leave a comment. For additional entries all you need to do is like M.Bellish'd on facebook, or follow them on twitter, or tweet about the giveaway (leave an additional comment for each).

Best of Luck
for winning a beautiful watch and cuff.I have one and I love it!
***M.BELLISH'D GIVEAWAY RUNS UNTIL
MIDNIGHT, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH***

Now to announce our winner of last weeks giveaway. . .

Random Generator picked comment #34 as the Scentsy Winner. Congratulations to The O's!
Jordan from Scentsy
will be contacting you soon with details of your prize.

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Scentsy Giveaway

***GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED***

Sweet and pretty Jordan Buerschenk, an escential consultant for Scentsy contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if I had ever tried Scentsy products. Scentsy is a type of wickless candle product where the wax is melted using the heat of a lightbulb. I had heard of Scentsy and I have friends who have them but I had resisted buying one telling myself that I already own enough candles to light and smell up a small city. Jordan kindly offered to send me a plug-in to try so that I could give an honest review.

I choose the Taro which is so pretty during the day and night.

I plugged it into the wall of my dining room. A few hours later I was delighted to walk into the living room and smell the wonderful aroma that had filled both areas of my home. When I walk through my front door I am now greeted with a delightful smell and the best part is that I don't have to worry about blowing out a candle when I leave the house.

I'm very happy with my Scentsy and now one of you lucky readers will be able to own one too! To enter all you need to do is leave a comment. You can get bonus entries for :

1) tweeting about the giveaway
2) subscribing to Jordan's newsletter on her homepage

Jordan will send the winning reader a Groovy White Plug-In + The following three Scents : Enchanted Mist, Cucumber Lime + My Wish.
If you don't want to wait to see if you win, or if you want one and you're not feeling lucky, or if you already own a Scentsy and want to buy more products, Jordan has generously offered my readers an additional 10% discount (for all orders received by February 15)! To be eligible for the discount, you will need to click on the 'email me' tab on her home site. Make sure 'JOY' is in the subject line and your order is in the body of the email. Everything will be an additional 10% off in February for Scentsy - so this is a great chance to get the products at 20% off!

The giveaway will end

Saturday, February 5th at midnight(MST)
Winner will be announced Monday, February 7th

Good Luck!!!

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Giveaway Oh Giveaway

***Giveaway is closed***
Who doesn't love a giveaway especially at this time of year?!?
I'm sure you'll want a beautiful handmade pillow from
Fabulous But Frugal.

They are giving away one of these
pretty mustard yellow mod lattice pillows to
one lucky Joys Of Home reader.

All you need to do is visit their site and look over the lovely selection of pillows and other handmade items. Come back here and leave a comment on your favorite. If you want more chances to win just tweet, facebook, or blog about this giveaway then leave an additional comment for each.

If you're not feeling lucky but still love these gorgeous pillows FabulousButFrugal.com is running a special for the next two weeks. When you buy three pillow covers you get the fourth one free.They have a great selection to choose from.

FabulousButFrugal.com was recently featured in Garden Design magazine online, and in a photo spread of a customer's house in Malaysia in Adore magazine.

Along with the items featured, they can also make custom items to match your decor such as drapes, place mats, table runners, cloth napkins and more.

The giveaway will be open until Saturday at midnight (MST)
The winner will be announced next Monday.
Best of Luck to all of you!
Giveaway closes on December 18th at midnight(MST)

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A Contrast and A Winner

Outside my door is the look of winter. Contrast that from the look of fall inside. Today I will enjoy both looks. And just for fun I might listen to

a little Christmas music.

Congratulations to Crystal!
crystal said...

I love sunflowers even the ones growing along the road in summertime

would love to see them in winter.Thank You for all your delightful designs.

She's the winner of the Sunflowerguy bouquet.
(Crystal please email me for the details)

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Getting and Giving a Bouquet

***GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED***

I was contacted by Sunflowerguy.com asking if I'd be interested in reviewing their flower delivery service. I'm not one to turn down a bouquet of beautiful flowers so I said Yes!I went on their site and picked a gorgeous bouquet. They have bunches of sunflowers in all different pretty arrangements. I picked my favorite and placed my order.
I was excited to see a fresh flower delivery on my doorstep!I followed the instructions for opening the box and found a lovely bouquet inside.I must admit that although the flowers were beautiful, they were smaller than what I had anticipated from how they appear in the photos. They came packed in moist florist foam ready to be placed in their vase. You pick the color of vase included with the flowers. Mine turned out to be an odd color of green. Of course we all know that a little spray paint can fix things---unless the original paint wasn't applied correctly (oops!). The plain galvanized vase would have been a better choice.
Oh well, my bouquet looked even more elegant in a vase from my collection.The flowers have an eight day guarantee. Mine didn't quite last the full eight days, but they did last longer than others I buy.

I enjoyed my pretty bouquet from Sunflowerguy.com and now
here's your chance to try out their fresh flower delivery. Go to their site and have a look around.
While you're there register to win a year of fresh flowers
(who wouldn't love that!). Then come back here and leave a comment.
On Friday I'll announce the winner.
Good Luck!

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A Winner, A Follow-Up and a Tease

Hooray!

We have a winner of a beautiful Sodderbug charm made by Janelle.

It's Ashley Bray.
Congratulations Ashley!!!

Do you remember months ago when I shared a little project that my hubby and I worked on together for our friends cabin?
The original fireplace looked like this.I designed, hubby and I built, and I painted. Then the fireplace looked like this.Well here is a photo of the decorated mantle.I love the way it looks with the big mirror above and the wreath hanging in front of the mirror. Our friend said that she's replacing the small wreath with a larger one, so just imagine it looking that way now.
Isn't their cabin beautiful! Do you see the refection in the mirror of the gorgeous quilt? Our friend is literally the Queen of Quilting. This lady is talented! I am so lucky to know her. She is my inspiration, not just because of her creative talents. But because she is incredibly confident and caring. And she and her husband are two of the most generous people I know! Not to mention that they willingly put their trust in us to build them a few items for their beautiful cabin.
The mantle isn't the only thing we did. We built another item for their cabin too. We started with an old solid wood back door. Here's a sneak peek with more photos to follow soon.

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