From the category archives:

giveaways

good morning

June 23, 2011

in giveaways,pictures

Okay. I might as well ask … why haven’t you entered to win an 8×10 canvas from Easy Canvas Prints?

You may be wondering what you would actually put ON a canvas? So I’m here to help.

For a living room …

For the kitchen …

[side note: can you BELIEVE that’s the same kid!?!?!?!?]

For the bathroom …

Or a bedroom …

Or a quieter bedroom …

Or a playroom …

Or a kid’s bedroom [unless you don’t want your kids jumping on their beds] …

Or to scare away solicitors [growwwwl] …

Or on the refrigerator …

Or in the closet …

Or if you don’t have kids …

So … there’s really NO excuse to not enter the giveaway.

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY … YOU KNOW YOU WANNA …

And one more thing … did you read my tutorial on I Heart Faces about how to read Google Reader in real format? It’s kind of totally awesome, and it will absolutely change the way you read blogs. I PROMISE.

{ 20 comments }

Easy Canvas Prints | a Review AND a Giveaway

June 20, 2011

in giveaways

So sometimes, when I’m really bored and have nothing else to do, I take pictures. I know. It doesn’t happen often, but yeah … I break out the camera on rare occasions.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Ha.

You know I take LOADS of pictures. And [spoiler alert: I’m going to name drop in 3 … 2 … 1 …] in my recent I Heart Faces photographer interview, I was asked if I have photos displayed all over the house. My response was …

Oh how I wish I could change the answer to this, but no. I have a total of 6 pictures of my girls displayed in our house. And 4 of those are collage frames with terrible pictures that I took of teeny tiny baby Emma. She’s almost four now. Lucy is in a grand total of one picture, and she’s eight months old. Second child syndrome is alive and well in our household, folks. But I do have about 12 empty frames, if that counts for anything!

I’m so embarrassed, really. BUT every time Emma is feeling neglected, I can just point and say, “Do you see your sister’s picture hanging on our walls? No!!!! See? You’re still our favorite! Now, go to your room so that I can play with Lucy!” [I’m kidding … that doesn’t happen. Often.]

So when Easy Canvas Prints asked if they could send me a canvas, I said, “YES!!” … pretty emphatically, I might add.

And when I got back from vacation, I had the most beautiful canvas of Miss Lucy Goosie waiting for me.

My review is simple – I love it. I love them. I love everything. The end.

But seriously …

- the ordering process was extremely simple … if a website sends me through 9 million steps to get something ordered, I may not go back, simply because I am usually on the computer during short nap breaks, so I want things done and done.

- the ordering process was very visual – it was just 4 steps, and each option had a visual representation, so I knew what to expect for each choice. For example, I didn’t want to crop my photo, so I opted for the “gallery wrap” in a color that blended into my image. I had no idea what this would look like, but they gave me a full visual of it. [They also had mirror image, which looked awesome, as well! And then a wrap-around option, which would be great if you didn’t mind losing a little of your photo. I would totally do that on any of my wide-angle shots.] I used Photoshop to pull the exact hexidecimal color code to match, and it was spot on.

- they were FAST. I ordered it, and within a week, the FedEx guy placed it gently onto my front porch.

- it came completely ready to hang. Let me say that again – COMPLETELY READY TO HANG OUT OF THE BOX! Can I get an AMEN!?!? All I had to do was measure, mark, nail and hang. Oh guys, this is huge. I have a canvas that has been sitting here for over 3 months, because I haven’t put the little grippy doo-hickey into the back. That was not a problem with Easy Canvas Prints.

Ready. To. Hang.

And last but not least, it is beautiful. And the exact perfect size for what I wanted to do with it.

Now, every time I walk into the door, I can say, “Hi, Lucy!!” Now, I just need one of Emma for the other side.

Or maybe just 3 or 4 more to hang in the front hall … … …

Overall, I couldn’t be more pleased with the whole process and product.

In fact, I am so happy, I asked if they would pleeeeease let me give an 8×10 canvas to one of you! [Of course, they agreed because they are awesome like that.]

To enter to win your very own 8”x10” canvas, all you have to do is …

Leave a comment on this post telling me where you would hang YOUR photo canvas.

That’s it!

If you want additional entries (why not, eh?) then you can do any or all of the following …

- tweet about this giveaway and post a comment on this post to let me know

- blog about this giveaway and post a comment on this post to let me know

- facebook about this giveaway and/or “like” Easy Canvas Prints on facebook and post a comment on this post to let me know

Each comment you leave is an entry, so you can end up with a total of FIVE entries! Now go forth and spread the word! [Or don’t … maybe you will be the only one to enter and no one else will ever know!]

I will close down the comments on Thursday, June 23rd at 10:00pm EST and will then use the random number generator to choose one lucky winner.

Good luck!!

Disclaimer: I was given a canvas print for the purpose of this review – the opinions expressed here are honest and are from my very own brain.

toodle-oo!

June 5, 2011

in giveaways,vacation

We are outta here! We’re leaving today for vacation, and we will be kicking back for the week.

Oh, who am I kidding? There is no such thing as “kicking back” when you go on vacation with kids, am I right? But we will be having fun. [This one’s true.] And unplugging. [Yeah, right.] And sleeping in. [I’m killing myself here.]

Can you tell that’s Ken and Lucy in the pool up there? Oh, my heart.

I know a lot of people who never say that they are going away, because they are afraid that people will break into their house. So, I thought I’d let any potential robbers in on a few secrets. You know, just in case we get that lucky. Fingers crossed!

1. The dogs will still be there, so bring them treats. They don’t usually bite people who have treats. Ha! I wish I could say that they would protect the house, but good grief, they are total pushovers.

2. Don’t be alarmed if you walk in, and there are people there. Someone has to take care of the dogs while we’re gone. So, um … that kind of defeats the purpose of trying to rob a house when no one’s home, right?

3. Sadly, we don’t have anything of value in our house. Seriously, Ken is NOT a spender, so all of our electronics and appliances are cheap. And old. And worthless.

4. If you could sweep and mop and unload the dishwasher when you’re done going through our stuff to see if you can find anything worth more than a hundred bucks [spoiler alert: you won’t], that would be great. I don’t want to have to do that when I get home.

Okay, thanks.

And before we leave, here’s the winner of the One Willow Lightroom Preset Giveaway …

Congratulations, Leigh Ann!! Please email me at keli@kidnappedbysuburbia.com to claim your $50 gift certificate.

{ 13 comments }

One Willow Lightroom Preset GIVEAWAY

June 2, 2011

in giveaways,lightroom presets

I “met” Jessica Paige on Flickr a long long time ago, and I thought she was amazing. I was in awe of her and just wanted her to like me. Seriously.

Now, she is a friend, a fellow contributor on I Heart Faces, a phenomenal photographer and someone I still admire greatly. And she’s even more amazing than she was way back then, if that’s even possible.

She has also created some of the most beautiful Lightroom presets that I have ever found. And I look for good LR presets a LOT. Her presets really enhance photos without overdoing it. [Just say no to orange skin!]

You might have heard of them? One Willow Presets. If you want to see her amazing photos that are processed with these presets, go here.

But I thought I’d throw out a few before/afters of my own, if that’s okay.

From the Timeless collection …

[sooc first]

Lucy says, “Power to the people. The people who use Lightroom.”

Jessica’s amazing presets even make dirty feet look prettier … sort of. Okay, so she can’t work miracles, but that’s what baths are for.

The Timeless collection is wonderful, because it doesn’t go crazy on your images. It tweaks them *just enough* without causing crazy effects and weird colors.

And for the fans of more vintage’y processing [me! me!!] …

From the Fairytales collection …

And finally, a gorgeous black and white set that I just can’t get enough of …

MAGIC!!

There is also a fourth collection called Retro Candy, but in the switching of my computers, I forgot to move those over to my laptop. But you can see for yourself, they are just as amazing as the rest of these collections!

So that’s it. That’s all I’m going to write about today.

Ta-ta!

…………

………………

Just kidding!!

Jessica has graciously offered A $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE to One Willow Boutique to one lucky reader. One seriously lucky reader. I mean, really really lucky.

I assure you, your workflow will never be the same.

So here are my rules for how this is going to go down [and how you can get THREE entries!]:

First entry: Leave me a comment telling me which preset collection you would buy if you could buy one collection right now at this very second.

Additional entry: Go be a fan of One Willow Presets on Facebook. Jessica did not tell me to do this … I just think you should all be fans. It’s one way to find out about new presets and get your hands on freebies! Feel free to leave her some love, too. But you must come back and post a comment telling me that you “liked” OWP.

Additional entry: Tweet, Facebook or blog about this giveaway. If you do any or all of these, you’ll get that many entries. Of course, please leave a comment saying that you did this … I can’t read your mind, you know.

I will close down comments on Saturday, June 4th at 10pm EST and will then use the random number generator to pick the lucky lucky winner shortly thereafter. Good luck!! And go tell your friends!

Four for Four Giveaway Winners

May 19, 2011

in four for four,giveaways

I’m sorry I haven’t posted any pictures from Emma’s birthday party, yet. I ended up with a sinus infection and double ear infection … woke up yesterday morning in some of the worst pain I’ve ever been in. Even my teeth were hurting! But 3 doses of azithromycin later, I’m starting to feel almost human, which is necessary since I leave tomorrow for Texas, and I have not done ONE THING to get ready. I had great plans to make a few freezable dinners for Ken, but it looks like they will just be eating pizza and Stouffer’s dinners. Oh well.

Anyway, I wanted to go ahead and announce the winners of the giveaway so you guys don’t have to wait until I get back from Texas to find out.

So here we go …

Giveaway #1: Custom WP Blog Design from Creative Perch