Personalized Cooler #Giveaway - 3 #Winners! @favorsunlimited

 

It’s finally starting to warm up around here….and none too soon. The winter nasty has really bogged me down this year. I barely opened the blinds this time around –no point really, all that dismal gloom.

Today could not have been more perfect – 89° with low to almost no humidity, clear skies, and a lot of very happy birds; made me almost wish I liked yard work. It’s got me ready to pack a picnic and head to the vineyards.

I don’t live too far away from a celebrity owned vineyard that is pretty well known for the bridal parties, wedding planning, and romantic ambiance but the quite countryside landscaping makes a great daytime getaway place for lunch for me and a couple of girlfriends – though I admit a visit does make my amorous heart a bit wistful.

 Don’t get me wrong. I’m still crazy about my husband but the excitement and anticipation of starting a new life with the man of your dreams...sigh....there is so much hope; so many dreams of what will be……sigh. New love is such a beautiful thing.

 Spring and summer are definitely the seasons for exchanging nuptials. To celebrate the kickoff of newly wedded bliss Wedding Favors Unlimited is getting into the spirit with a pretty sweet giveaway… their giving away three personalized coolers.

 You don’t even have to be getting married to like this one. A personalized cooler is a goody we all would enjoy…perfect for those picnics at the vineyard :0)

 Each winner gets to pick from these 8 sassy designs –

 A little housekeeping to keep in mind:

• Just like any giveaway posted on Closer to Lucy - You must complete the stated entry task in order to be eligible to win the contest. Entries will be verified, incomplete entries will be discarded.
• Giveaway is open to only those residents of the 48 Contiguous States
• Must be18 years of age or older!
• Winners will be selected randomly through Rafflecopter.
• Winners will receive their choice of one Personalized Cooler valued at up to $42 from the 8 options shown above.
• Winners will be notified via e-mail, failure to respond within three days of notification, will result in forfeiture and another winner will be selected.
• To see the full list of giveaway rules visit here .
• Giveaway ends 5/26/2013

If the Rafflecopter entry form is not displaying click the "Rafflecopter giveaway" link

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This posting was created for the purpose of providing my readers with entry opportunities for the brand indicated above and no compensation or review items were received...........you're welcome :0)
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Five Ways to Create An Elegantly Designed Scrapbook

Making a scrapbook is a wonderful way to preserve memories. Here are a five tips to help you create a scrapbook that will be a beautiful keepsake for the whole family to cherish.

Take Lots of Pictures

The cornerstone of a good scrapbook is photographs. Granted, other memorabilia such as concert tickets and birthday cards may be incorporated, but photos are the main draw, so be sure to take lots of them so you have plenty to choose from. In this age of instant photography, you can leave 90 percent of them on the computer and only get the best ones printed, but the more pictures you take, the more likely it is that you will get some really stellar shots.

Do Some Creative Cutting

Especially since you can easily get another print made, you shouldn't be afraid to trim your photos. That may just mean rounding the corners a bit, or it could involve cutting the photos into unusual shapes. You can also get special scissors that give the pictures a fancy edge. Regular old rectangular photos are fine for photo albums with sleeves, but the purpose of a scrapbook is to do something a little more creative, so don't hold back!

Get a Fancy Book

Leather notebooks make excellent scrapbooks, giving the project a touch of elegance just by looking at the outside. Many companies specifically sell scrapbook kits designed around a particular theme or featuring beloved characters. Take a little time to figure out what style of book appeals to you most. Would you rather have all plain white paper or a variety of colors on the pages? Do you want colorful borders or more room for writing? It's all up to you, but what type of book you choose will impact the ultimate look of your scrapbook.

Decorate With Stickers and Stamps

Those who enjoy scrapbooking spend a lot of time picking out packs of stickers and different types of stamps to incorporate into their books. These images enhance the themes of the pages and add a touch of whimsy. Kids can also have fun putting the stickers in place, thus adding their bit to the family scrapbook.

Have a Party

Make scrap-booking even more fun by inviting a few people over to work on your scrapbooks together. You can trade stickers and stamps and just sit around talking and discussing all the memories connected with those photographs. After a few parties, you'll all have beautiful books to show off.

Author Bio

Angela Prickette is a recent college graduate writing on behalf of http://www.rusticoleather.com/leather-notebooks.html. She works for herself as a freelance writer and photographer. Her favorite activities include, skiing, rock climbing, and personal fitness.

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Learn to earn with rewards programs

Often times when we shop, we are asked whether we would like to join a store reward program. Many people will join and then never use their customer loyalty cards again, claiming that they will never get anything of value through them. However, these reward programs can in fact be one of the best ways for consumers to earn money back on their purchases. Here are some helpful tips to make customer loyalty programs work for you.

Make it convenient: It makes no sense to sign up for a card at a shop that you seldom shop in. SO when signing up for a rewards program, make sure to choose a store that you frequent often, so that you can earn point often. No one will drive to the other side of town just to earn a few points.

Focus on a few programs: Do not fill your wallet with customer loyalty cards, or you will just get frustrated when using them. Pick a few key programs that you will use and be diligent about using those cards as often as you can. Many loyalty programs are not store specific can be used in a variety of stores and services. That way you will be able to earn points on the same card while buying your groceries or filling up your car

Hunt for deals: It is okay to be a casual point collector, but to get to maximum value out of your card you have to be able to hunt for deals. A few times a year, many loyalty programs offer special bonuses for their customers. When you buy during those days, you can earn a lot more bang for your shopping buck. Also make sure to look up redemption levels. Often times there will be specific times to redeem a year for maximum benefit, or redeem when you reached a certain threshold.

Have a goal: Do not collect points just for the sake of collecting. Make sure to use them. Maybe to when you first get started, pick a smaller more achievable goal to work towards. Once you reach it you will become excited, and then you will want to strive for bigger and better goals. Getting free things for just presenting your card while shopping, can be an exciting and exhilarating experience.

Once you start collecting points you will see just how easy the whole process can be.

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Frame your poster art

There are many considerations to think about when you are decorating your home. What type of art you will be displaying is very important. While furniture adds functionality to the home, it is the artwork that is the essence and soul of the home. Instead of traditional canvas paintings, many people are now choosing classy picture frames with movie or music posters as a way of decorating and adding that special something into their home.

Movie posters are great artwork in themselves and you can browse through some fantastic movie posters of the years passed on sites such as a Wikipedia. After all any great movie is usually associated with a great movie poster. If you have a few posters to frame, make sure to look online for wholesale poster frames to choose the best frames to present your artwork in. Although you can use many colours for your frames, black frames are usually ideal to showcase your poster while not taking away from the artwork itself or the décor of the room. 

Framing your posters in poster or picture frames is very important. Do not be tempted to stick it to the wall with silly putty or thumb tacks, thus making your home looking like a college dorm room.

Some movie posters, especially the vintage ones, can be an investment. Therefore you should aim to protect them from the harmful effects of UV light which can cause discoloration or fading. A faded poster does not have the same ‘wow’ factor. Luckily, you can often order special UV protection glass that will keep your artwork in its best shape. Framing your posters as a form of home décor can be a great and inexpensive idea to add a little bit of personality into your house and make it into a home.

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Guest Post - Super Saving Mommy Tips With Coupons and Online Discounts

Moms receive all sorts of requests from their children. Maybe your son or daughter wants something today while his/her demand may change a week later. This can take a toll on your budget, but there’s a way you can save up a great deal of money while getting your children what they want; by using online coupons and discounts.

With coupons and deals, a little planning is required in advance. Ask your children what it is they truly want, as discounts and promos are not available every day. For example, when searching for a skateboard, DogFunk promo would lead to a discount this month, but it may not be available next month, so you need to take the opportunity as soon as it becomes available to save some cash.
So how do you keep on the lookout for coupons and online discounts?  Here are some tips you can follow:
1. Use Google Search  
The internet is a great resource to find out what coupons or discounts are available for the day, week or month. Just search for the product you’re planning to buy your child. For example, if you’re planning  to buy a Bazooka Air Gun, you can enter different set of keywords such as ‘Bazooka Air Gun discounts’, ‘Bazooka Air Gun promos’, ‘Bazooka Air Gun coupon codes’ and so on. This will bring up a list of available money saving offers if there are any.
2. Use Social Media
If you want to buy a particular brand, than you can follow retailers who stock the products from that brand on social media. The retailers use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to announce deals. For example, if you want to by an iPad for your child, follow Walmart, Best Buy and other retailers as they’re usually announcing deals, discounts and coupons for Apple products.
3. Go aggressive on newspapers
If you’re really serious about saving some bucks, you need to go beyond the typical coupon-cutting session on Sunday. Get multiple subscriptions to newspapers, but make sure the one’s you subscribe for feature ads of high quality. Don’t hesitate to ask neighbors and coworkers for ad inserts provided they’re not using it themselves. The coupons are mostly featured on Sundays, so you can search for more copies from street-hawkers.
4. Get familiar with them
Get familiar with how coupons and discounts are used. Do the coupons you’re searching for have twice the face value? Are they stackable? Also get yourself familiar with the language of coupons. Apart from the simple one’s: Save 25 percent, Buy One Get One Free and so on, there are other acronyms that may be used such as BEEG, SARVE etc. Be sure to compare the real price with the discount in order to recognize the coupons that offer ‘real savings’ rather than pennies.
After you’ve gotten the coupons you were searching for, make yourself a coupon supermom. You may have grabbed multiple coupons for the child’s item, but how do you keep track of them? Which one’s expiring first? Which one was for this month? You can go ahead and organize the collected coupons by different categories. For example, keep the one’s expiring next week in front of those which are for the next month, so you don’t miss out the advantage when it’s available.

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#W!n a Father's Day touchdown with @GameDayMens products #g!veaway

I know we haven’t even gotten through Mother’s day but because MUF (Mr. Unfun) is so hard to shop for, I have to start thinking about Father’s Day well in advance.

Because many of you have shared this same dilemma in years past, I was thankful when I was approached about reviewing for Game Day Products for men.

Game Day is a recently launch brand of skincare items specifically formulated to meet the unique needs of men. With a plethora of products for women, men sorta get forgotten in the ocean of bottles and tubes, so finding a good line of men targeted products is a rarity.

Game Day goes beyond just the basic shaving and skincare needs, they use ingredients like Alpine Willow herb and Pear Cactus Extract that promote skin healing and strengthening. Now I’m not a man and will never claim to know what their specific needs are but I do know the difference between quality ingredients verses just throwing your average run of the mill goo into a tube, slapping on a label and calling it good enough.

When my package arrived, I of course had to touch and smell everything. I love the sleek packaging and the rich creamy feel of each product but the smell? Oh, it was certainly worthy of the female palate.

Though the true test would be in the performance; I couldn’t just hand them over to MUF and say hey Happy Father’s day…it is after all still a few months away. I instead gave the generous samples that were included in my package to my merging man son…yes, the thought of him smelling so amazing did kinda gross me out a bit but it is an inevitable event that he too will have to experience. The idea of him being clean and having to actually use something that was good for his skin was enough for me to get over his emerging man.

He started with the shower gel – He said that he especially liked how it completely rinsed away and how clean he felt….I for one was pleased that he was actually clean (and had used the word in regard to himself).

He then tried the pre-shave scrub and Game Day aftershave (another one of those things that mommies have to get used to.). He said that his face was so clean that he could feel it and that he didn’t know that a product could make a shave so close. A feel of his face verified that it was indeed smooth, just as smooth as before all this man-stuff had ever started taking place….sigh.

He completed his regimen with the Game Day Moisturizer: Hydrator + SPF 30. He doesn’t typically slather with a moisturizer or a sunscreen without a lot of nagging reminding from mom so I was pleased that he said that this particular moisturizer was something that he wouldn’t mind using every day.  At his age it really is hard to understand the significance of moisturizing and using sunscreen so finding something that we both agree on was an added plus. He has since used every drop of it without any prompting from me….I will absolutely be buying him more.

The bottom line in my opinion (as female as it may be) is that I do think it’s a good line and does make for a great Father’s Day (or any other occasion) gift. As a female I make an effort to search out products that help me look and feel my best. We are more and more conscious about are how we care for our bodies. We eat better, and exercise, our skin should not be left out of the equation. If I am apt to seek out quality skincare products why shouldn’t the men in my life be afforded the same? 

Game Day certainly foots the bill, besides it’s a fraction of the cost of anything I have ever gotten for myself but doesn’t sacrifice the quality. Kinda makes me wish there was a Game Day for women line :0)

Win It

The man you man’s skin healthy peeps over at Game Day have generously offered one lucky Lucy a Game Day shaving set of pre-shave and aftershave, just in time for your Father’s Day gifting.

Can’t wait to win it? Then head on over and take advantage Game Day’s free shipping offer on purchases of more than $50. As well as an exclusive 10% discount just for Lucy readers, just enter lovelucy at checkout.

If the Rafflecopter entry form is not displaying click the "Rafflecopter giveaway" link

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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