I'm Back! With a Giveaway No Less...

Hey guys! Sorry, I totally took a breather there. I didn't mean to, it's just that May turned out to be crazy busy! Between work, string art orders, helping with a wedding (pics soon, I was so all over the place day-of that I didn't take a single ONE!) & life... May was wild. And fun. Seriously every free moment was scooped up.  I'll sprinkle some of the interesting parts over the blog once I collect enough photos. Muah!

As a result of all that crazy, I don't have a wild & fantastic new project to share here yet (hoppin' back on that to-do list), but I DO have a giveaway!  Ok... so have you heard of Scentsy? I'm sure you have, it's been growing like crazy.  I've seen it around & never gave it much thought because I'm openly a candle addict (Bath & Body Baby!). Until an old friend of mine offered me a chance to just try one out.... so I said why not?

Well, honestly I wasn't expecting much. I figured, "Ok, try it... then send it back". I was thinking it was just another thing to maintain, basically I was clueless.  So I picked a warmer out, (Mission Oak, love that wood grain!) and a few bars of scents.  Once it arrived, we set it up..

Wow. Within about 15 minutes the house smelled amazing! I love that it's a plug-in, I just turn it on when I get home. Boom.  And maintenance? I was wrong... for us, 2 cubes out of the bar (each bar has about 8 cubes) last around 4 days.  Which is perfect because on weekends I usually swap back to my candles, I can't resist that flame....  Plus swapping out scents is easy with Scentsy. Let the wax start to melt, dump it out (bowl is removable) - wipe it off and start a new.

Alright, here's your chance for a freebie - my friend Valerie is giving away one Scentsy warmer + a bar (8 cubes!) to one lucky winner! Any warmer & scent you choose, and there are a lot to choose from. Plus, second place gets 50% off any item in her shop!  There's a few ways to enter, and none are mandatory. So you can do any one you like, or all, or a few, or whatever. Hop over to her page & browse around in the meantime to pick out your fave. (Click here to hop over)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be chosen Monday morning, June 16th at 8:00 AM. Good luck!

In the meantime, I'm breaking out my tools, getting my hands dirty, and really getting to work on our back brick patio. It needs some major cute-ifying (new word) & we have a ton of ideas. If you missed the start of this back patio saga, you can read about it here.  Here's the photo I posted on facebook a while back that sort of shows the direction I'd like to take this area... who knows though, it could change any minute knowing me. :)

Have a great one, it feels good to be back!

So, Disclaimer style, this isn't a commercial.. I wasn't paid or compensated to write this, and I'm not becoming a Scentsy seller either! Hehe.  All these opinions are my own, just love to offer a giveaway to you guys when I have the chance and Valerie was nice enough to offer.  Yay!

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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String Art Giveaway on Better After

If you're a fan of the blog Better After, or follow me on Facebook, you already know about this giveaway.  I've had so many new designs & orders lately that I didn't realize it's been forever since I had a giveaway! In the words of Stephanie Tanner, how rude.. (Tell me you remember Full House...) I'll keep this short & sweet, hop over to Better After to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway, where she will choose 2 winners on May 1st. Hurry! 

And since you've seen my photos & styling 3 million times, I'll share Lindsey's photos of two pieces I have done for her over the years instead. Tyce was the most recent, and the first time I have done a color block background. I'm glad she likes it!

Good luck!

-Jesse

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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Duluth Kick in the Pants Contest and Giveaway

Hey everyone! So to say I've been slacking on the home projects lately is a total understatement.... I've been so swamped with different jobs (like this huge string art piece, I'm still sore!) that the house's to-do list is totally gathering dust.  But, as luck and perfect timing would have it, I got an e-mail letting me know that Duluth Trading Company was now giving me a "kick in the pants", with a little cash & a sweet new pair of pants to, literally, get my butt in gear. This is just the type of motivation I needed!  And guess what? You can get in on this too.. the folks at Duluth are hosting a giveaway and YOU can win $200 bucks in Duluth gear (which is all crazy comfortable work gear) PLUS $200 to spend on whatever project you need help getting done. How awesome is this?!? Ok, before I ramble about the project I'm going to work on, here are some links so you can get yourself in that contest stat: Duluth Kick In The Pants Contest. Pretty sweet deal, do it five minutes ago.

OK - so here's my issue, our back patio, is up to this day (1.5 years after moving in mind you) completely ignored. I think I used a blower on it once or twice. But there's no excuse, this area gets great afternoon sun, and is perfect for entertaining. So last weekend Ralph & I decided the project should totally be outdoor-esque, because California is becoming gorgeous outside again, & I think we want a bar. I mean, I know we want a bar.  Not a bar to serve drinks so to speak (yet, totally have plans for that down the line) but a nice balcony bar where you can sit, drink a beer, and look out into the trees. Daze out for a bit. Check this spot out, it's PERFECT:

Mmhmm.. can't you just see it, sitting there, facing out into trees... I can see it. I totally see it.

So this deck is weird. Once upon a homeowner, there was an old fashioned Jacuzzi under there. Someone was done with it, and instead of removing it, built a deck over it. I can't blame them, because that totally sounds like something I would do, haha. Anyway, we have a weird little roundy deck now. I tried to put a table on there, but I was so scared that someone would scoot a chair leg off the edge and break their brains open, so no-go on the table.  Suddenly it dawned on me, it's up high, it has a decent view (of trees...) and has some sun. A balcony bar! Here's what I mean by "view":

If you ignore the power lines (nothin' I can do there) it's pretty sweet to look out on this mini-valley and listen to the creek (Love creek!) and the millions of birds. Again, perfect beer zone. I have a one track mind apparently. 

Looking down to the left from the proposed bar, is our walkway, plants, and garden hose that I so lazily left out. What a jerk. You can see we're on quite the little incline! I've really come to love it, I feel like we are in a tree house. The banister in the lower left of this photo is where I'd love love love a bar.

Now of-course I have some inspiration photos, here's what I'm aiming at, which all have been pulled via Pinterest:

Source

True, I don't have some fantastic city skyline, but the redwoods will have to do. Ha!  Though this is most accurate to what I mean. A long bar, facing outwards, for some good times. This next one is nice, particularly enjoying the ledge here so my booze don't go flying off into the street.  Alcohol abuse. (get it!?!). Minus the planters. they are cool but I like a lot of clean counter space:

Source

This next one is lovely because those are the EXACT stools I have that I will be repurpose-ing (whip out the paint gun).  A little less bear though.. I'd love THAT view however, gimme gimme:

Source

One last one, not sure if stone will work on our deck, but built in BBQ for the win! I couldn't resist sharing this puppy:

Source

And there you are. See what I'm getting at? Bar. Stools. Beers. Facing the redwoods. That my friends will be the perfect start to what is now the brick patio makeover. It needs major attention. Last year we spent a lot of time on the Front Deck, but it's time to spread the love a bit, what do you think of this bar idea?

Anyway, Happy GIVEAWAY! Right? This is a great one and entering is easy. Hook up with Duluth via their facebook page, send a pic & a project idea and you're in the running. FIVE winners will be chosen on April 23. Oh wait, there's more (of course!) another FIVE winners will be chosen on May 1st!  Give it a shot, then you & I can both be getting our project on. What would you work on if you won? That's ten chances..

Oh - and so far, the pants have been really comfortable. I haven't started do any extreme hardwork in them yet, look for that review later. For now though, they fit like a dream and have pockets galore... just what I need!

Ok, go enter, & let me know what you'll be working on if when you win!

-Jesse

Pssst.. just to keep the air clear, I was compensated to promote this giveaway & post, but rest assured, all opinions are mine & are honest. I won't post anything I didn't actually like or use. Just keeping it real, friends!   

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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Winner Announced!

Good Morning! A week ago I announced that Pfister was going to giveaway a faucet to one of my readers.  Welp - the time has come...  drum-roll please...

Sarah G.!

Congratulations Sarah!! I'll be notifying you by email, so keep an eye on your inbox.  Thank you so much to everyone who entered, and a HUGE thank you to Pfister for offering such a great giveaway.  Seriously, Sarah you're gonna love your new faucet - mine's incredible.

Have a wild weekend everybody!  Come by on Monday when I show you how drastically different our house looks without those 20 foot bushes in front... so open...

-Jesse

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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Giveaway Alert: Pfister Faucet

Last week I showed our amazing kitchen faucet installation to you, and mentioned that one of these days there would be a giveaway for one. Friends... that time has come!

Yes! When the good people over at Pfister told me to give away one of these beautiful faucets to you guys, it totally made my day. I got even more excited once ours was installed, because it was so easy and it is a seriously fancy faucet.  Really, I've been living in rentals all my life until now, this is the best faucet my dishes & I have shared a kitchen with. 

So here's the deal, enter ala Rafflecopter below & I'll announce one lucky winner next Friday, August 23rd, 2013. While you wait, hop over to Pfister Faucets website and browse around - the winner gets to choose any faucet they want, up to $300!

**If you're reading this post in a reader or via email, the giveaway form may not show. Click here to be taken to the entry form. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you missed the installation of my very own Pfister faucet (I chose Mystique...) you can hop back & see it here.

Update: We have a winner! Thank you everyone for playing :)

-Jesse

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Giraffe String Art Tablet

Hello everybody! And a big welcome to all our new subscribers just tuning in... I've been crazy busy lately with string art orders.  The best part? A lot of the people ordering have all kinds of fun ideas, so we've been working together to come up with some new (fun!) designs.  Check out this giraffe:

What do you think? I love him (or her?), I'm considering making one for our house.... hehe. I had trouble deciding what pose to do - straight on, side profile, etc - and settled with straight on.  The ears were too cute, and the tail is a nice touch.  So now that I've made one, I can make more for those who want one too: You can order them in my etsy shop by clicking here, or on the "My Etsy Shop" Tab above.

Here's another one I did this week, with the name "Jace" - I'm really diggin' this color combo that the person chose. The stain is "Weathered Oak" and came out so differently than I'd expected. In a really good way! It's kind of brown gray, and looks like it's description....weathered!  Plus the blues, white, and light green string they chose look great together.

Name tablets can also be ordered in the shop if you're interested, I tried to make ordering easier by putting up generic listings that say "3 letters name tablet" or "5 letters name tablet". This way, you just buy the ad with the number of letters you need, choose your strings, stains, nails & fonts - and BOOM! Done.  You can find those types of listings here.

On a side note, I also wanted to show some new fonts I have! Everyone seems to love the classic, but I think it would be fun to play around with some of these on a name board:

Market and Remachine are my favorite, and I'm making a few in those fonts right now. So I'll show them soon. 

Anyway, hope everyone is having a great week, and if you haven't already - don't forget to enter the Father's Day Ryobi giveaway! There's still $400 at stake here... Hop over to this post if you  missed it. 

Take the time to enjoy your day today..   :)

-Jesse

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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Giveaway Alert: $800 worth of RYOBI Power Tools!

Gooooood MORNING!
We’ve got a special surprise for you today… who doesn’t love a little friendly competition and GIVEAWAY?!?! (there will be a randomly drawn winner in addition to the winner of the contest, so you should enter both ways!)
The premise of this contest stems from the fact that ALL OF US are guilty of Pinning an idea without ever checking the source… guilty as charged! But there are likely pins on your boards that are from your favorite bloggers, and you don’t even KNOW it! (amiright?)
And that’s where the contest comes in:

Here’s the line-up! SUCH an amazing group of bloggers that we wrangled!!

And below are projects from each blogger (including ME!) that you’ve likely seen viral all over Pinterest!

Before we get to the rules, can we talk about how

RYOBI is giving away $800 worth of POWER TOOLS?

Just… in time for Father’s Day!

Perfect timing if you ask me.

$400 RYOBI Giftcard goes to our randomly selected winner, and $400 RYOBI Giftcard goes to the first person to correctly match up all 16 bloggers with the correct projects!

UPDATE: We have a big winner for the Matching Contest part of the giveaway (but the random drawing is still open till Sunday)! Stephanie Richardson was the very first one to match us up like a PRO! We still encourage you to see if you can figure them all out too! There's so much amazing talent in this group, and you're sure to stumble upon some serious inspiration. Thanks for playing!
SO!
When you click on the Contest Form (at the bottom of this post), it will direct you to a page that will show you an image of the project, and a drop-down menu of bloggers. You just go down the line and select away! Some projects you probably know already, but some you may need to SNOOP AROUND blog-land to find!
We call this BLOG-HOPPING. And it’s highly encouraged in the blogging world.
Here’s the links to the home page of each blog (in no particular order). Now get busy!

1. Sawdust and Embryos
2. All Things Thrifty
3. Interiors by Kenz
4. Whatever Blog
5. Home Stories A to Z
6. Sarah M. Dorsey Designs
7. Twist Me Pretty
8. The Idea Room
9. DIY Village
10. Pretty Handy Girl
11. Domestic Imperfection
12. One Good Thing
13. Kara Paslay Designs
14. Nine Red
15. Vintage Revivals
16. East Coast Creative

Entry #1 (Randomly drawn) ‘Like’ us ALL on Facebook, and let us know that you did on the Rafflecopter form below!	Entry #2 (Contest!) Click below to match up each blogger with their amazing project!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

• One entry per person, per entry method.
• Winner of matching contest will be emailed, and publicly announced on Facebook.
• Winner of random-drawing giveaway will be announced on Father’s Day here on the blog, as well as Facebook.
• Be sure to hop over to RYOBI Nation and check out some amazing inspirational projects!
• Be AWESOME today (that’s a given)

This contest/giveaway is in NO WAY affiliated with Pinterest or Facebook, and we hereby release them of any liability related to this promotion, the receipt of prize winnings, etc. The giveaway prize has been generously provided by RYOBI Nation. All prizes will be mailed by the sponsor and all participating blog owners are not held responsible if the prize is not fulfilled. Giveaway starts Monday 6/10/13 at 5am est and ends at midnight on Saturday 6/15/13. Alternate entry available by sending your entry via email to wehopeyouwin@gmail.com. Winner will be announced on Sunday 6/16/13 and will need to respond within 48 hours to claim their prize, or another winner will be chosen.Winner must be 18 years of age or older and a US citizen in order to win.   May the force be with you.

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1000+ Fans String Art Giveaway

Whoah! 1000 fans on facebook? Aw shucks you guys... gonna make me blush. I'm so flattered and as a big THANK YOU to you all for hanging out here with me, I'm going to host a string giveaway as well as a mega discount giveaway.    One winner will get a free custom string art tablet. That's ANY string art.  Your name? Sure, let's do it.  An animal? Alright, those are great! Got a different idea? I love it.   On top of that, 10 winners will get a 50% off coupon for my etsy shop, good for half of of anything you see, or we can drum up something new together.

Click Here to Enter

4 ways to enter, as facebook fans that's a freebie - plus some other options for all you pinners & tweeters alike.  Each option gets you another entry.  This is open to everyone, so feel free to let your buddies know.  And again, HUMONGOUS thank you to you all, I love your comments, input and ideas - the pictures you've shared on facebook of all your amazing projects.. things just wouldn't be the same without ya.

Thanks again for all the love, and good luck in the giveaway!

Hugs!

-Jesse

If you feel like embedding this giveaway widget on your own blog or page, here's the link:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/YjExZDcxMDNkMWEwODJhNzk5NTU2YTE2YWMxNTkxOjI=/

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String Art: Otis the Owl

***Update: Otis the Owl Complete Pattern download is now available in my etsy shop, as well as complete kits that come with everything you need: Pattern, board, nails, string... you name it. Check it out here***

Hey, hey! So his name doesn't have to be Otis, I'm just a sucker for the whole alliteration thing... I'm excited to show you my newest string art design - this was a project for the winner of the String Art Giveaway I did on Better After a while ago.  The winner and I discussed all types of ideas, she showed me a board on Pinterest she had created that focused on many styles she loved.  She really wanted an Owl.  So I took inspiration from her ideas, and combined them into this:

I love how it came out! It was so challenging to figure out all the details (especially on the feathered chest) but it all worked out great - I'm happy, the recipient is happy, Otis is happy, we are all happy.  It's bigger than usual too, about 11.5" wide by 23.5" tall, and for a new trick I mixed some paint action in there. The wood was hand distressed using the Aged Wood trick from a while back. This one takes longer than usual, but so worth it.  Hope you like it!

I'm going to throw this design into the etsy shop, which you can access by clicking here or the My Etsy Shop tab above.

If you want to make it yourself, I have downloadable patterns & directions here, and complete kits here. 

Let's make it a good week ahead! 
     -Jesse 

Want to see other string art designs? Clicky Clicky....

Up next on the blog: DIY Floor Mirror - huge wood frame!

Linkies: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Subscribe & of course, Email me.

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Giveaway Alert: Free String Art!

Yup. Anyone one you want, sugar! I'm finally doing a giveaway for the string art.  Lindsey, of Better After, was kind enough to host the giveaway, and the prize for a lucky winner is absolutely any string art installation your heart can dream of. This includes names, which aren't cheap! (Hey, they're a lot of work!) So run, don't walk, over to Better After, and enter this giveaway right quick.  There are four ways to enter, which totally quadruples your odds.  Run, and share with your friends! Someone's going home with a customized string art tablet.  In case you missed my subtle linkage in the text above here, here's the direct link: Custom String Art Giveaway.

Love ya!

     -Jesse

Up next: A DIY Cardboard Chandelier. Yes, Cardboard!

Let's keep in touch: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter & of course, Email. 

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And the winner is.....

Amanda C.! Congratulations to Amanda, she won the prize in my first giveaway, the cane back earring rack! I can't wait to see how she likes it.  I had a lot of fun with this giveaway, so keep an eye out - I am planning more!

 
Just so everyone knows, the winner was picked at random using random.org. Amanda:  I'll be emailing you, but if you don't hear from me or if it hops into your spam folder, please get in touch with me here so I can ship you your prize!

Keep in touch: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter & Email.

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Giveaway Closing Soon!

It's the LAST day for the giveaway, it will be closing tonight at midnight (EST) and I'll be picking a winner in the morning! Exciting! If you haven't entered yet, you can do it in the widget below.  Be sure to share with friends!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
In other news...

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Giveaway: Cane Back Earring Rack

Good Morning! So, this has been in the works for a bit, and I'm excited to announce it's ready. Just a little something to say thank you to all you lovely readers, contributors and newcomers. It's been, what, two years that I've been doing this now? Time flies!  I've wanted to do one of these for so long, and finally - here we are! So the prize for my first (of hopefully many!) giveaway is this upcycled earring rack:

What do you think? I had an adorable cane back chair, but it had one too many wobbles.  So I tore it apart, salvaged the pieces, and threw my thinking cap on. That was it, earring rack! What a perfect way to organize all your jewelry, right where you can see them.  Hand painted in Cozumel, Gold edges, distressed & lightly stained.  Sealed with a high gloss poly.  And, for those of you who don't wear earrings, this would make a great gift too! Entry is extrememlly easy, thanks to the awesome host Rafflecopter:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
So, big big thanks everyone for being such long time readers, and a big welcome to all our newbies!  I'll notify the winner next week, and get this shipped out right away. Anyone can enter, so why not share with your friends & family? Good luck everyone!

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