Happy Blogger on the Prairie !

Let me first say that I am very happy to have my original followers, but even happier for all of us, we have gained 2 more followers ! As I have said before, when we get to 25 followers thru Google Friend Connect, there will be blog candy. So, please, spread the word to your crafty friends ! I know that things of late have been pretty slim, but life happens, and we all understand that. So, with that, I am going to start out with two daily entry prizes, one crafty, but one not.

philosophy is a great cosmetics company, and I have been using lots of products from them for many years. They are having a birthday celebration that starts out with a giveaway, with daily entry, and on March 9, they are having another big surprise. See their FB page for details on that.

favecrafts  is having a daily entry to win a Grand Calibur. I've posted this before, but wanted to give you a reminder. Now when I saw this huge thing, I thought it was meant just for the ginormous Nestabilities. Now, I have seen videos, showing it being used to cut and emboss multiple dies at one time. Its plates are 8x12, so think how many less cuts you'd have to make, and a whole lot less plate switching too.

Spotted Canary Make sure you sign up for their newsletter and Like them on FB, they say this is going to be a big prizewinning month. Includes a giveaway and a challenge with prize.

CraftECorner This week's prize is The Cricut Expression Machine A to Z DVD & Cutting Guide and Cricut Bug Plush Bug! Make sure you enter today. There are 3 chances to enter, winner announced on Thursday.

Craft Critique does alot of very useful product reviews. That's where I won my Quick Snippers. ! Now, they may not always be giving a prize in their reviews, but it only takes a second to comment, and you may win something anyway !

ALONG that line, on FB, many of the major craft companies will ask general  or specific questions in your newsfeed. Answer them too, as sometimes good things happen.

Creating Keepsakes Blog has some simple tips for adding die cuts to layouts. 4 lucky winners will get a cool group of prizes.

Roberts Crafts You can have 2 entries in this one, follow the instructions, and you could win a big ole prize of crafts for kids !
Crafty Steals  Two random winners chosen Thursday morning

Glue Arts  scroll down to the mardi gras mask and leave a comment

Okay ladies - that's pretty much everything for the last 5 hours. I'll come back later, check out the newest opportunities, and check back to the early hours as well. Have fun !

Down Days

Sorry kids, I have spent the better part of the last three days in bed. Nothing contagious, just tired and worn thin (thin - oh how I wish).

Some good news, in the last two weeks I won the Quick Snippers from a review in Craft Critique, an Everyday Stories album by anthologie from Xyron, and Friday I won over $50 worth of the Family Keepsake collection from ShopWeR (WeRMemoryKeepers store).

I hope in the next couple of days to list all the FB pages that I follow, so that when I fail to post every day, you can go where I find the goodies.

Made some very pink Easter/spring cards at the CTMH Coffee and cards on Saturday.

And best of all, I got to talk to BOTH my sons last night !

Sunday, one by one

Going to give you a quick one to get started today, another sleepless night, so it's naptime in a minute.
Imaginisce  Boxes of Goodies up for Grabs !

BIGGIE

The Grand Calibur !!!! Is being given away to one lucky winner by  favecrafts - and there are up to 4 chances to enter ! Hurry - hurry - hurry !!! Make sure you read all the details and best of luck to you ! If you have any questions, please get ahold of them on their contact form.


While you are there, take a look around and sign up for their newsletter, follow them on FB and Twitter, and if you look, you might find another prize opportunity !

NOTE : This giveaway is In celebration of the launch of the NEW Cool2Craft Newsletter at FaveCrafts.com, they're giving away the Spellbinders Grand Calibur. Here is the backstory. Just wanted to give credit where credit is due.

ShopWeR

ShopWeR - just change your FB profile pic to their logo and you could have a chance to be spotted and win. Complete details in the post. ALSO - they have the cheapest price on the Sew Easy. Most brick and mortar stores are marking them up around 10%, and I've heard, but not seen, the eBay prices are very high. The new heads (8 bigger ones) come out in May. Can you tell I love this ?

First one for Thursday

Moxie Fab World chance to win a set of stamps, and they are all so cool  !
And so far, that's it. I'm going to put my nose to the grindstone, and crank some things out.

Just as I was feeling bad...

Weather is getting colder, the waetherman had said 30 degrees all week, yesterday we got up to 10. So I've been sleepy and sluggish, and had a big case of the blahs. So, since I couldn't sleep, I went back to see what was on FB, and still didn't find much, but here it is.

Nikki Sivils Winner picked on March 3, announced March 4
Glue Arts   it's a cross promotion with Fancy Pants. Basically go to Fancy Pants and tell them Glue Arts sent you, and then to Glue Arts to say Fancy pants sent you. You'll see.
Imaginisce  is giving away a Cricut cart

March is Craft month

So be on the lookout for lots of giveaways from everybody. There is one from my all time favorite adhesive company, Helmar March is National Helmar month. Pass it on to all your friends and have them Like Helmar and then post on Helmar's FB page and put your name (or mine?) as the person who sent you, and then if you win, they win.....please read the post !

More Stuff

Coming up in March (tomorrow) in Honor of National Craft Month Scrapbook Trends will be doing fun things every Wednesday. Put it on your calendar.

Coming to Newstands March 15th. Put it on your calendar too Paper Crafts Magazine 350 Cards and Gifts

Creating Keepsakes Blog  for a really cool way to jazz up an old suitcase, and a prize too !

If you haven't done it already, sign up for the My Mind's Eye newsletter here . You won't believe what they are doing ! BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT BY END OF DAY TODAY.

Another for the calendar tomorrow Bella Blvd

And that's all I have for now.

A Little Facebook tip and other stuff

I kind of stumbled on this, but thought it important enough to re-share in case you hadn't heard it. Are you missing posts from your friends and companies on FB ? Do the dates seem wonky sometimes? Here's how to stop that. Go all the way down to the bottom of your page. About two thirds of the way across, you will see "edit options". You have 2 choices : Friends and pages you interact with most, and all of your friends and pages. By default, FB will show you the things and people you interact with most, so you may be missing things. You may want to choose the "all of your friends and pages", as this will get everything onto your newsfeed.

Be very careful about all those cute little apps they have to tell you who your favorite friends on FB are and personality tests and quizzes. I found out today that something I clicked on for one of those apps started shooting full sized webpages of garbage (not nasty, just annoying), and before I knew it, there were 16 pages piled up. It took starting up a Norton Scan and then doing a restart on my laptop before it went away.

Playing games on FB - I am a full on Bejeweled fan. For no reason, it got really slow and didn't work right. Cure : Have no other windows or apps running when you try to play a game.  NEVER EVER shut down your antivirus program, and always make sure it is updated. The games on FB can be very graphically intense and suck up alot of memory.

Get rid of things on your desktop you don't need. Put it on a CD, and save it there. A CD will save MUCH more than a memory stick. The only problem is that you don't have instant access until you pop the CD in, but it makes a speed difference. Go to your temporary files and delete them. You don't need 90% of what's in there. And as for FONTS !!! OMGoodness, I had 450 different fonts on my laptop when I checked. I'm probably going to mess something up, but the space they are taking up is stupidly large.

Make sure you empty your deleted and junk files in your mail programs. Another big space waster. Set up folders so all the mail from, say, Addicted to Scrapbooking always goes into whatever file you want it to. Your Aunt can have her own folder, you can set up things to go wherever you want. Have you ever used the sweep function in Hotmail ? It is so cool - you select one message from ABC company, click on sweep, it gives you options, and then it picks up all the ABC messages and sends them where you want them to go, instead of having to click all 147 messages you got from them in the last 2 months.

I have a more detailed listing of ways to improve computer speed, and I will look it up, and will email it to you if you'd like. Norton has it built in somewhere, and any other antivirus will likely have the same thing. Whatever operating system you are on should have something similar.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, and hope to find some more giveaways shortly.