Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day Rainbow VW Campervan Competition

I blogged a couple of months ago about the 6 Weeks of Softies that Sew Mama Sew was holding on their website - it was so choc full of softie love and now they're back with something else fabby.... something that I gather has been running for a while but I only heard about this week.... A Giveaway Day Link Up!

So the idea is that everyone who wants to run a giveaway writes a blog post about their prize, today (May 6th) and then adds the link to the Sew Mama Sew blog which helps us all discover new blogs, chances to win fantastic prizes and hopefully for all the designers, new potential customers.

So here is my Giveaway prize:

It's a VW Campervan Felt Coaster and Key Ring - they are both new designs which I'll be taking with me (in all range of colours) to the VW Festival I'm going to next month - Hurst View DubFest which is near Lymington in the New Forest and runs from 12th - 14th June.

For this giveaway all you need to do is leave me a comment telling me which is your favourite Model and Colour of VW Campervan! (It's a bit of market research to help me make sure I'm taking the most popular styles and colours with me to the festival!)

I'm going to also post this on Facebook and Instagram and you can enter one whichever one you like (but multiple entries won't count)

The giveaway will run until 9am Thursday 14th May (BST) and I'm happy to ship internationally.

Good luck!

Easter Wreath Giveaway

I've been wanting to hold a giveaway for Easter for a couple of weeks, but I've been so crazy busy that it's only just happened!

So here's the VW Campervan Easter Mini Wreath that is up for grabs this week:

It's only open to UK residents due to the timescales (i.e. if I post it on April 1st it won't get to you by Easter weekend if you live abroad - I'm sorry but I promise the next giveaway will be worldwide)

So all you have to do is head over to the Grace's Favours Facebook Page and like & comment on the picture to enter.

If you don't have a Facebook account, feel free to leave a message on this Blog post and I'll add you into the draw at the end.

Good luck & I'll be back to announce the winner after 12noon on Wednesday 1st April.

Christmas VW Cuddly Campervan Giveaway... And the Winner Is.......!

Thank you to everyone who entered the Cuddly VW Christmas Camper Giveaway:

And the Winner is......

Well done Joanne :-D

I'm sorry that you couldn't all win, but I will do another giveaway in the New Year - maybe a sewing kit... watch this space!

Christmas VW Campervan Giveaway!!!

As I mentioned in my last post (somewhat belatedly!) I should have run this giveaway at the beginning of October :-/

Still... better late than never, right?!

Here's what's up for grabs - A Christmassy VW Cuddly Campervan!

I will post worldwide and the giveaway will run until the 3rd December (just in case someone from New Zealand wins as that is the last posting date for NZ from the UK!) and I would love as many shares & shout-outs as y'all can manage!

Here's the entry bit:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Confessions of a Craftaholic!

I have a confession.

It's not a life-altering, want to hang my head in shame kinda confession (I'm sorry - if that's what you were hoping for, there might be racier blogs for you than this one!)

It's an 'Ooops, I was planning something and I totally forgot all about it' kinda confession!

I have just passed, well actually Grace's Favours has just passed it's 3rd Birthday! Whoop!

Which means, the giveaway I was going to hold to celebrate my/our Birthday didn't happen.

Bums.

I wanted to do one on the scale of the other Giveaways I've held - like the Rainbow one or the Christmas Wreath one.

However, to make up for it... I thought I'd run an 'It's now the end of November, which means nearly Christmas Giveaway'!

Soooo.... how would you like to win A Merry Christmas Cuddly Campervan???

The giveaway post will go live within the next couple of hours... keep your eyes peeled!

And the Winner Is........

Drum Roll please......

Congratulations Carol Massey!

Your very own cuddly rainbow will be winging it's way to you tomorrow.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered - it's been a real pleasure running this giveaway as so many people have entered and left such lovely comments. So I thought I'd organise a little treat especially for those who entered... keep an eye on your inboxes tomorrow!

Spring Giveaway - Felt Rainbow Plushie Cushion

It's HIGH time I organised another giveaway, I thought to myself last September (and even more so when I made this).... and, erm, it would now appear to be March! Whoops!

Which could make me any of these:

Hehe, only kidding... but I was playing about with the letters and these were the, ah, more polite versions of the silly words I was creating!

Anyway. As I failed miserably last year, I'm giving away one of my newest and most favourite creations to one lucky winner:

It's a cushion, a cuddly toy or a wall hanging, depending on how you want to use it! But it brings smiles to everyone's faces and it could be yours!

It measures 12" (30cm) wide by 10" (25cm) tall (not including the ribbon)

The competition runs from midnight tonight (Sat 15th March) until Midnight on Sunday 23rd March and is open to entrants worldwide (includes free P&P)

To enter, follow the instructions below, but as a hint, you'll need to have a look round the Etsy Shop

To give you an idea of the size - here it is being modeled by my 5 and 3 year old's

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And the winner is.......

Drum roll please..... Comment number 7:

Claire from Aisling Designs, who said: "Already like you on FB. And will go off now and tweet and share on FB. Lovely giveaway, and I wish you every success this coming year."

Congratulations Claire :-) I will be in touch about what sort of design you would like.

Thank you so much to everyone who entered and especially those who shared away like crazy!! And as I'm in a fab mood I'm going to extend the 20% off everything in my shop until the end of the weekend!

Happy Birthday to Me.....!

Morning campers (have various old Hi-de-hi lines going through my head today for some reason!)

So, today is my 1 year anniversary of selling on Etsy! I've had an incredible year and it has been getting better and better!

Here are some pics of the last year in the Grace's Favours household:

1st item made & sold - thankfully my photography's improved a bit since then!

The 1st campervan - now our most popular item!

1st attempt at a fascinator

A handmade birthday present

Kids modelling their crowns for the Jubilee

Learning to make fascinators properly!

New bear is MINE!

The latest campervan

I am part of some wonderful teams on Etsy, which has meant I've met some wonderful people along the way, all of whom are really supportive and friendly, which is invaluable when you're working on your own.

There is one person I couldn't have done any of this without and that's my lovely husband Brian, who not only provides all technical and graphics advice & support, but who also has taken on a much greater role in looking after the house and children - thank you Gorgeous!!

To celebrate Grace's Favours being 1 year old not only am I giving away a gorgeous Christmas Wreath but I'm also offering 20% off any item in the shop today only... so any early Christmas shopping you wanted to get started on will save you money too!

1 Year Etsy Anniversary Giveaway!!!

It's been in my mind recently to hold a giveaway as a thank you to all my lovely customers and Blog, Facebook & Twitter followers and what better time than now, for the celebration of my Etsy Shop being 1 year old!

So the giveaway is running from today, for 1 week and I'll do the magic with the random number generator on Thursday 18th October (the date of my anniversary!)

Here's what you can win:

There are 4 ways in which you can enter and each will count as a separate entry, giving you more chances to win:

Required Entry:

Become a follower of this blog & leave a comment on this post saying you've done so (1 entry) 

Optional Extra Entries:

1. 'Like' our Facebook page and post a comment here to say you've done it (1 entry)

2. Share the competition picture on your personal Facebook page & leave a comment here to say you've done it (1 entry)

3. Tweet about the giveaway & leave us a comment here (1 entry)

4. Post a snippet on your blog about our giveaway and leave us a comment here with the link (1 entry)

The giveaway will close at midnight on Thursday October 18th 2012 (GMT) and the giveaway is open to all countries.

Please make sure I can contact you via your comment - leave an email address with your comment if it's not available through your profile. If I can't get in touch with you by the 22nd October 2012 I'll re-do the draw.

Good Luck!!

There will also be a special 20% off sale from 18th October for one week, all you need to do is use the code BIRTHDAY2012 when you checkout at the shop

How to get started with your Google+ Business Page

I've just set up my Google+ Grace's Favours page and to be honest, I've found it a bit baffling, so I thought I would share my thoughts and do some research to see what other's suggest

In a lot of ways it's very much the same as setting up a business page on Facebook, once you've chosen the type of business that you are, you add profile pictures and some basic information. There's a very good explanation here on Craft Blog UK

Then you need to start getting your page known. I have found this bit harder on G+ than on Facebook as I rarely use G+ for personal socialising, so I don't have the same network on here as I do on FB to promote my new page.

So I started by searching on G+ for pages with the term 'handmade' that immedaitely yielded a number of results. So I followed a number of relevant looking pages and then had a peek at who's in their circles, which lead me to other pages.

However, I want to get my page seen by 'real' people, not just other similar business pages... I've not found any miracle ways to get this done, other than starting to use G+ a bit more frequently, link up with more people I know in real life and get them to do some promoting.

I have been toying with the idea of offering a giveaway but I'm wary of them as every man and his dog seem to run them and I think you probably need to have a relatively good fan base initially.

Good luck to anyone else setting up a page and I'll keep you posted about how I get on!