5th Blog Anniversary + Plans & Goals: November

Yes, I'm awfully excited! It's been exactly five years since I started this blog. Can you believe it? I still remember doing my first posts, waiting for the first followers, and getting super excited about each new one (which still makes me happy!)…

Thank you all for the massive support over the years! You are all keeping me so very excited about blogging!

Here's to the next five!

So, on with the order of the day! I still have my monthly goals to post… Anyway, it's NaNoWriMo and I already know I won't have enough energy to do the whole thing. I still hope to do some other stuff too, after all. Like:

• Get back in the habit of going to the movies.
• Play some boardgames over at a friend's house.
• Visit some bookish events.
• Finish reading some books. I have too many going at once!
• Enjoy some hot chocolate.
• Cross some boring stuff off my to-do list.
• Finally go to Ikea to get a few missing items for my place. Have to go again though!
• Turn my latest Etsy sketches into real items.
• And still add at least a few chapters to my book.

What are your plans for November? Did you sign up for NaNoWriMo?

3 years and a sale!

Three years ago today I made my very first blogpost. Blogging has been such a big part of my life since then that I can't even imagine how it would be now if I hadn't started that day.

And to celebrate I thought I'd do a nice sponsorship sale!

 30% off single ads and 15% off the 3-month deals

This offer is only valid for 3 days, so Email Me before it's too late.

Here are the special prices:

• $14 for the exclusive Large ad. The one for the current month is still available, as well as December
• $5,60 for a regular ad or $17 for 3 months
• $3,50 for a small ad or $10,20 for 3 months

And after these three days the normal rates will apply again. So enjoy them while you can!

1 Year Anniversary: International Giveaway

CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED

Exactly one year ago I wrote my very first blog post. I admit that I posted, and soon after that deleted, one or two blog posts before that, but after that it felt really natural and I always knew what I wanted to write about next. Somehow I never really pondered over the question:"What do I want this blog to be about?".

A lot has happened though: the layout's been changed completely, some topics have changed, disappeared or been added and I'm sure a lot more will change this year.

To kickstart this next year and to thank you all for reading and commenting and some of you for having wonderful blogs yourself, I arranged this giveaway.

The lovely Lily from my favorite Etsy shop Chouettes has been kind enough to offer a few owl goodies to give to one of you.

You get to pick one of these seven items below. Go on take a look!

1. Lovely Yellow Ring

2. Daisy Owl Earrings

3. Yellow Rhinestone Earrings

4. Creme Rhinestone Earrings

5. Lucite Berry Earrings

6. Yellow Lucite Earrings

7. Cute Cameo Hairpin

And the winner will also receive this amazing owl necklace.

So that's 1 adorable necklace and 1 matching item of your choice!

This is an international giveaway

so everyone can join:)

All you need to do is comment with the number of the item you'd love to win along with the necklace.

But there are lots of extra entries to be earned:

+ 2 if you're a follower

+ 2 if you heart Lily's shop Chouettes

+ 1 (each) if you tweet about this, friend me on facebook and/or like me on facebook

+ 3 if you blog about this giveaway

+ 3 (each) if you grab one or more of my banners, I made a whole bunch of new ones. Check 'em out here or click the link in the right sidebar.

To make this easier on you and me please leave all entries in ONE comment in which you state how many extra entries you've earned and how.

And don't forget to leave a way for me to find you if you're the winner;)

Winner will be announced on Saterday the 13th of November.

Good luck and thanks for joining!

Marvelous Music

It's my 6 month blogging anniversary! Yesterday I thought about how long I had been blogging and guessed it'd be about 6 months, so I checked and was only off by one day!

I figured I needed an amazing musician for a post like that. Regina Spektor sprang to mind.

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Her music is great, but I guess it's a love it or hate it type thing though. You can hear she's classically trained, but she really made it her own. With quirky melodies, sounds and lyrics she manages to create something truly unique.

I've chosen one of her more "normal" songs for you to hear. Fidelity would have been an obvious choice, because it's awesome and has a great video. But I went for another song that I absolutely love. The video is nearly as amazing as the song, very reminiscent of M.C. Escher, and let's not forget to mention she looks gorgeous in it.

One day I hope to see her in concert. In all the years I've been a fan she's only been here once, when I was on a holiday. Better luck next time!

P.S. May I just point out that even though I always try to match the first picture in a post to my layout, this has to be one of my favorites. I love how her hair's the color of the background and her dress/top matches the banner. It just makes me really happy! The little things, right?

101st post

Last night in bed I realised I missed my 100th post, thankfully 101 sounds pretty good too. As if this anniversary wasn't reason enough to celebrate I just had my first sale! The owl bookmark is officially gone, although I'll probably make another one since it was the most "hearted" out of all my items. Maybe even in different colors.

This is how I wrapped it. I said I'd throw in a small blossom pin and I attached it to the front of the giftwrapping. I try to recycle as much as I can while still doing my best to make it look nice. It might even turn out better because you automatically get more creative. I did it all tonight so I could post it tomorrow.

I didn't expect to sell something the way that I did, I was in the chatroom and they have this routine there. Someone starts out as the featured seller, that person gets 5 minutes to talk about their items, if someone buys something s/he becomes the next FS. When nobody buys they usually play trivia to decide who's next, that's the way I got FS first, which led to the selling of my first item! This whole game also led to me buying something on sale from stephcraig's store. Even though I didn't make that much profit this way, what I did get was a cute necklace of course and a featured seller spot on another blog. I'll post about that when it's online.

My dad brought my gifts yesterday evening when I wasn't home. It included a cd, an issue of the low-brow art magazine "Hi Fructose" and stamps! I really wanted some stamps for my packaging and it came just in time to use for my first sale. I asked for border stamps, a "thank you" stamp and owl stamps. He did a great job, just look at those cute owls.

!Announcement!

Now onto the exciting stuff for you. I always love to have some sort of announcement on special posts such as these. And I am happy to tell you I will be throwing a giveaway soon, the 111th post to be exact. It will be something I made, but I won't reveal any more today.