my tips on how to win giveaways!

Do you know someone who happens to win EVERYTHING? ALL THE TIME?  What is up with that?

Well, that person was never me.  I’ve never considered myself to be one of the lucky ones.  I honestly have tried so hard to win things before, with no luck.  I’d enter contests or 50/50 raffles and go as far as putting the ticket stub on my vision board so I could wish upon it everyday to harness the power of the universe.  Bring it to meeee!  I soooo wanted to win that $10,000 shopping spree to Sam’s Club!  Well, I never won that one.  Or anything else in my life until…….. nail giveaways!

giveaway tips

See this pic?  This is the awesome stash of polishes that I just got in the mail today from my friend over at Nailmattic!  I was so excited to win this one- just look at this smorgasborg of glittery goodness including a newly released Magical Pixie Dust, a couple Roughles and my very first Finger Paints!  Woot!  I’m sorry, do you feel like smacking me right now?  Well I’m not here to rub my good fortune in your face.  I wanna share some tips with you so you can win too! I have been on a real roll lately so there must be something that I’m doing right!  So here’s how I approach giveaways and I hope you find my tips helpful!

TAKE THE TIME.  If you see there’s a giveaway and you have to click a lot of things to follow the person in all their different accounts, and then you have to copy/paste links to verify that you tweeted or whatever…. it may seem like a lot of work, but you should take the time to follow through and do all the stuff!  I know in this day and age people are in a hurry and want to finish things as quick as possible, especially with the busy lives that we lead… but honestly, if you really want the prize then go ahead and sacrifice a minute or two of your day.  When you get the email that you won the giveaway it will be so worth it!!! Besides, you love that blog, so don’t they deserve a moment of your time?

BE HONEST.  If the giveaway says ‘FOLLOW ME ON PINTEREST’, then make sure to follow the blogger on pinterest if you entered their raffle!  I always verify my entries when I hold a giveaway, and I always remove cheater entries.  Cheating won’t do you any good since there’s a good chance you’ll get deleted anyway! Karma has it’s way of making things right.  If you have good honest intentions then you will be rewarded.  Or so we hope.  That’s the plan anyway!

RE-POST.  A lot of times bloggers will give you bonus raffle entries if you publish the giveaway on your facebook page, or if you re-blog it on your blog.  Those RE-POST raffle entries are worth a lot!  For example, following the blogger on facebook may only get you one raffle entry, but re-posting on your fb page may give you a whopping 5 entries.  Those add up fast!  Not many people go the extra step to re-post.  So if you do, then you’ll get a leg up on the competition.  How do you think I won these beauties from Brijits Digits??

CHECK BACK.  Let’s say you enter a giveaway on monday and then you find yourself back on that same blog on wednesday.  Try to remember to click on their giveaway post again.  A lot of times they’ll have some options that can be done everyday, like tweet about their giveaway for example.  When I hold a giveaway I notice that most people will enter just that one time.  But the ladies who check back every few days and re-enter…. woohoo they really rack up the points!

GIANT GIVEAWAYS.  I don’t really waste my time on giveaways that are hosted by a zillion bloggers at once.  Your chances of winning are close to nil.  And do you even like all those blogs?  You may have never heard of most of them so why go through all the motions when it’s likely you won’t win and you don’t care about them.  I really prefer winning giveaways from blogs I read.  When they email you that you won, you are like- heyyyyy friend, let’s be pen pals and you can mail me pressies, thanksss!!! It’s so much more fun.  And you’ll make great friends in the process.

JOIN BLOGLOVIN.  If you’re on Blogger you may follow blogs only via google, meanwhile a lot of wordpressers only login to their wordpress dashboard.  But it really is worthwhile to join Bloglovin as another platform.  It’s a great way to follow the blogs you love so you don’t miss any of their giveaway posts, and you’ll probably find some great new blogs to follow in the process.  Bloglovin is free and the site works great for me, even on my crappy old Nook tablet (which fails to work on most other social media sites most of the time).  Besides, most giveaways have an extra raffle entry if you follow them on bloglovin so you should def go for it!  Also, bloglovin has a search bar so you can always search for the term ‘giveaways’ to see whatsa happenin!!

I hope these little tips help you.  If you haven’t won any giveaways yet then keep trying!!!!! Your time will come, I swear!

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Moon Sugar Decals – a giveaway gone wrong!

If you are a regular reader of my blog you’ll see that I offer my opinion on a lot of nail products.  Although I have a very happy-go-lucky approach to blogging and many of my posts are upbeat… you need to know that I take my reviews and recommendations very seriously.  That’s why I need to share with you the recent issues that I’ve had with Moon Sugar Decals.  It pains me to criticize a small business. But I have to write this post to inform my readers of what’s been going on.

decals giveaway - Copy

Last month I hosted a water slide decal giveaway along with Moon Sugar Decals <original post here>.  The company offered a $20 gift certificate to my randomly selected winner.   I figured this was a great opportunity for my readers to experience these decals that I’ve always had good luck with.  I did not go into this giveaway agreement blindly either- I have ordered from them twice and also reviewed their products twice and have communicated with their rep a bunch of times.  I’ve always had positive experiences with this company UNTIL…

I picked the winner of my giveaway and she used the $20 gift certificate code to purchase products on their website.  She ended up paying out of pocket for part of the order as the gift cert didn’t cover all the charges.  However, she never received her order that she placed roughly 5 weeks ago.  She was communicating with them via email for a while… until they stopped responding.  When I heard of the issue I tried to touch base several times, but no luck.  Neither my winner or I have heard from them and it’s been weeks.  I waited a bit before I typed this because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.. there could’ve been an emergency, or vacation, or any number of things.  But enough time has passed that I believe this is a lost cause.  My winner never received the products she was promised and luckily her credit card company was able to re-imburse her card for the charges she made on February 11th.

I would like to apologize to my winner.  I feel horrible that I was involved in this giant pile of disappointment and frustration.  I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to get her the decals she won but I’m glad her credit card company was able to reverse the charges.  I would also like to apologize to everyone who entered my raffle and got their hopes up wishing they would win my giveaway.  Because now I know, there is no prize.

I needed to get this out in the open since I have referenced their products several times on my blog.  Previously, I was happy with their quality of product and level of customer service.  But I will not be recommending them any longer.  I know that my readers look to me for advice on products and the opinions that I voice may impact others’ choices.  That’s why I vow to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God.  So there ya have it!

xx Jacqui

Incoco Winner

Remember my Incoco nail strips Giveaway right here?  It ended today and the winner has been selected!  Congrats to Jenni- she just won a free pack of super sweet Incocos!!  I sent her a tweet and an email and I expect to hear back soon.

incoco

Bumming out because you didn’t win?  There’s another giveaway going on at Squeaky Nails and it ends on March 3rd 2014, so you won’t have to wait long to see if you are the winner!  Here it is: A SQUEAKY GIVEAWAY

Good luck!  Oh, and you better believe that I have another giveaway up my sleeve!  Stay tuned for that girls!

Incoco Giveaway!

craftynails incoco giveaway

Yesterday I posted a review of Incoco‘s awesome nail polish appliques.  Now it could be your turn to try some!!  Incoco is graciously giving away a set of their nail strips to one of my lucky readers! Giveaway runs until March 1st 2014.  Only USA and Canada residents can enter.

Enter for free now >> an INCOCO giveaway <<

The winner will be selected on March 2nd 2014.   The prize is any in-stock pack of nail strips from incoco.com – your choice of any one style & free shipping!  Prize will be mailed to you directly from Incoco.   I will verify all entries.  If you cheat, I delete!  Remember, USA and Canada only please.  Good luck to everyone!

  Also, here’s some Incoco eye candy for you!  Right now I’m wearing Incoco french design in Giftwrapped Tips.  Shown here is a shot of my nails with a ‘nostalgic’ photo filter. Ha I love it!

nostalgic incoco

Moon Sugar Decals Giveaway Winner!

WinnerCongratulations to REINA  who is the lucky winner of my Moon Sugar Decals giveaway!  She won a $20 gift certificate for some rad new decals from moonsugardecals.com!  Way to go!

A note to all my readers-

If you did not win, pleeeease don’t be sad.  I have another decal-ish-type giveaway scheduled for next week so make sure to check back.  Thank you for being so awesome and loyal!  I want presents for everyone!

x Jacqui

Moon Sugar Decals Giveaway!

GIVEAWAY ENDED ON Feb 9 2014.  Congrats to the winner- Reina!

My blog just recently hit 100,000 page views so I’d like to do something fun for my readers!  How would you like to win a $20 gift certificate at moonsugardecals.com?  Yay for waterslide decals!  Yay for giveaways!  My giveaway is open internationally until Feb 9th, 2014 and the lucky winner will get an online gift cert to spend on some awesome new waterslide decals, courtesy of Moon Sugar Decals!!

Here’s the link to enter: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Make sure to enter at the link above (you can tweet daily for extra chances to win), but don’t stop reading here!  Keep scrolling to see me wearing some moon sugar decals!

decals giveaway

Moon Sugar recently added some new decals to their repertoire.  They’ve got new sheets of sugar skulls, stars, gems and even some hearts & cupids for valentines day.  Their new sheets have an assortment of decals on them so you won’t end up with too many of any one design.  Check out the new sheets here: moon sugar home.  They recently sent me some of their Star Nail Decals Assortment as a sample so let’s see what they look like in action!

craftynail decals moon sugar stars star decals

Aren’t they cute??  I especially love how my thumb came out!

Good luck in my giveaway!  The winner will get an online coupon code that they can use to purchase their pick of decals from the online shop here.  MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR!!  I’d love for you to win so you can try out these sweet decals too!

Stay tuned, since tomorrow I will post another manicure using a different style decal from Moon Sugar.  See you then!

♥ UPDATE!  ♥ If you place an order on moonsugardecals.com make sure to use my crafty coupon code 20OFFCN to save 20% off your order!  Code 20OFFCN is good til Feb 21, 2014.