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.

Butler Please

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I was recently at Sephora hovering around the nail polish display and I discovered the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen- Illamasqua Cameo.  I tested it out and I fell in love with it, but I could not justify spending $14.00 on one bottle of polish!  Craftynail is way too thrifty for that!  So I hit up the nearest beauty supply store to find myself a cheaper dupe.  I came across Essie Butler Please and I think I paid less than $4.00 for it with my coupon!  After getting home and applying it I realized it’s not at all a dupe for the pricey Illamasqua!  The Essie is much darker and dried to a blotchy semi-matte finish.  The two coats did dry quick though (which is always a bonus)… so then I taped my tips off with painters tape and added some Sephora by OPI topcoat called Only Gold For Me.  Even though the Essie formula was not my fave, there’s nothing that some sparkles and a healthy topcoat of Seche Vite can’t fix!   I really love the regal look of this gold and royal blue together!   Apparently so does my mom- she came over tonight and asked me to paint her nails this color too… so now we are nail twinny twins!

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