Promo Frenzy Team Amazing Team Giveaway!!

My Promo Frenzy Team on Etsy is trying to win the Handmade Top 10 contest. We really need your facebook LIKES for our team page! To promote this we are having a huge GIVEAWAY with over $300 worth of donated prizes from our team members. Go to this blog post for details on how to enter the sweepstakes and how you can LIKE our page! 

galla15.blogspot.com/2011/06/facebook-like-giveaway.html

Promotional Frenzy Team in Handmade Top Ten List Contest!!

The creator of the popular www.Handmadeology.com website has recently created a new site called www.HandmadeTop10.com. To promote his new site, Tim has designed a challenge for Etsy Teams which not only allows the teams to gain exposure for their shops but also the chance to win an advertising package worth $450!

The Promotional Frenzy Team is participating in this challenge and is so far rocking it!  But we need everyone's help from now until July 6th with votes and promotion to keep it going.  

PLEASE click on the orange box below and vote for each of the items shown!  You not only see a great sampling of our team members wonderful shops but each vote helps us in the contest!

Also, PLEASE click on the Facebook link when you are visiting the voting page and click LIKE!  Each "like" we receive counts towards the vote.

If you Twitter or are on Stumbleupon, please click on the Tweet and Stumble buttons as well!  

We appreciate everyone's help!  Thank you!!

A Few of My Fun Frenzy Purchases

Our Promotional Frenzy Team has so many talented and varied creators.  I have purchased many, many (MANY) wonderful products from several of the members of the team over the past 5 months.  I would be hard pressed to choose any favorites, so I thought I would highlight just a few to give you a taste of what this great team has to offer!

My first purchase in my first team bnr was from Crimson Hill Soaps & Scents.  I love her soaps... they are so moisturizing and smell great, come beautifully packaged and I have since bought several more!  They make great gifts too.

Another great purchase was this pretty stained glass jewelry box from GaleazGlass.  Kelly was actually the one to invite me to that first bnr and to the team and her work is beautiful!  The blue color of the glass is gorgeous and I love the way the copper and pewter butterfly contrast the blue.  I keep my earrings in this jewelry box and my only regret is not buying a bigger one because I have bought so many new earrings on Etsy in the past several months!

I keep this beautifully decorated bird house by MoanasUniqueDesigns out on my screened porch so I can see it all the time.

The blue flowers on this bird house go perfect with the blue floral cushions on my wicker furniture and I love the way she added hummingbirds and butterflies to the floral design and then a little ladybug on the top!  It's beautifully done!

And yes, I have definitely broken my diet more than once.  These s'mores from KaitlynandKylies are to die for!!

And naturally when you eat something as delicious as the s'mores, you get thirsty so I've also indulged in a few Cosmopolitans brimmed with wonderful sugars from DellCoveSpices.  They really do make a martini taste (and look) just that much better!!  Diet?  The heck with the diet!!

So this is just a small sampling of the items I have purchased in the past few months from members of the talented Promotional Frenzy Team.  I will do another post at another time to highlight yet some more fun items that I have bought - believe me there are many!

Riley

Well, Mr. Riley has arrived on the scene and, yes, life has drastically changed for the next few weeks!  This little guy is a 4 1/2 pound loaded bundle of energy that doesn't stop!  But wow, is he ever cute.

Thank you to everyone who voted on his name last week.  Unfortunately, even though my husband, son, daughter and I had come up with the short list of names, when push came to shove we could not get a consensus (husband being quite obstinate!)  So as it turned out, we had to take a 2 hour drive to Cape Cod on Saturday, the day before we were to pick up the new pup and would need to have a name for it to be registered.  I was none too pleased that we could not agree (or more to the truth, one person couldn't agree with the rest of the group) so I copied off 12 pages of puppy names from the internet and with 3 of us confined in the car for a total of 4 hrs (and another on the phone) we went through every last name on the list. We would come to a few that were "okay", came up with another short list,  but when I came to the name Riley everyone's eyes lit up and we knew immediately that was the one.  It was a hard fought battle but in the end the name is perfect because I'm sure he will definitely live the life of Riley!!

Our older dog Trevor is not quite sure about Riley just yet.  Riley's exuberance is pretty overwhelming for him right now and although he is warming up a little, Trevor still bolts faster than I've ever seen him move when Riley runs up to him.  There have been a few growls too.  He's also not liking it too much when he sees the little one in his spot on mom's lap.  So there's a ways to go before they become "buddies" but I'm sure it will happen at some point.  In the meantime, this is a full time job keeping them both happy and making sure my furniture and shoes aren't getting chewed up! The little bugger... I sprayed the bottom of the furniture with Bitter Apple to keep him from chewing the fabric, so what does he do but gets down underneath and gets it from the back side!  Arghh!  He's no dummy.

There's definitely not much else is getting done these days.  I really need to get back up to my work area. Amazing how such a little thing can turn your life upside down.  But that's okay.  Puppies, like children, are only young once... I'm enjoying every minute of it!!

A New Addition to the Family!

I am so excited!!  This coming Sunday we will drive to Vermont and bring home the newest member of our family - a nine week old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  Our new little boy is the second from the left in this group of fluff.  Isn't this the cutest picture!  

We already have a beautiful six year old Tri-colored Cavalier named Trevor.  This litter is from Trevor's brother so his new little playmate will actually be his nephew!  To backtrack a little, we lost our beloved golden retriever, Toby, to cancer about 3 months ago.  He was Trevor's life-long companion and he always looked out for the little guy.  Toby was a great dog that just loved to play ball all the time with anyone who would play with him, right up until the end. Although they didn't really play together a whole lot due to Toby's age, the two were still very close and always together.  Trevor has been noticeably lost without Toby and although the new pup is not a big lug like Toby, we hope that they will soon become good buddies and companions.  It seems kind of funny that our little Trevor will now all of a sudden become the older of the two.  

So we need to come up with a name!  I'd love to hear people's suggestions.  I've added a poll to the side bar of names we've narrowed it down to and hope that all who read this will help us with our decision.  If you have a suggestion please post it!!

Next week I'm sure I'll be posting a new picture of Trevor with the new pup - I'm sure there will be a few upcoming sleepless nights but I can't wait!!

My Very First Blog!

Welcome to my brand new blog!  This is definitely still a work in progress but I wanted to get it up and running and out to the world!

To be honest, I have put this off and put this off, thinking I really don't have time to focus on one more thing, but I've got it going now so here we go!!  It's going to be exciting and I hope to be able to share interesting things with you about me, my business, other people's businesses that I love, and just general fun-to-know information!  I hope you will enjoy!

To start things off, I have included a few of my favorite pieces from this spring's product line so you can see a tidbit of what I create.  I absolutely love picking out beautiful fabrics that I think others will enjoy, some are very traditional while others are just fun.  From the beginning in 2004,  my business was based on the premise that classic style accessories can definitely have a fun, contemporary flair!

Also, I would love it if you visit and follow me on the following sites:

Website - www.nangatesdesigns.com 

Etsy - www.etsy.com/shop/nangatesdesigns

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/nangates

Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/nangatesdesigns

Thanks for visiting!!