Darlybird Giveaway

Hello Friends! Get ready to do some shopping. I've got a $150 gift certificate to Darlybird for one lucky winner. You already know Darlybird is the go-to spot when you're looking for an eclectic and charming collection of gifts, homegoods and happy little objects. Where else can you find things like a velvet ruffle purse, a necklace made of wool, and this gorgeous leather bracelet? Plus, Darlybird totally gets that spending has slowed for just about everybody — and they created the bargain-priced Recessionista Collection in response.

Leave a comment to enter. I'll pick a winner on Monday, September 28th. UPDATE: Rachel of Darlybird has generously offered a 20% discount on purchases to Design Mom Readers. Fabulous! Just use the code DESIGNMOM at checkout.


Plus also. Here's a little related blogging history. Darlybird was my very first Giveaway sponsor back in the day. Which is awesome. Here's the (longish) story:

In November of 2006, I hosted my first Giveaway. I had been blogging for 4 months. I was watching my stats and knew I had about 200 readers a day. But I had very few comments. So I conceived of a contest where I would get a company to sponsor a prize and I would have people enter by commenting. I realize this happens all the time on thousands and thousands of blogs today, but at the time, no personal blogs that I knew of had done such a thing. Maybe they'd given away an object from their house as a semi-joke, but that's it. There were no sponsored giveaways except on corporate blogs and sites. And even those were fairly rare. The point being: my little giveaway was the first that I'd seen.

I contacted Darlybird, who I had already posted about earlier, and let the owner, Rachel, know about my plan to encourage comments and promote her shop at the same time. She got on board asap with some great prizes. And I posted the giveaway with much apprehension. Would anyone enter? Would there be cheating? Was this a bad idea?

But it worked! About half my visitors left a comment. It's fun to read them in retrospect. A few were suspicious: Is this a blogroll trick? they asked. Others were delighted with this new concept — GirlconQueso called me the next Oprah. It was amazing. Even more amazing: within the month, personal blogs all over the place adopted the same model — copying and pasting instructions from my blog, or adapting their own. And the giveaway scene was born.

I've been told my Darlybird giveaway was the first sponsored, comment-to-enter giveaway on a personal blog. I have no idea if that's true or not. But it would be interesting to know. At this point, it's hard to even remember blogging before giveaways. : )

Yay for Darlybird and giveaways!

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Update: Congratulations to Nellie! You are the lucky winner. Have a fabulous time shopping at Darlybird.