Love

Valentine’s Day Giveaway (closed)

14 February, 2013 / 28 Comments

Overview

Happy Valentines Day!

I decided a long time ago that I really wanted to do my very own giveaway to show you, my lovely readers and friends, how much I love you. And to give away some of my favorite pretty things. And then I checked my stats, and discovered that my hits have doubled since December, and my followers have gotten to over 4,300! So I thought Valentine’s day would be the PERFECT day to host a giveaway made up of all the things I love most right now.

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In the mix: my favorite shade of Essie nail polish, my absolute favorite lipstick right now (it smells like vanilla, it stays on for HOURS, it’s the perfect color of red, and ah… so much love…)…

3Some pretty Rose-scented hand soap in beautiful paper (if I kept this, I’d never ever open it. The wrapping is too pretty!)

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Cute pens (because seriously, how could I give away a “love” giveaway, and not include Owls?)6Some pretty earrings (SO tempted to keep these!)

photo (1)

And lastly, this pretty flower headband/crown that I made JUST for you. All by myself. 😉

Sadly, due to the price of shipping nowadays, I can only offer the giveaway to US residents. {Edit: the lovely strawberryblues on instagram lives in Europe, and piped up that she’d gladly pay for shipping to enter the giveaway. So here’s a deal: if you live in Europe and you’re willing, I’ll split the shipping costs with you if you want to enter.}

What do you have to do to enter?

Well, that’s easy. All you have to do is:

1. Leave a comment telling me the best real-life love story you know, whether it’s yours or someone else’s
and
2. Follow me via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or Bloglovin‘ and let me know that you did.

The winner will be chosen randomly and announced on February 22.

I hope you all have the best Valentine’s day of your life, whether you’re single or with someone you adore.

Lots and lots of love,

 

follow me on: bloglovin | chictopia | facebook | twitter | pinterest | Instagram/Ink361

 

 

 

 

28 Comments

  • Nancy Francis

    14 February, 2013 at 10:24 am

    What a cute idea and what an AMAZING group of lovely things you’re giving away 🙂

    I’ve been following you for a few years now – back when you were Mara, before you met Mr. Owl 🙂 I feel like I know you AND own one of your dresses!

    I’m going to leave out a story for now – because mine hasn’t been written yet, but I’m sure it will be the best when it comes to fruition. And I’ll share it with you then.

    Happy Valentines Day!

    • Eccentric Owl

      14 February, 2013 at 1:09 pm

      I know! I love having readers like you who have been around long enough to know all that history. You’re lovely. Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope someday you have a wonderful love story to tell!

  • Tara Joy

    14 February, 2013 at 11:01 am

    My mom and dad met in a pretty interesting way! My Grandma sent my mom downstairs to pay the rent to the landlord of their apartment. While she was down there she told the landlord she thought the soldier in uniform in the picture on the mantle was very handsome. The landlord told her that man was her son. And the rest is history (:

    I’m following you via wordpress as well as on facebook and twitter! I’m a big fan!

    -Tara Joy

    http://beausandbows.wordpress.com

  • Timea

    14 February, 2013 at 2:53 pm

    Hello you!

    Well, here´s my story. My greatest passion is music and I am disabled, so it´s not that easy for me to meet men. However I signed up for a music website a couple of years ago and there´s where I met my ex-boyfriend. He was from the UK, so we were flying back and forth. We had a really good time, but as long distance relationships are very hard to maintain, we didn´t last. Sorry if this was supposed to be a collection of happy love stories and I spoilt it 🙂 Take care, Kristina!

  • Beth Woody

    14 February, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    PEEEEEEEEEEEEEENS!!! 😀 😀 😀 I love pens! Hehe! And I also love that gorgeous handmade headband that I would love to wear to work, now that I’m in management and don’t have to put a hat on every shift. ;D Also… I was just thinking to myself the other day… “I don’t own any red lipstick! How sad of me!” So, not that my explaining all this will help my chances of winning, but I would so very much love to win! Moving on!

    The best real-life love story… Is it cheating to post more than one? Since my chances are not increased by the amount of stories I include? 🙂 I just can’t decide!! You already know the greatest love story of all; how a child born in Bethlehem grew up to die for our sins and rise the third day to be our Savior. Since I’m so completely single, Jesus is my ONLY one true love at the time. 😉 I also thought of Victoria and Albert; my favourite historical romance EVER, but you can just pick up a history book if you want to know more. 😛

    My mum and dad have a great love story, so that’s the one I’ll elaborate on. They met in high school; she was the drill team captain, and he was captain of the football team. Mum would deliberately get in trouble with her teacher because the punishment was to run laps around the field where the guys practiced football. 😛 My grandpa told my mum, “It’s just an infatuation. You’ll be over him soon.” When my dad decided to go into the ministry, his friends all told him, “She’s not right for you. How can she possibly make a good pastor’s wife?” But after five years of dating, they were married. This May, they’ll celebrate their 25th anniversary with their ten children to congratulate them. 😀 They’re the epitome of opposites attract, too. My mum is spunky, cheesy, vivacious, and a little messy, good with money, and with a knack for fixing things. Dad is serious, doctrinal, an historian, athletic, and has a dry wit, and is not good with finances. 😛 They argue, and they argue loud. But they have this incredible passion for God, and each other, and I hope my own turns out as awesome.

    I’m pretty sure I’m subscribed to most all of your things! Yay, do I win!? I mean… do I… qualify? 😀 😀 😀

  • Stephanie Miller

    14 February, 2013 at 8:04 pm

    Dearest! I love your blog and also you! Such a fun giveaway! I don’t really need to enter a giveaway, but want to share in the fun of recounting my own love story.

    For several years I remained chaste and single, until at the age of 21 I began dating a man I was sure would be the man I married. Well, that didn’t exactly work out. So I began dating another man, again, sure we’d be married, especially after he proposed. That was also quite a flop. Especially after he cheated on me, ugh. Anyway, single and content to remain so, I moved in with my sister and began to spend some time with a girlfriend who was single and lonely like myself. One day I went over to her house after work and even though I was tired and resistant, she talked me into going to a concert with her. The concert was ok, not my cup of tea, but it was afterward that really mattered. Again, tired, spent from work, and just wanting to put my feet up, I wanted to go straight home after the show, but my friend begged and pleaded and cajoled until I finally agreed to go to the after party, but only for fifteen minutes. We went in, I sat down and the chair next to me was occupied then vacated at an amazing rate. I kept an eye on my watch. Suddenly I looked up and into the most amazing pair of eyes I had ever seen. Gentle and warm, they were focused on me, so I introduced myself. Fifteen minutes into the party I found myself entrenched in conversation, connecting on every level with this man with the beautiful eyes. Finally, my friend and I gathered our things to go, sheer exhaustion would not let us continue. I looked at the clock 4 AM!!!! It had been 5 hours since we got to the party. I coyly asked the guy for his ex girlfriends business card (which he had showed me at some point, he’d designed it) and scribbled my number on the back, while he promised to call me. Not believing him, but still feeling pretty good about myself I went back to my friends house and crashed hard. He called me the next day, and that is all she wrote. Three years later and we’ve been married for six months.

  • Jamie Rose

    15 February, 2013 at 12:11 am

    Hooray for a super cute giveaway!
    I’m not sure I have a super interesting or romantic real-life love story. My family is filled with lots of long, I assume happy, marriages but none of them happened under extraordinary measures as far as I know! I quite like my love story that’s happening right now though. The beginning was pretty funny. I asked him to homecoming after marching band practice. He told a friend he was unsure if he wanted a girlfriend, but he was really just too scared to ask me out so I went ahead and got the ball rolling. Good thing I had some gall back then!

  • Maria

    15 February, 2013 at 6:47 am

    Hey Kristina!

    That giveaway is so perfect! Happy Valentine’s day to you!

    My love story,
    I never was a girl that dates. I never felt that I needed a boyfriend in my life to be happy with myself. It was lonely at times, but I had fun and learned to know myself.

    I’m from South America, and last year in January I moved to Arkansas to start my master in business. Being in a new place by myself was amazing! And I was determined to make tons of friends.

    I started working at the university and the first day of work I started talking with one of my coworkers. One of our first conversations were about love and relationship. He said he didn’t believe in marriage and that he didn’t want to get married at all, I said that maybe he felt that way because he didn’t find the right girl.

    Anyway, we started hanging out after work, we fell in love immediately, one month later he asked me to be his girlfriend. Three months after that we decided to get married. Our wedding was October 6 of last year, 8 months after we met.

    I believe that God had him for me as a present, as a reward for waiting in the loneliness for so long. We are great for each other and I can’t believe I married my very best friend.

    I followed you in blogloving, Facebook and twitter.

    Maria

  • mariecarolk

    16 February, 2013 at 6:36 pm

    I love this, so much fun 🙂 My love story is actually my brother and his wife’s, but I think it’s so cute. My sister-in-law E lived in Texas and came to visit a mutual friend of ours during her summer break and in the meantime she worked some catering gigs for my dad’s business. One night she worked with my brother A; he totally was goofing off and trying to impress her. He was a junior in high school and she was a freshman (sophomore?) in college.

    Anyways, they saw each other a few more times before she went back to school at our mutual friend’s house and attended some of the same swing dances together, we even drove her to church with us a few times lol.

    She went back to school and my parents and family didn’t really think a lot about it, until we slowly realized that she and my brother were writing letters to each other. They quickly became very stuffed letters (seriously, I put one on A’s dresser and it was so stinkin’ heavy. I thought it was going to pop out of the envelope!)

    After E graduated from college, she moved to our city where A was working on his bachelor’s degree. She got a job and an apartment and about a year later they got engaged. They were married on a crisp October afternoon and about 9 months later my brother graduated from college. He was offered a great job in Texas and they moved back down there. This past October they welcomed a beautiful baby boy into the world (our family’s first grandson!!) and they are as happy as can be.

    What I love about A&E’s story is that they legit wrote love letters to each other, even though they could just as easily emailed or facebooked each other. (Rumor has it, they both have all each others letters <3) Every time I see them, they are smiling at each other or laughing or holding hands. It makes me proud and hopeful that one day I'll be *that* in love.

    Woah, long post! I follow you on twitter btw 🙂

    Marie

  • Calli

    17 February, 2013 at 6:09 pm

    My parents were both born in texas, about an hour away from each other. My father spent half his childhood in Mexico. My mother went with a friend to vacation in Mazitlan for a week and met my father there. At the end of the week, my father told her “I have a van full of merch and I’m planning to move to California, will you go with me?” My mom had her roommate mail her stuff to California. Following via twitter as freefragments

  • Keilynn Moran

    18 February, 2013 at 9:36 pm

    Hey Kristina,
    Thanks for this giveaway! My favorite love story is actually how my roommate’s parents met. He was going to China to meet with a prospective wife (one his parents had picked out), but the stewardess caught his eye. He went to China, nothing happened, and returned to the states. Fortunately (for all of us romantics), he had written down the stewardess’s name and wrote his first letter to the airline, addressing it to her. She thought it was strange at first, but played along. Months turned into years and they are now still very happily married.

    Hope you had a beautiful holiday as well. Just wanted to thank you for sharing your life with all of us. I too have been following you since I discovered we’re kindred souls (we’re baristas – or you used to be – and in love with Mr. Rochester and all things lovely, although now you’ve met your own Mr. Owl, which is beyond beautiful). Thank you though.

    • Eccentric Owl

      19 February, 2013 at 12:06 pm

      Aw, that is SO sweet!

      Thank you Keilynn, I did have a great holiday and I hope you did, too! I love that we’re both baristas (or former) and we love Mr. Rochester! Anyone who loves Mr. Rochester is a kindred soul in my book!

  • jennifer

    21 February, 2013 at 8:56 am

    my cousin met her fiance in college. they were one year apart. after he graduated he went to the military for two years, and then proposed a year later. they’re getting married this fall!