OWOH Winner!

OH my what a ride that was! So many other participants have expressed similar feelings...this event is simply AMAZING.

BIG thanks go to Lisa Swifka, the organizer of this event (http://awhimsicalbohemian.typepad.com). For all of those who participated in this event for its true purpose (to bring together bloggers and connect with others who you may not otherwise come across), this has truly been an AWESOME journey.

Personally, I had 183 people visit my site and decide they wanted to enter the giveaway...and my followers have MORE THAN DOUBLED! I am so tickled!

To all of my new followers: I am going to send out personal emails to each of you - please forgive me for not having done so already. This carpet ride has me a bit tousled and the oodles of snow outside that I keep having to shovel a bit sore.

Ah, but I know that's not why many of you are reading this! Eeek - the suspense!

First, I had a few duplicate entries. (I know they weren't on purpose - I had enough trouble keeping track of where I'd been!) Because of that, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to use the random number generator. So we did it the old fashion way.

I had been keeping track of everyone who commented in a nifty little Microsoft Excel file. (Yep. I'm a geek like that. I'm cool with it.) This gave me a way to make sure I visited everyone who entered my giveaway. (This was the only way I could think of to keep track!)

Next year I'll remember to start earlier - I ONLY got to those on the carpet ride who entered my giveaway. But I'm STUNNED....as I mentioned, I had ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY THREE entries! Whoo hoooooo! (So you can't blame me for not visiting more. An average of 3-5 minutes visiting each of the 183 sites? You do the math. It's been quite a week.)

We printed out the Excel file shortly after the giveaway closed tonight and cut each entry into a little slip of paper. (If you had entered twice, I kept only one of your entries.)

(Don't worry about the shading - it was just my way of keeping track of who I had visited in return!)

I then recruited my kiddos, who were ever so excited to help. Of course, we wanted to make it a big show. So my princess got dressed for the occasion. (We couldn't find our prince's cape unfortunately.)

Really, they were quite excited.



I had them shuffle around the entries and my fairy princess blessed them all with her magic wand.


They both closed their eyes and my son got to pick the lucky winner....



And the winner is....



JENN at JUSTJENNDESIGNZ!

Jenn has already been successfully contacted and notified her book will be on its way as soon as we can get out of the house. (Snow day today and we're expecting another one tomorrow...hopefully we'll get out of here soon!)

Jenn has a beautiful site at http://justjenndesignz.blogspot.com/and a REALLY nifty tool called the Krafti-Roller, a multi-use tool that she created (how cool is that??) and with which she makes GORGEOUS paper beads. I've already placed my order. :)

I simply cannot express enough thanks to all who entered and visited my li'l blog. I had so much fun visiting each of your sites and have found myself some new blogs to follow as well! I plan on jumping back to many of them that I didn't have time to fully look around.

THANK YOU AGAIN TO ALL THE PARTICIPANTS and TO ALL OF MY FOLLOWERS!

Here's to the journey ahead...