goodwill giveaway madness!!!

first and foremost, i would like to officially congratulate the fabulous colleen o. for kicking some jolly green ass and winning the april free veggie swag. woot! but that’s all behind us now. it’s may, it’s time for an exciting new giveaway, and i’m beta testing a crazy idea this month.

as you may already know, i am an avid thrifter. i make the rounds at my local goodwills and salvation armys pretty much weekly, and am constantly hunting for crazy vintage crap to put in my crazy vintage crap collections. at the present, i am collecting: 1940s era nancy drews, figures made entirely out of white porcelain, vintage fabrics, mod jewelry, midcentury modern furniture, and pretty much anything that seems just too awesome to leave at the store. many weekends i come home with nothing, but every now and again, i come home with something remarkable.

everyone, meet toot-a-loop (toot-a-loop, everyone).  about two years ago, while perusing the electronics aisle at the forest ave. goodwill, i found this little puppy nestled between the discarded 8-track players and multiple copies of herb alpert and the tijuana brass whipped cream and other delights albums. mostly, it just seemed weird and cool and was only $2.99, so why not. a brief googling, and i found out that not only was the toot-a-loop designed to be an am radio bracelet (that’s right!), but it also that it routinely sold on ebay for $40+. score! not that i sold mine, but it’s nice to know that i have the option.

so you might be wondering, does this seemingly pointless yammering about the toot-a-loop perhaps have a point? or perhaps, when do i get free stuff to entering a stupid contest? well, here we go: i just told you my amazing thrift find story, and i want to hear yours. the prize at stake is a $25 gift card to goodwill (or if your area doesn’t have a goodwill, we can work something out). here are the rules:

1. submit a picture of your hot hot thrift find (garage sales & flea markets are also applicable) to my email.

2. in the above mentioned email, tell me where you got it, how much you paid, and why it’s so freakin’ awesome.

3. i will then post the images on the broke207 flickr page for all to see and enjoy & comment on.

4. on the 31st of the month, i (and possibly a few trusted advisors) will choose the winner, and a great celebration will occur. (also, the aforementioned $25 gift card will be mailed)

i know this requires a little more effort than most blog giveaways, but i think it could be a really fascinating project. a project that i would like to keep ongoing. so please, get your photo on and show me what you got! enter as many times as you like.

from the annals of sleep dep.

i’m a crazy person.  i have a bad habit of wanting things to be perfect and being willing to completely sacrifice reason in my pursuit. case and point, no sleep. spent last night attempting to manufacture the best mermaid costumes ever for a friend’s upcoming dance show. sure, i could have left them plain and called it done, but that’s not my style.  instead i pushed on (hand painting scale detail onto each pair of custom mermaid pants) into the wee hours of the morn. 2 episodes of criminal minds (go nerdly!), the money pit, the house bunny, sense and sensibility, and one hour of very unsatisfying couch sleep later… i still have to rush home to finish the project by 7. but i THINK it will look nice. hope is out the window. hope can’t save me now.

anyway, i’m fucking delirious right now, and you would be too if you just spent the last 14 hours making glitter fishpants. so i apologize for not making much sense. also, i’m sorry that it’s been a low couple of days here for content. i’m hoping to bang out a couple of posts tonight on the ole lappy while i’m watching dress rehearsal. although i might also just nod off into a puddle of my own sleep drool. either way, i’ll be back soon with actual real posts about something. anything! oh, and i’ve got 2 giveaways coming up- so you’ll want to think about that.

the great bathrobe debacle.

so it’s moral dilemma week here at broke207, and for this one, i need your help.  a few weeks ago, i was offered an opportunity for my first sponsored giveaway. i would receive some sort of swag package including 2 free coupons for the product, and i would potentially write a review about the product (although they did make it clear that this was not required), and then host a giveaway where the winner would get the same swag package that i received. they would even send out the goods, making the experience for me totally free. as you can imagine, i was pretty psyched.

when i found out that the promotion was for a new variety of greek yogurt, i was both excited and relieved, because i would never host a giveaway for a product that i wouldn’t use.  finally, something not for babies or covered in meat!! things continued to get better. on saturday, i came home to a sizeable brown box that contained not just a plush white bathrobe, but also slippers and some sort of crazy loofah mitt, and some other massagey bathtime jazz. swank. and of course, two coupons for free yogurt.

here is where things really started to unravel. i hit the grocery store this sunday, and grabbed myself a couple of yogurts as was the plan. on a whim, i was curious to see how this more commercial brand stacked up to my other beloved health food store choices. ummmm… what’s that? there was an unexpected guest on the ingredient list (when i was really only expecting the standard milk & enzymes), GELATIN. first pop tarts, now greek yogurt? what the F america? can things please just not have meat in them unless they’re MEAT?

well, i wrote a nice note to the promotion company telling them that i wouldn’t be able to host the giveaway because  i could not test the product, and that i also did not feel comfortable hosting a giveaway for a product that contained meat. vegetarianism is a very personal thing for me. that said, i think people should eat what they want to eat, and i would never use this blog as an platform to try to proselytize anyone over to my meat free ways. then again, i will also edit meat products from my content. you will never see me pointing and waving at really great lunch meat coupons, talking about the great leather deals at mardens, or cooking with marshmallows. you just won’t.

therein lies the dilemma. the nice lady at the promotion company told me that i was “under no obligation to post about the product” (i think that means i can keep the robe), but that i could still host the giveaway if i so desired. so now what?

option A: keep the robe, and conduct the giveaway anyway because my meat eating readership would like it.

option B: keep the robe because i did have every intention of hosting the giveaway before the gelatin realization, but not host the giveaway because it goes against my personal beliefs.

option C: don’t host the giveaway and send the robe back because it’s not fair for me to keep it if i don’t host the giveaway.

option D: don’t host the sponsored giveaway, but give away the robe that i received (still hermetically sealed, i promise!) because i totally forgot to host a giveaway this month and it would be fun (and i would never have to mention the offending product).

fuck! maybe tomorrow i’ll post about puppies or something.

weekend pickthrough- who’s johnny edition.

you may not have won the gold (or silver, or bronze), but you’ll always have my heart glitterpuss! i mean johnny weir! and thanks to a randomly high google image search ranking, the picture i posted of you a few weeks ago has since driven over 3,000 people to my blog (your powers are great).  on a semi-related side note, let’s take a moment or two to reminisce about johnny 5 with “who’s johnny” by debarge from the short circuit 2 soundtrack. yum!

i’m afraid of the christmas tree shop in exactly the same way i’m afraid of mimes and people in mascot suits. the lovely and fearless portland penny pincher takes one for the team and stakes it out national geo style. (spoiler- they accept coupons!)

will i ever grow out of having to give blow jobs? 3 portland foxes tell it like it is.

you give them $10, and they send you… um… something.

a giveaway blog that features things that i might actually want! (sorry christian cookbooks and diaper coupons… i just can’t.)

i got fleeced on foursquare by an imaginary monkey. also people, i can’t be the mayor of everything- get your asses playing!

here’s some double dipping that won’t end in tragedy! check out the oscar nominated short films of both the animated and non animated variety@ space gallery saturday & sunday.

in case your town isn’t lucky enough to have its own valentine’s  bandit, sam cousins documents it all (in the loveliest way possible).

ch-ch-ch-changes.

well, the burlesque is still eating my life for another 10 days, but with lots of mindless time at the sewing machine, i’ve actually had a lot of time to think lately about what i want this blog to be and how i want things to work in the new year:

1. there’s a million websites that will tell you exactly what the deals are every week.  i’d like to be less beholden to spitting out the obvious deals that are already everywhere anyway, and spend more time focusing things that are a little more personal, and the really really extraordinary bargains.

2. i’d like to make an effort to get more interactive. i’ll be starting with my very first maine-themed (cool stuff, not crap with blueberries painted on it) give-away happening in january (i just ordered it today!). i’d like to do something monthly, but since i’m not being showered in swag by sponsors- monthly might be a little pricey. we’ll see.

3.  bring on the fashion. spending a lot of time with style bubble and lulu letty, and wanting to bring some low cost high style into play. thinking about instituting a thrifty crafty weekly column in somewhere in between wardrobe remix and wardrobe refashion.

4. debt! i need to make a more active effort to pay down my debt! expect more spending diets and crazy money-making schemes in 2010.

5. baking day experimentation. are there practical applications for monthly baking without being a christian homeschool family of 8? i think there could be! watch me wrestle with monthly meatless meal planning for 2!

that’s all i got for right now, but the ideas (some more golden than others) will continue to roll out until i’m ready to put it all into action. suggestions welcome! i’m still a little lost in this whole blogosphere place.