It’s that time of year again, so today’s Surprise Giveaway feels especially relevant… Just in time for the season, CardStore.com is offering up $100 Shopping Sprees towards their HUGE selection of personalized Holiday Cards and Thank You Cards to TWO hwtm readers! This should help out significantly with spreading the holiday cheer!

In the Holiday Cards Section, you’ll find everything from Christmas Photo Cards and Greeting Cards to Holiday Party Invitations. Pictured above and below are some personal favorites (there was so much great stuff to choose from I went a little crazy with the examples!)….

Several of the designs also come with coordinating pieces, so if you really like a certain party invitation you can also order thank you cards or photo cards to match. Pictured below: “Merry Chocolate” cards & invites by Amy Suther.

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HOW TO ENTER:
• Post a comment here telling us which design(s) from CardStore.com’s Holiday Cards and/or Thank You Cards you especially like or would love to send out.
• Giveaway ends Monday, November 16th at midnight PST. The 2 winners will be chosen randomly and announced here after they’ve accepted the prize. Good luck, everyone!!

After discovering Paper Culture, I feel like I’ve died and gone to MODERN stationery heaven! Seriously… if you love stationery with a contemporary feel, take a peek at paperculture.com. The designs are so fresh and original; I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be stuck for a while!

Featured here are some favorites from the following categories: Baby Announcements, Adult Birthday, Kids Birthday, Baby Shower, Bridal Shower, and Personalized Stationery, and you’ll find lots more designs & occasions (including a fabulous Holiday Cards section) on their website.

Above: various designs from Adult Birthday. Below: Are these Baby Shower invites fantastic, or what?!  I’m especially loving the bold, bright color palettes (and the elephants!)…

Next up… Kids Birthday Party Invites. This extensive category is SO worth checking out to add a shot of cuteness to your day – even if you don’t have little ones of your own!

(BTW – the design in the bottom left-hand corner, above – Forest Party – would be perfect for a Woodland Forest birthday theme!)

Below: a few designs from the Bridal Shower section. Especially loving the “Owls in Love” design. You always see “love bird” designs, but how often do you see “love owls”? =)

And last but not least, here are some examples of the (many!) adorable Personalized Stationery designs:

Fore more eye candy, visit www.paperculture.com.

As the owner of 2 (ridiculously sweet & unabashedly spoiled) yellow Labs, I definitely fall into the “dog person” category, so anything cool that’s related to dogs usually catches my eye quite easily… such as these adorable Dog Adoption Announcements from (the newly re-designed) PolkaDotDesign.com.

These exclusive digital designs are all 2-sided, and they sport cute & contemporary design motifs like dog houses, bone silhouettes, and cool graphic patterns on both the front and back sides of the announcement. Clever phrases like “Bad to the Bone” and “Pawsitively Cute” add a playful touch too! Each design runs between $1.79 and $2.79 and you can even get perfectly-coordinating stickers & mailing labels to match!

A few more favorites – for both dog AND cat lovers – are pictured below:

I’m especially loving the clever “Cheese Please” cat announcement (top left design, below). Click here to check out all of the cat announcement designs.

And for those of you that want to throw your pup (or other pet) a party – there’s a whole collection of Pet Party Invites to check out too!

This week’s Surprise Giveaway should come in especially handy for those of you that love to (or have a need to) send out personalized greeting cards & announcements. Cards Direct is offering up a $100 shopping spree towards anything on their site – which includes general holiday cards, Christmas Cards, photo cards, birthday cards, super-cute baby announcements, and more!

There’s a huge range of styles on the site – from elegant to mod/contemporary… and even a lot of great recycled choices! A few of my favorites are pictured below.

Here are few of their adorable baby announcements… I’m especially loving the elephants!

Some great recycled designs for everyday & holiday…

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HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:

• Post a comment here telling us which design(s) from the Cards Direct website you especially like – or would love to send out if you win.

• Giveaway ends Tuesday, July 21st at midnight PST. Winner is chosen randomly and will be notified Wednesday, July 23rd and announced here as soon as they accept the prize. Good luck!!

Winner update 7/13: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks so much to everyone that entered! And the lucky random winner is… commenter # 90 – Kristen Mantovani. Congrats, Kristen!

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Just in time for the holiday weekend, Magnet Street Weddings is back with another $175 Shopping Spree towards anything on their website! You’ll find everything from Save the Date Cards and Magnets to Holiday Cards, Thank You Cards, Party Favors, gorgeous Wedding Invitations, Labels, and more.

At Magnet Street Weddings, everything is completely customizable. Using their online design studio, you can change fonts, colors, photos, and text to make each design completely your own! A few favorites are pictured below, as well as details on how to enter the giveaway…

Pictured above: various  Save The Date Magnet designs. Pictured below: the pretty (and contemporary!) Birdies pocket wedding invitations.

Pictured below: Layered Magnetic Invitations in a sunny, orange & yellow Beautiful Gerber Daisies design…

HOW TO ENTER:
• Post a comment here  telling us which product from Magnet Street Weddings you especially like and what you’d change to make it your own – colors, fonts, etc. – or if you like it just as it is!

• Giveaway ends Friday, July 10th at midnight PST. Winner is chosen randomly and will be announced Monday, July 13th. Good luck, everyone!!

Winner Update: 5/29: This giveaway is now closed. Thank you so much to everyone that entered! And the lucky random winner is… Commenter #529 – Nicole F, who said, “I LOVE Sweet Treats … its absolutely adorable!”. Congrats, Nicole!

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I’m really excited to share this week’s Surprise Giveaway with you – because it comes from a fabulous company that makes party planning for all sorts of occasions a whole lot easier!

The Celebration Shoppe is all about unique custom invitations AND party supplies that coordinate with the invitation design. For example: Want to create a cupcake themed birthday party? Not only will you find a Cupcake invitation at The Celebration Shoppe – you’ll also find coordinating invitations, plates, napkins, cupcake wrappers, thank you cards, candles, and theme ideas… all in one spot! How easy is that?!

Even more good news: This week, The Celebration Shoppe is offering up a $100 shopping spree on their website to a lucky HWTM reader! (Find the details on HOW TO ENTER below.)

There are tons of different theme ideas at The Celebration Shoppe – from the modern red & white Movie Night and Pirate Ship themes to the bright, colorful Birthday Bash and Spooked Pumpkin {Halloween} themes. A few other favorites are pictured above and below…

How cute is this Pumpkin Carraige Centerpiece (above) for a Princess Party theme?! This Bridal Shower centerpiece is pretty sweet too…

Or maybe something a little less girlie… like this fun Rock Star theme for a birthday or congrats party…

All of the invitations and themed party supplies are sold individually at The Celebration Shoppe, so you can tailor your order to your needs. Also – the order mininums on their invitations are as few as 8, so you can still get personalized, professional invitations – even when you just need a few!

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HOW TO ENTER:

• Post a comment here telling us which theme(s) from the The Celebration Shoppe you think are especially fabulous!

• Giveaway ends Wednesday, May 27th at midnight PST. Winner is chosen randomly and will be announced Thursday, May 28th. (We’ve recently extended the giveaway for one day longer that the original post stated.) Good luck!!

This adorable “Li’l Tweet” Baby Shower was created by Kathleen Gibson of the wonderfully creative Twig & Thistle blog.  Read on for the details, as told by the hostess herself – plus info on where you can get these charming owl-themed invites & party supplies for your own celebrations!

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“Last year I had the honor of being asked to do the baby shower for my good friend Katie. Let me start off by saying that this was by far my favorite event to plan and design.

Katie knew that she was having a baby boy and his name would be Sebastian Sanchez. I decided to celebrate the new baby and his beautiful parents by illustrating them as a little owl family. I thought it would be fun to play up this icon and use it throughout the whole system.

Everything from the invites to the favors were shades of green and white, and to keep with the theme, all the food was a variation of those colors. The menu included chicken and egg salad tea sandwiches, edamame, pickles & olives and pita chips.

The party was capped off with homemade coconut ice cream, a white cake with butter-cream frosting and a candle for little baby Seb!

Inspired by a quiz card seen in Blueprint, I designed a quiz about Baby Sebastian. The guests filled in their answers and the person with the most correct won a box of color coordinated sweets!

The thank you notes were also letterpressed…

The party favors were packaged in a white pillow box affixed with a sticker. Inside was a fabric pattern and batting so each guest could make their own Baby Sanchez doll! I printed the pattern on printable fabric sheets that I ran through my Ink Jet printer.”

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Thanks for the inspiration, Kathleen!

For those of you that love the look of this shower and want to create something similar at home – good news: the Li’l Tweet invitations, thank you cards, baby quizzes, and more are available in the Twig & Thistle Etsy shop (in multiple colors!).

Winner Update 4/28: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks so much to everyone that entered! And the (randomly chosen) winner is… Commenter #144 – Janet, who said, “I heart the photo booth magnet – Made for each other.ty 4 the entry:) my daughter gets married in sept and this would be a great win!”. Congrats, Janet!

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Today’s Surprise Giveaway should be especially appealing to all the brides-to-be out there – or friends & family looking to help them out! Magnet Street Weddings is offering up a $175 Shopping Spree towards anything on their website - and there is a LOT to choose from!

You’ll find everything from save the date cards and magnets to gorgeous wedding invitations in a variety of styles – from pocket folds and layered to flat and magnetized!

Magnet Street Weddings also offers personalized mailing labels, favor notepads, holiday cards, and more. A few favorites are pictured below… (Find details on how to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post.)

Pictured above: The gorgeous Autumn Stamp pocket wedding invitation.

Pictured below: a few favorites from the Save the Date magnets…Photo Booth Magnets, Greetings in Green (with the flower) and Count Down.

Pictured below: The lovely Contemporary Leaves layered magnetic invitation design…

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HOW TO ENTER:
• Post a comment here telling us which product(s) or design(s) from Magnet Street Weddings you especially love!
• Giveaway ends Monday, April 27th at midnight PST. Winner is chosen randomly and will be announced Tuesday, April 28th. Good luck, everyone!!

Project Wedding ran a fantastic DIY Wedding Challenge recently and the level of creativity in the 160 entries is truly inspiring!

I was excited for the opportunity to be a guest judge for the contest – especially alongside these 4 fabulous women: Bee from Weddingbee, Grace from Design*Sponge, Mackenzie from Something Old, Something New, and Emily from Once Wed. The 5 of us each picked our favorite project (not an easy task, I might add!) to come up with the 5 Finalists – and now the final decision is up to all of you!

My finalist pick was the ultra-creative Message-in-a-Bottle Invitations project pictured above. Seriously… if the invitation is this good, just imagine how cool the celebration will be!

Visit ProjectWedding.com to check out ALL 5 finalists and cast YOUR vote!

The lucky person that did win the random drawing is: Comment #253, Tara N, who said “So I stop into my favorite entertaining site to look for announcements for our pending arrival and just like that I’m in LOVE with the flutter keepsake photo announcement!”  Congrats, Tara!

This NEW Surprise Giveaway comes from the fabulous betsywhite stationery boutique, which is chock full of gorgeous paper eye candy! Their designs have a wonderful contemporary-meets-feminine style to them, and you’ll find everything from chic wedding invitations and custom wedding logos to colorful party invitations, baby announcements, and personalized stationery!

This week, betsywhite is offering up a $100 Shopping Spree to a lucky HWTM reader! The winner can spend the winnings however they like at betsywhite.com. Here some examples of what you’ll find there:

Fabulous Party Invitations…

Personalized Stationery…like this mod floral Bahama Note Set (available in 2 colorways):

(See more designs & details for HOW TO ENTER after the jump…)

Adorable Baby Shower Invitations & Baby Announcements…

and of course…TONS of beautiful Wedding Stationery – invitations, save the dates, enclosure cards, and more!

HOW TO ENTER:
• Post a comment here telling us which design(s) from betsywhite you’d love to get if you win!
• Giveaway ends Sunday, November 23rd at midnight PST. Winner is chosen randomly and will be announced Monday, November 24th. Good luck, everyone!!