Wednesday 28 February 2018

A Fantastic February.

Today marks the end of the second month of the year. February has been rather fantastic for me when it comes to comping and the prizes I have won.

Here is a recap of my month.

I started the month off with a delivery of WWE Survivor Series on Bluray. I love wrestling and had entered quite a lot of competitions to win a copy of this, the bluray didn't come with a compliments slip so I've been unable to thank the promoter.

Another surprise delivery only for Jacob this time was from a kids mag and was some DinoTrux books.

I Love Snacks on instagram do regular comps for their pouches and I won some pineapple and mango ones which were rather yummy.

My next instagram win was a Dreami and some Snuggi blankets. This was won from Jennie Edspire as she ran a sleep awareness month full of competitions in memory of her daughter Matilda Mae who passed away from SIDS. You can read more about Jennie's journey over on her blog here.


I mentioned last month how I had tried my luck at some purchase comps on products which we would usually buy. Oreo biscuits are giving away lots of pairs of in ear headphones and speakers, as they are usually on offer for 50p a packet in one of the major supermarkets we usually have a few packets in and I managed to win a set of headphones from them on the 8th and a speaker on the 14th and then a last pair of headphones on the 15th.

My biggest win of the month came on the 8th when I was notified that I had won 2 Krug Baumen watches. They were won on a simple comment and tag competition on instagram and are absolutely stunning. They are a his and hers set with diamonds in the watch face and RRP at £775 and £790 respectively!



I also received a Jeremy Corbyn annual from a competition run by the Mirror and I thought it was hilarious as did a few of my facebook friends when I posted a picture of it on facebook. I don't often get involved in political debate online but I have friends with very strong views that aren't afraid to let them be heard.

I also won £100 worth of wedding stationery on instagram. Although I refer to Ant as my hubby we haven't actually tied the knot but plan to do so on the 2nd February 2020, which is the date the Math geek in me opted for because it's palindromic (02022020)

Jake also won a fab bundle of LEGO Ninjago books from a magazine which have been a huge hit!


At the start of the year I created a wishlist of items I wanted to win. One of my listed items were anything Crime/Murder related and I struck lucky this month and won two consecutive newsletter competitions with True Crime Library and won a book about Brittany Murphy's death and a book about modern day hangings in Scotland.

Pancake day arrived and I entered as many competitions as I could find (which wasn't too many) and you can see my Pancake entry on this post here.

From the pancake comps we won the following:
Calendar
Adidas Football boots
STK Life 8 Mobile Phone
A Candy Slab
£10 Amazon Voucher
Salter Cook Bundle - Bluetooth Kitchen Scale and Thermometer


I finally won a doormat from Turtle_Mat on instagram they run comps every week and I'm always entering and I finally won one yay!!

MyVoucherCodes ran a comp for pizza and I won one, I was looking forward to it but it turned out to be one the new Prezzo Black Pizza's and I have a phobia of funny coloured foods - brightly coloured icing on cakes, anything that looks burnt, when beetroot bleeds onto other foods etc. So I gifted it to a friend to enjoy.

I was scrolling through twitter one evening when I saw Navabi mention a new book they were promoting called the Plus Book. They asked for people to do 1 of 3 things - buy the book and send them proof, leave them a review of the book on amazon or tweet them an inspiring photo. I purchased the book on amazon and sent them a DM of my receipt and was announced as one of their winners! I won a £100 voucher to spend on their site so I bought myself a lovely dress and a couple of tops.

Bandai ran a competition for a Tamagotchi bundle on Facebook and I won one. I haven't set the Tamagotchi up yet (I wonder if my skills of keeping them alive will have improved now I'm a mum?) but the T-shirt that came with it is pretty cool!


As a non-comper people probably just think there are 365 days of the year with a few big event's like Easter and Christmas but as a comper you learn that their are so many more from National Puzzle Day to World Emoji Day and with special days come specific hash tags and comps! February saw National Random Acts of Kindness Day and there were lots of comps about. I found it a bit of a weird one to be honest. Doing a RAOK should be random not done then boasted about to try and win a prize. I did a few that asked you to nominate a friend who had done something kind and then I saw Learning Resources were running one and I commented about Jacob using his 20p to buy his grandma's flowers (the flowers cost more but I paid the difference and let him think he'd bought them himself - he's 5 and was super proud) and they chose him as a winner and he received two toys from them.

I had a wee flurry of instagram wins - a First Aid Freddie book from minifirstaid, a Unicorn jar from PinacoladaCrafts, A Mothers Day teddy in a tin from PrezzyBox and a Transformula's eye mask which might work it's magic on my under eye suitcases.


Ant decided he'd had enough of Oreo's so he bought some KitKats for work instead. We one our third Joe Mug. I think I chose the geeky one but I can't remember.

I came home on Saturday to some chocolate, I don't know where from but it was yummy haha!

Jacob's National Geographic Kids magazine came and he was listed as a winner in one of their Subscribers Only competitions and won a Lexicon Go game.

Morrisons had some competitions running in the run up to World Book Day and I won a copy of David Walliams The Boy in The Dress book.

I finished the month in a similar way to last month with my final win being Love To Shop vouchers. This was a low entry competition on facebook that I found and I won £100!

Summary of the month:
Total Prizes: 33
Total RRP of Prizes: £2649
Prize breakdown:


Hoping everyone has a Marvellous March, the 1st is World Book Day and whilst School may be shut due to the snow, we've given it a go and have our fingers crossed for some lovely literary prizes x

Wednesday 14 February 2018

Pancake Day

Pancake Day is the one day of the year when it pays to be a tosser.

Unfortunately I suck at flipping pancakes so I tend to go for a more decorative way of doing pancakes. Which as a Comper usually works out well as there is usually a lot of competitions to show off your creative wares (unless like this year Valentines Day is the next day and all the companies are promoting the day of love instead!!)

Still we did pancakes. Every year I rack my brains to come up with something that will not only hopefully look great but that will be enjoyable for Jake, so we quite often theme our pancakes around his favourite things/characters. In previous years we have had Gruffalo pancakes, Peppa pig and Olaf from Frozen. I was expecting to see lots of Owls, Unicorns and Squirrels this year thanks to the supermarket selling 'pancake art' kits so I wanted to avoid those themes, although I think I like Unicorns more than Jake ever will.

Most people will know Jake has a slightly obsessive personality and one of his obsessions is Scooby Doo. So there we had a theme for our pancake!

I made a basic crepe, allowed it to cool slightly and then cut it to a Scooby Doo shape. I then using a picture on my phone as a reference point, used milk and white chocolate to decorate it and add detail before adding some sliced banana with the word Scooby! written on as a healthy addition!

Jake certainly enjoyed it.





Tuesday 6 February 2018

Jumping into January

We are now into a brand new year, 2018, although I still keep writing 2017 on lots of things.

And with a new year comes a new notebook and spreadsheet for tracking wins.

January was much quieter for comping for me compared to previous months. I really struggle to keep my positive outlook during the month and it showed in lots of aspects of my life, however, I still managed some lovely wins.

My very first win of the year was on the 1st January - what a great way to kick things off! It was a Compers News Year Planner and was won via their facebook page in which I'd commented on my favourite win of 2017.

My next prize was a 'surprise' from Crafter's World. I wasn't sure what I would get and as a comper I can tell you 'surprise' prizes can be a bit iffy (Worlds Smallest beach towel aka a flannel from Trainline I'm talking about you!) although I have had some really good ones too. It turned out to be some crafting dies which will come in handy as I really am determined to do some more crafting this year.

My first Instagram win was a gorgeous Italian Florals Candle by Spode. Its a beautiful glass jar candle and RRP is £36 and it smells amazing!


A very small although useful win was some Star Wars themed Elastoplast plasters in a collectors tin, won on Instagram from a simple comment.

Most of my comping pals, and none comping pals will know that I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan. I have all the books and a few other items displayed in my room so when I saw LoveBooksGroup offering a copy of the Scottish version I decided I really wanted to win it to add to my shelf. It was a simple retweet comp but I sent them a picture of my collection and also a bit of effort in to my reply saying how I had read an article about the Scots version and 'ah wid loue tae read Harry tak' oan ye ken wha' in Scottish (apologies to any Scots reading this) and they announced me as the winner - yay! I have flicked through the book and its bloody awesome I've learnt some new words like skinnymalinky.

Carrying on with the book theme I won a copy of Sunflowers in February.

Then my first purchase competition win of the year was with KitKat who are giving away some awesome Joe Mugs. I chose the Glam version.

Colourful Bites on instagram ran a comp for a box of Macarons which I won and oh my goodness they were delicious!!!


Another candle win which should have been Pink Grapefruit and Vanilla but they sent a different scent, which although may smell amazing lit I'm not keen on in the jar so it's gone in the gift cupboard.

Another purchase comp win was from Cheerios and we won a Star Wars Cereal Tub.

By this point it is the 12th of January Christmas was almost 3 weeks ago and I thought I'd had my full share of advent wins but I was wrong.

My first ever snapchat win was from the Cineworld advent. You had to send them answers to questions and I went a bit out there with my accompanying pic. The prize I won was for a CoCo goody bag so i painted a sugar skull on my face and sent it to them with my answer.

Our first Kids mag win of the year was Transformers The Lost Knight on Blu-ray. We love the Transformers movies and this was the only one we hadn't seen.

I received an email to let me know I'd won a rafflecopter competition from Lulamercer. The prize was a Hotel Chocolat goody bag which I've gifted to my nan. I don't do daily entries on blogs or the tweets so I'm a good example that it's still possible to win from them.


Four lovely nail polishes were won on instagram from ORLY

Then it was J's turn for an advent prize - a Money in the Bank/Extreme Rules WWE DVD from Epic Mag on twitter.

A quick comment on an insta post won me a tote bag which always come in handy!

Blue Monday came and boy did I feel blue! There were lots of competitions about though to cheer people up and I won one! A selection of 7 sauces from Gordon Rhodes on twitter.


Another twitter win from Sony Home Pictures of a Teletubbies DVD which will be fab for my nephew.

My next two wins were from purchase comps of a KitKat Joe mug and this time on the Cheerio's comp a BB-8 breakfast set which is super cool and quirky but slightly impractical. These both have a lot of prizes to give away and are products we would normally buy anyway so it's always worth looking out for comps on your favourite products and similar brands.


I received an email from Layered Online to say I'd won one of their Advent prizes and received a his and hers TIGI hair set.

Due to the way J is in school at the moment we are doing quite a lot of home educating alongside so I've been on the look out for things we can use and I won two small but lovely prizes on instagram of some imagistones and a personalised name crayon set.


J also won a Paw Patrol rucksack from a children's magazine.

This Is Powder on instagram do a lot of giveaways and gave a 100 winners a StarSkin sheet face mask and a Benefit Porefessional Sample. I've not had a chance to try the mask yet though as i fear I might end up looking a bit like Jason from the Friday 13th films with it on haha.

My next win really cheered my month up. MyReclaim on Facebook were running a live competition giving away 60 different prizes. I don't normally bother much with live competitions as I feel a lot like I am invisible or don't have much of a chance however after seeing a few friends win decided to join in and I think I was in time for the last 5 prizes, and I won one! £200 Love to Shop vouchers! Which are going to come in very very useful.

I won a lovely book bundle for J on facebook from Picture Book Post. Lots of lovely new bedtime stories plus great as I'm trying to find inspiration for World Book Day.


Two more books for me from the adult book club I'm part of, and then, my first Toppsta in almost 2 years!!! Turns out I had an overdue review, eek. So moral of the story guys is always check you have left a review on Toppsta to be eligible to win again.

My final win of the month was an instagram win from Alison Young and is an amazing NUFACE Trinity facial toning machine RRP £300 which I am hoping will leave me looking younger and help me banish my extra chins. There will be some before and after pictures in a future post.



Summary of the month:
Total Prizes won 31
Total RRP of Prizes £909

Prize breakdown:






Thursday 1 February 2018

That time I had my own make up for sale in Superdrug....

At the end of 2013 we were living in my grandparents spare bedroom whilst we waited for things to complete on our home. The majority of our belongings were in a storage unit but being an avid comper and having a new home to deck out I had my laptop with me.

Sometimes when you enter comps you win some weird and wonderful prizes, some things are money can't buy and some things are just simply unique and this certainly ticks all those boxes.

I was fairly new to entering comps on Instagram and didn't post as avidly as I do now but spotted that Superdrug were running a competition alongside GOSH to find a new lip and nail colour. They wanted people to photograph colours and then they would shortlist their favourites and put it to vote with the winner getting their shade made into a real life product!

I had a look around at what few worldly possessions we had to think of something to enter and came across Jacobs Duffy bear. Duffy is Disney's version of Build a Bear and although they don't sell them in the stores anymore you used to be able to get dress up costumes for them and Jacob's was wearing a Sully costume from Monsters Inc at the time. I took a close up of the fur of Sully and applied a filter and entered, not expecting to even get shortlisted let alone win. I thought the turquoise colour would make a great nail colour!


I entered and forgot about it, as I usually do with competition entries, and then I got a message to say they loved my colour and it had been put to the public vote. I'm not one for voting comps, I like people to win on merit rather than popularity which in my case is a good thing as I have no friends! I put a status up twice asking if anybody liked my colour would they mind voting, and people did like it, and they did vote.

I won!

My picture was sent off to the lab and they created a nail polish based on my picture and the nail polish was sold in Superdrug stores with my name on the label. I received a couple of bottles as part of the prize and a hamper of other GOSH products. The polish is no longer on sale under my name but I'm told it is still on sale under the shade name Sea Me.


So there you have it, that time I won a really unique prize and had my own make up for sale in Superdrug.

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