Support TPE and get a chance to win

I'm supporting Team Pink Eye (Facebook), who's raising money to support breast cancer research, education, screenings, and treatments. Dozens of indie MMU companies and beauty blogs are helping support Team PinkEye all through the month of October!

Ragdolls Bath and Beauty is donating 50% of the proceeds from the sale of their eyeshadow color Boobielicious Pink throughout October - and is giving away a 5 gr jar for this post! There will also be an auction starting tomorrow for this set, with proceeds to benefit TPE.

To be eligible for this giveaway, donate here on the Susan G. Komen foundation site - just be aware that the giveaway is being sponsored by Team Pink Eye and Ragdolls Bath and Beauty (not Komen.) When making your donation, use whatever name you'll be commenting under (so that the contest eligibility can be verified easily). Then be sure to leave comments WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS right here on this entry...and on the other giveaway blog posts for this week (you can find them listed on the Team PinkEye site.) You can enter giveaways will run from the time they are posted until 10 PM CST Sunday October 16 2011, at which point Rebecca and Frances will handle the comment counts and draw a winner via random.org. Winners will be announced and emailed Monday, and their info passed along to the shop owners to remit the prize.

read more

Just brainstorming: blog contest rules?

I haven’t had many contests - actually, I’ve only held four, and probably won’t hold too many more simply because that’s not my blog’s focus - but anyone who has run a contest on their blog knows: these things aren’t easy. You’ve got to get the prizes, you’ve got to decide on the guidelines, you’ve got to make sure that people follow those guidelines. And then of course you have blogs and forums who look for blog contests, and enter them like crazy, hoping for freebies. On the one hand, it’s human nature to want something for nothing - especially if it’s a valuable something (like an iPod or a Clairsonic skincare tool) or a pretty something (complete sample set from a makeup collection or a complete set of nail polishes). On the other hand…blog contests should be both a publicity-tool for the blogs, and a way to say “thank you” to frequent visitors and contributors. So what kind of rules can we put in place that minimize drive-by contest entries, yet do actually allow people who visit and participate…to have a chance at winning?

There are cottage industries dedicated to entering contests, then reselling the prizes on Ebay. They usually concentrate on things like iPods (and they actually hire contest-entrants on Craigslist and pay them so much per valid contest entry), but anything that could potentially be valuable - including beauty appliances, hotly-coveted makeup items, what have you - is targeted. Big corporations may have the financial latitude to write these off as advertising; but individuals, smaller companies, and blogs most definitely feel these hits. So how do we close the doors just enough to keep these folks out, but not so much that we discourage actual followers?

read more

9 am, and all’s well (thus far)

It’s August! And it’s Monday! And yesterday the software broke, and then was fixed! (So to everyone subscribed to my RSS feed…it’s going to be kind of ugly as I manually rebuild the database, including all entries and comments. It’s been a few years since I had to do this, and I’ve created a HELLUVA lot of entries in that brief time - on this site, and two others. And that doesn’t touch the other database I’ve got to go play with.)

Send chocolate. The quality stuff. And if the delivery boy happens to be witty and sympathetic and will listen to me whinge for a bit while I eat a few pieces…well, so much the better.

read more

Birthday Contest, Week Four

Hi all! This week I am giving away four discontinued limited-edition colors and one limited-edition lip balm from The SheSpace to celebrate Sparklecrack Central’s first birthday! This is the final contest-week, and the final prize package!!

These four eyeshadows from my all-time favorite collection from The SheSpace, Cinderella Dumped Her Fella. I do wish that she’d continued her Client Faves program, or thought about making some of these shadows permanent, because this one collection contains most of my favorites from TSS. Once when Heather briefly made the collection available again, I got several dupes - even though I already had previously bought backups of many of these colors. I wish that I had some power to make these available again for everyone to purchase; but since I don’t, I can give away these and someone will enjoy them. The lip balm was not part of this collection, but was a limited-edition shade.

• The SheSpace’s She Does Sparkle eyeshadow
• The SheSpace’s Over Coiffed eyeshadow
• The SheSpace’s One Broken Stiletto eyeshadow
• The SheSpace’s Secret Wishes eyeshadow
• The SheSpace’s Fabulous Me lip balm

This week’s contest is open to anyone, anywhere. The contest is open from now (starting with this entry) through Sunday January 31 at 12:01 AM Pacific time. Leave comments to enter — check out full contest rules if you have any questions! And spread the word!

read more

Birthday Contest, Week Three

Hi all! This week I am giving away makeup from Bare Escentuals - one blush, two eyecolors, and a mini-mascara - to celebrate Sparklecrack Central's first birthday!

Mango Smoothie and Retro have recently been discontinued, but they're both lovely shades: Mango Smoothie was part of the Blendable Eye: Fruit Smoothies kit, and Retro was available in a few kits earlier on in BE's history. Lovely is a warmer-toned blush, but not so warm that neutral- and cool-toned people can't wear it (like Golden Gate, which does indeed make me look like an Oompa Loompa.)

• Bare Escentuals’ Lovely blush
• Bare Escentuals’ Retro eyeliner
• Bare Escentuals’ Mango Smoothie eyeshadow
• Bare Escentuals’ Big Tease mascara

This week's contest is open to anyone, anywhere. The contest is open from now (starting with this entry) through Sunday January 24 at 12:01 AM Pacific time. Leave comments to enter — check out full contest rules if you have any questions! Spread the word!

read more

My beauty blog social calendar: Jan 12

I’m in some beauty-blog networks, and they both get posted Friday late. I’m going to post my own “link roundup” of places that I’ve visited on Tuesdays - spreading things out a little bit. I won’t be posting the same blogs every week, and if I post one blog multiple times in a row, that’s just my magpie-mind saying, “Oooh, look, I found something interesting there!”

read more

Birthday Contest, Week Two

Hi all! This week I am giving away three Bath and Body Works scented body products to celebrate Sparklecrack Central’s first birthday!

read more

Birthday giveaways all through January!!

January is my birth-month, but also my site’s birth-month! I started this site on January 9, 2009, and have managed to catalog my collection, photograph everything, and - in October - wearing each eyecolor at least once and posting a look almost every day. I’ve learned a lot about makeup application, found some favorite things, tried some other products and found that they don’t work for me, and built my eyecolor collection up a lot. I haven’t had tons of readers (mostly my fault, there was a considerable “dead zone” of posts in mid-209), but I’ve appreciated the emails, comments, and conversations with the folks who have stopped by. Now I’m celebrating by giving away four prize packs - one each week of January, starting on Sundays at midnight-thirty Pacific time.

read more