As I said earlier this week, my blog turns one year old today!

Because it’s my blog birthday, you lurkers should come out of hiding! Come say hi, introduce yourself, tell me your favorite color, whatever your little heart desires. We don’t bite!

In celebration, I’m giving away a ton of really awesome, retro inspired prints on my other blog from etsy seller, Kerry Beary. Seriousy, there are like $200 worth of prints and there will be 7 winners! You should go enter!

Kerry Beary giveaway

Lastly, I need your votes. I mentioned this before but Brandy nominated Oh How Lovely Shops for a style award and I’d LOVE to win. If I do win, I’d be donating about half of the $250 to charity so please vote, it will take all of a minute.

I only have 27 votes and the person in the lead has 73. I know I have more readers than that. If you are entering my giveaway and vote me, leave me a comment in the giveaway entry with what number vote you were and you’ll get an extra entry!

And don’t say it’s the signing up thing because you guys all signed up to vote for the Blogger’s Choice Awards in hopes for Crissy n00dz!

Vote. Pretty please?

Remember yesterday when I said I was going? Now’s your chance to go to and practically for free!

Over at the WonderSpot there is a contest that ends tomorrow for a chance to win BlogHer full conference passes and 3 nights at the Westin! All you need to do is get airfare.

Go check out how to win right this second!

Some of you know of my new found obsession with all things Etsy. I’m kind of obsessed and spend my free internet time finding new things to spend money I don’t really have. Also, I have been featuring some of my favorite Etsy shops here and there on this adorable little blog. Some of the packages I have sent out to bloggy friends have had stuff from Etsy in them as well. We are all about Etsy here at Oh! How Lovely!

Anyway, I teamed up with a lovely new shop on Etsy. Megan and Katie are from Austin, Texas and have a love of all things design and paper and so Second Party was born! Not only am I featuring them, but they are giving away a gift!

They have some really cute stuff up like these note cards.

If those don’t tickle your fancy, there is much more!

Starting today, you will get a chance to own some of Second Party’s lovely work! All you have to do is leave a comment by Friday of what your favorite item is from their shop. That’s it! Pretty easy, right?

We will randomly choose one winner to receive the item they like best on Friday. I will forward your information to girls of Second Party and they will get your prize right out to you.

Get started. Go check out their shop and pick out your favorite item. Once you do that, come back and comment and you’re in!

Not all of you unfortunately, but 3 of you! Thanks for entering the contest, everyone! You gave me and my judge a good laugh. Should you need a chuckle to help you get through to the end of the day, go take a little looksee at the entries.

The reason I chose jokes for this contest is because last week, Will and I kept telling each other really bad jokes. So who better than boyfriend judge this contest? NO ONE.

Did your joke prevail in the joke contest of all contests? Find out the winners and their jokes after the jump!

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A few weeks ago I won my second Pay It Forward contest over at & That’s The Way Life Goes. I got a lovely little photo album, a note pad and a special treat for Miss Edie! So it’s that time again…

This time I’m not going to make it so easy as just commenting to win. No, no, no. I’m going to make you work. Well, not work but make me laugh. I want a joke. Only one joke per commenter though, please. It will make it a lot easier to choose 3, if you all don’t enter 23423 jokes each.

So make me giggle. Winners will be announced Friday. Remember: don’t enter unless you will pay it forward yourself. Prizes maybe a gift card? Or maybe something from my upcoming vacation? Who knows!

Ready. Set. Go!

Alright so last night I closed comments to my Pay It Forward contest entry and put all your comments in to a randomizer. All freaking 84 of you! I wish I could give everyone something but you would surely break my poor bank account.

And the winners are…

Drumroll, please!

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Last week I received a package in the mail from the lovely Carrie Lea. Inside was a post card, super cute little magnets, some post its, a lip gloss, some gum and a candy bar from the wrong team in Chicago. haha, I almost took the candy bar out because I didn’t want to tarnish my image as a Sox fan! Okay, I wouldn’t do that but still.

What did I do to deserve such a lovely present?

I was on of the winners of her Pay It Forward giveaway contest thingy and now it is my turn. So dear freaders, should you want an amazingly fabulous fantastic super package from me in your mailbox, I suggest you enter. I know you bitches love free stuff too!

The only thing is, you have to pay it forward yourself once you get your package. Leave a comment. Lurkers, come out, come out where ever you are. You can play too. Three of you will win.

I will close comments Monday night. Get your entries in before then!

READY.

SET.

GO.

Does anyone know if mailing gift cards require extra postage? I still need to get to the post office to mail the three gift cards to the winners from my contest because I fail at life. I just don’t know if it would be fine with a regular stamp or if it’s more. I’ve never mailed out one before. Help meee.

Also, does anyone have any tips on getting pups to stop nipping so much? Edie gets very excited and likes to chew, bite and nip. My hands are so scratched up from her sharp little teeth! I tell her No! but she is still a 10 week old puppy, so she doesn’t listen very well. I’m planning on signing her up for puppy classes in the next few weeks. My puppy is going to Kindergarten!

Tomorrow, I will be announcing another contest. I need some help with something and since you freaders are so creative and fabulous, I’m turning to you. Of course, you will be handsomely rewarded. With what? I’m still unsure, but I think think of something amazingly awesome.

It is motherfucking walk off! Please watch this video. If you love Tim Gunn as much as I do, you will love this. Christian is annoying as hell through most of it, but Tim makes up for it!

I am a big fan of lists. When I found out NaBloPoMo was going monthly starting with March and the theme was lists, I emailed Mrs. Kennedy and was like sign me up! So everyday in the month I will be adding a list to each entry. Now if people hate lists, hate me, hate what I write or don’t write, that’s fine…keep on scrolling in your reader until April. I’m just making it know that there will be lists, and plenty of them at that!

I suppose this whole entry could be considered a list of random things but I’m going to share another one anyway.

Movies I plan on watching today:
Oceans 11 (the original)
Paris Je T’aime (I already watched half!)
Gone Baby Gone

Thank you all so much for entering the Eileen Cook Unpredictable contest! I loved reading everyone’s stories, some where hilarious (I’m looking at you, Virginia!), some were sad and some were incredibly brave. Oh and there was Erin who rooted for the Cubs for a man! Never stray again, girl! Anyway, I had William and my sister, Sara, pick out the winners. They had a rough time since all your stories were amazing and so different, it was hard to choose!

A copy of Eileen Cook’s Unpredictable and a $5 Starbucks giftcard go to: Susie @ Everyone Loves a Boston Girl Everyone agreed you were amazing and so patient. I don’t know how you did all that. Plus, I don’t know if I would massage my boyfriend’s butt to make him fall asleep every night (haha sorry, babe)!

The other 2 $5 Starbucks giftcards go to: Kari who lovingly and patiently works through her SO’s mental disorder and is so brave & Magda who converted to Catholicism for a boy who she didn’t even end up with! It all worked out for her though in the end

You can read Susie, Kari and Magda’s stories, along with everyone else’s in the comments of the contest entry! There are some really great ones, so if you get a chance, definitely go check them out.

Again, thank you all so much for participating! If I could give everyone something, I totally would. I know $5 isn’t a whole lot, but it’s just a little something to say thanks for helping make my first contest here at Oh! How Lovely! so fantastic!

Ladies, email me at jamie(at)ohhowlovely(dot)net with your address, so we can get your prizes out!

Yes, that’s right, kittens! The day is here for the super, fabulous Unpredictable contest that I mentioned on Monday! All you have to do is answer the question at the end of Eileen Cook’s guest post here. That’s it! Seriously, not too hard. The winner will be announced Friday. What does the winner get, you ask? Well, first off, Miss Eileen Cook will be sending a copy of her brand new novel to you and to sweeten the deal, I’ll throw in a $5 Starbucks gift card. This way you can read your new book and drink that mocha frou frou stuff you like. Or if you are like me, some hot chocolate, because I hate coffee! Depending on how many people enter the contest, I might throw in another Starbucks gift card. MAYBE. Consider it my Valentine’s Day gift to you. So spread the word!

Let’s see what Eileen has to say.

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What we do for love
(subtitled I must have been on drugs)

There is a theory that being in love releases a chemical reaction in the brain. This chemical reaction is the only explanation I can come up with for some of the things I’ve done in pursuit of love. Clearly, I wasn’t in my right mind.

Humiliating myself in the pursuit of love came easily to me starting at a very early age. In junior high my girlfriends and I would call the object of our affection and when he would pick up the phone we would give a super sonic giggle (capable of being heard only by dogs) and then hang up. Looking back on this- the purpose of the call eludes me. We didn’t give our name so the point must not have been to let him know we liked him. We never actually spoke to the guy in question so getting to know him also wasn’t a goal. The best I can determine is that the purpose of the call was to establish that he was in fact home. How this brought us closer to our beloved is unclear.

Then there were the stalking years. One guy that I liked worked in the mall. Along with a posse of my friends we would walk s-l-o-w-l-y by the front of the store dressed in our very best. We would then wait about .05 seconds and then repeat the slow walk going in the other direction. This would then repeat over and over sometimes lasting for hours. In today’s high security society no doubt I would have been arrested as a suspected retail terrorist- but those were simpler times.

By University my ability to go all out in the pursuit of love would lead me to signing up for a course on Ancient Chinese History simply so I could sit next to a guy I liked. I endured an entire semester of trying to memorize names that all rhymed. Was that Emperor Chin? No Lin. There were hours long road trips to show up (all casual like) at a party and one instance were I swore I LOVED downhill skiing (despite never having gone before) and then nearly killed myself in an effort to look like we had a shared interest.

A friend recently told me a great story. She had the intern where she works call the object of her affection and gave him a fake survey so she could learn all about him. On a scale of 1-5 how important are looks to you in choosing mate? It’s a shame I’m married now- because I thought this was a brilliant plan.

So why do we do it? Why do something insane for love? Because sometimes it works. After all- I married the Ancient Chinese History guy.

What have you done in the name of love?

Contest over! Thanks everyone! Winner will be announced shortly!