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Friday, February 11, 2011

Belated Thank You, I am a Cheapo, and a Giveaway


First, I want to thank all of the fabulous folks who brought their children out to Barnes and Noble in Oceanside to support Mission Meadows Elementary School. What a great event. It was lovely to see so many kids so excited about reading! This is my third year appearing for Mission Meadows and I can tell you that I'll absolutely be back for a fourth.

On the I-am-a-cheapo front, I thought it would be nice to have some bookmarks to hand out at the booksigning and I only had a few left from the batch I made up for ALA (and they were kind of giant....not what I had in mind for an event like this) so I thought I would enlist my old pal, vistaprint. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make a reasonably sized bookmark on vistaprint. Either a postcard or a business card or a brochure. That is what you get.

"Darn!" says I.

"There must be a way!" says I.

Just then, my inner-cheapo (who hangs around a LOT) said, "Why don't you just do a vertical business card, punch a little hole in the end, add some ribbon and voila! You have a little mini-bookmark!"

I love my inner-cheapo. (One time my IC convinced me to make my daughter's Irish Dance Dress. These things run about 1,000-3,000 bucks. Seriously. I had many people ask me who my dressmaker was! Just me and my glue gun.....hahahaha.)

And I love mini-things. Tiny little donuts......Lego people....itty-bitty cupcakes.....who doesn't like little things?

So, I took the advice of my inner-cheapo and made the most adorable bookmark/business cards EVER.

Very pleased with myself.

Now to the giveaway part. You, yes, YOU can get some of these bookmarks for yourself. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL.

You can get one of these:


BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

You also get a lovely reusable shopping bag that says LOVE and a cool little blank book to fill with your own ideas.

And the only thing you have to enter is to leave a comment about why you love dragons....or knights.....or both.

Oh, and promise not to tweet about the contest. Just kidding. I don't have twitter, so I'd never know anyway. I just wanted to put something in about twitter so I would look cool.

Which I am not.

But I am okay with it. I mean, I am royalty....so that kind of trumps cool in some places.

hrh

P.S. Contest ends February 14th, the LOVE day, at 11:59 p.m. I'll randomly select a winner from the sugar bowl of despair.


16 comments:

Jemi Fraser said...

LOVE the mini bookmark idea - you are brilliant!!!

And dragons? Since the first Pern novel by Anne McCaffrey, I've been hooked. Who wouldn't want a dragon to impress and ride with? :)

Faith E. Hough said...

LOL, I love the twitter comment. Since I am not on Twitter either, I will fiercely defend your coolness. :) Anyone who can pull off a medieval dress and robe is inherently cool.
I do love dragons and knights, but I think knights win for me. I guess it's their inquenchable desire to do right and be noble and brave despite the cost or appearance. (We're talking about the knights who deserve the title here...) And of course the cool armor for their horses. Have you ever been to the Met in New York and seen their armor collection? In-credible.

Faith E. Hough said...

Oh, I forgot: vistaprint is great, and I'm probably going to steal your mini-bookmark idea someday. :) FYI, they do offer "rack cards"--but those do make rather large bookmarks.

Unknown said...

Hooray for cheapskates!!

And love the mini-bookmark idea. I hope to have the need to steal that someday. :)

Unknown said...

And I totally forgot to leave my comment about why I love knights. Umm...I've pretty much been in love with them since I first saw the 1982 version of Ivanhoe.

Roxy said...

I could never have pulled off the bookmark magic. I'm just not that savvy, but I do love Knights. Who wouldn't like a noble hunk on horse back? Dragons are also gorgeous. Have a great weekend!

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

Oh, knights and dragons spell all kinds of good. They populate my stories,too. But I can't say more than that!
You are the most clever author to make mini bookmarks with ribbon. I bet they were snapped up.

Myrna Foster said...

I'm not on Twitter, so you're still cool as far as I'm concerned.

I love knights and dragons, especially when they're as funny as the ones in your books. I just read HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GOOD KNIGHT to Gwenyth this morning. I think I love dragons because I love animals, and dragons remind me of smart birds, cats, and horses.

And knights - have you read IGRAINE THE BRAVE, by Cornelia Funke? :o)

Anonymous said...

What an awesome idea for the mini bookmarks. Thanks for sharing about it!

I like dragons and knights. I also like queens, kings, princes, princesses, castles, and flowery gardens. I like stories that have these characters/settings in them.

Stasia said...

Ah, the Inner Cheapo. Mine's very chatty, too. (And, OMG $1,000 for an Irish Dance dress? Go glue gun!) Gonna go with loving knights b/c when my preschooler isn't dressed as Batman, he's decked out in plastic armor. Thanks for the contest!

Jessie Oliveros said...

As a matter of fact, my son and I just checked out A Cold Winter's Good Knight from the library. And I'd really like to know what YOUR voices are for them. See, for us dragon number one just has kind of my normal voice. Dragon number two has a high, girly voice. And dragon number three has sort of a gravelly, rascal voice. And the dragon has a booming drawl, although now that I think of it he should have an Enlish accent, too. But I'm bad at those. Does this comment count?

Jessie Oliveros said...

I meant the KNIGHT has a booming drawl but should be English accent. The Knight, the Knight, the GOOD Knight.

Margo Berendsen said...

oh, I LIKE your inner-cheapo! And I want one of your little bookmarks! And I think you definitely trump the twitter kind of coolness which, I mean, how can something that is defined by "tweet" really be cool? Cute yes, but cool? I think not.

Margo Berendsen said...

Oh, I forgot I'm supposed to leave a comment about dragons! I'm going to cheat use the dragon mentioned in my profile: "I also believe a pendragon isn't a medieval surname but rather a pen in the shape of dragon that sparks tiny flames when you write with it."

I LOOOOVEEEE dragons. I will read anybook with a dragon in it.

Susan R. Mills said...

Your bookmark idea is perfect! And what's not to like about dragons and knights?

Hardygirl said...

I, too, am cheap, cheap, cheap. Love it!

And, dragons? I love their sparkly scales--and they can kick some serious you-know-what. Perfect combo of glamour and ninja, if you ask me.

sf