Bruce Littlefield Latest Gig on The Today Show

Thanks to all of my readers who shared your ideas with Bruce Littlefield for his gig on The Today Show.

Click on the You Tube video below to see Bruce talk about "things Americans hoard."
And, it would be GREAT if you could comment, rate and favorite the video to help Bruce out.



You can also read another great review of his book Garage Sale America, over at Gather.com where a comment and rating would also be greatly appreciated!

And don't forget that another "Treasure Hunt" contest is in the works and will be posted here soon, so if you didn't win last time, you'll have another chance again...yay!

Now watch Bruce shine once again on The Today Show:


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One of my bestest blogging buddies, Cindy from Taste the World just became officially engaged!

Go see how her fiance proposed to her, but prepared to be jeaaalous! I love her and hate her all at the same time after seeing that, lol!

Name Your Tune Winners!

Oh my goshness! Can you believe how many comments are down there on the Name Your Tune Giveaway? Thank you to Shannon from rocks in my dryer for hosting such a fun event! It was like Christmas in July..weee!

I LOVE her idea and I think rumor has it that she may do this again in the fall. She's VERY brave because I know this was very hard work for her. It was hard for me just to manage my own little corner of this whole party! There were over 100 entries into the contest!

And that was nothing compared to some of the other contests that had 300 to 400 entries!

What? Oh, yeah! The winners. Like you all cared about anything else I had to say, lol. Okay...the winners for the Name Your Tune giveaway, for a personalized children's CD, are...

• Dawn from Coming to a Nursery Near You
  
• Kristie from Life With My X-Men

Congratulations winners! I will be emailing you to get your contact information. Enjoy the CDs and let us know how you like them!

Name Your Tune Giveaway

~Note: This post will stay at the top of my blog until the end of the contest on Friday evening, 11:59 p.m EST. Scroll down for my latest posts. Thanks!

Also, if you have an anti-spam function on Blogger, I was most likely at your blog this weekend but unable to comment. For some reason, a good majority of the anti-spam codes would not show up for me no matter how many times I hit "refresh" or "show picture." (Shelli, I had the same problem with your blog even though it's not on Blogger) Sorry!



I was recently contacted by Name Your Tune, which makes personalized CDs for children. They offered to send me a CD for Natalie and we LOVE it!

The CD has 14 children's songs, like "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Wheels on the Bus," all with Natalie's name sung to the tunes. Our favorite is "Little Natalie Had a Farm."

In every CD, the child's name is repeated more than 80 times! How cool is that?!

The CD cover and the CD itself are so cute, too. You can even have the writing on the CD personalized. Ours says "Special Songs For You Natalie, Love, Mommy."

The CD case is environmentally friendly and made out of recyclable materials. And....I think this is the best part....a portion of each sale is donated to Hear, Here, a non-profit charitable foundation that purchases hearing aids for children, and is administered through The Hospital For Sick Children.

All of my blogging friends know how much I love celebrities. So imagine how excited I was to see the list of celebrities who have received these CDs! They include:

~Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie
~Matt Damon
~Reese Witherspoon
~Gwenyth Paltrow & Chris Martin
~Adam Sandler
~Colin Firth
~Gwen Stefani
~Liv Tyler

Holla!!! That REALLY caught my attention, lol! Here's a quote from Eric McCormick from Will and Grace on Name Your Tune CDs:

"Thanks so much for the 'Finnigan' CD, although it just confirmed his belief that the entire world revolves around him. It's great fun and I wish you well with the whole venture. Cheers!"

AND, Name Your Tune has been invited to include their CDs in the "O is for OSCAR" gift baskets - "an exclusive bundle of must-have swag for celebirity parents and their children!"



Now, YOU have the chance to win a personalized CD from Name Your Tune for your child, and join the ranks of Brangelina! :)

Candace and Eric, the husband/wife team who owns Name Your Tune, is offering TWO prizes so there will be two winners!

They are also offering a discount for readers of my blog (they are so generous and wonderful to work with). Anyone wishing to place an order at Name Your Tune can just enter the code "NNHOL2005" (without the quote marks), and you will receive $5 off your order.

The contest for a free personalized CD (again...two winners), will run from today until 11:59 EST on Friday, July 27. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment here and I will put your name into the drawing.

If you're worried about protecting your identity, you have the option of contacting Candace or Eric directly with your information, rather than sending it to me. They will only use your information for sending your prize and will not share it with anyone.

As before, I'll be using Random.org to select a winner. First name or blog names are the only information I enter, and none of it is stored at or used by Random.org.

Have fun and good luck! :)
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This contest is part of the "Dog Days of Summer Bloggy Giveaway". There are LOTS of contests going on, so be sure to click on the picture of the doggy to find out where they are and enter away!

The Treasure & Second Chances

If you're anything like me, get ready to be jealous. As you all know, Jane from Pinks and Blues Girls blog won a spice rack that Bruce Littlefield found for her at the Brimfield Flea Market as her prize for winning our Treasure Hunt contest. She also won an autographed copy of Bruce's book Garage Sale America.

So without further ado, here is the adorable 50's style alumnium spice rack that I want to steal from Jane:



Don't you love Bruce's sense of style? He's not only a garage sale expert, he's also a designer and he's decorated his adorable country farm house in this style. You can see gorgeous photos and get style ideas for yourself in his book Garage Sale America.

Now for the most exciting part for those of you who didn't win the last Treasure Hunt. Here is a note from Bruce with the details:

dear blonde blogger dawn!

hey it’s me bruce littlefield at garage sale america back to my computer... after a week of adventure. i started out the week at the brimfield flea market near boston on a HUNT for a treasure for my favorite blonde blogger! (truthfully i was there because the boston globe invited me to boston for me to hunt for treasures and give tips on the hows, whats and whys.)

popular boston dj christopher muther is writing the piece. he’s fun and hilarious (and collector of lunchboxes, mcdonald’s toys, and such)...

anyway, my own personal mission for the adventure was to find something for your “garage sale america” treasure hunt. (thanks for doing that! and to everyone who went on our hunt.) i decided to see what fabulous find i could grab for five bucks.

and i found it! a fifties aluminum spice rack for five bucks. and i hear that jane at pinks and blues girls won. that makes me happy on several levels.

first, she’s obviously cool AND her parents happened to be at brimfield at the same time. i just wonder whether her parents would have bought the fifties aluminum spice rack or would of said “we had one of those.”

honestly, had jonathan (a boston globe cameraman, and incidentally, a hunky lester holt lookalike) not been following me around... i most likely would have kept it for myself and sent something else! she’s getting that and a signed book....

hey dawn... it’s so fun... let’s do it again....

everyone dawn and i will be announcing the next contest... SOON...(as soon as we decide what it is).

happy hunting everybody!

So there you have it! Another Treasure Hunt coming soon! Weeeee! So don't despair if you didn't win! A second chance will be coming soon. How cool is Bruce for doing that?!!

Thank you, Bruce! :)
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Note: Be sure to "tune" in tommorrow (I'm so good with these hints..haha!), for an exciting giveaway that you won't want to miss! And keep an eye out for the next Treasure Hunt contest, too!

And the Winner Is.....

.....Jane from Pinks and Blues Girls Blog! Congratulations, Jane!

Bruce has been traveling for a Barnes and Noble book signing and has not had computer access. As soon as he gets back to me (which I'm guessing will be sometime today), I will announce what the secret treasure is.

If you didn't win, but still would like to own the book Garage Sale America (and who wouldn't?!), you can order it here.

My thanks to Bruce Littlefield for his generosity in sponsoring this contest and for making it so much fun!

He is such an awesome guy and he's lucky he doesn't live near me, or I'd stalk him until he agreed to be my best friend, lol.

Seriously, though, he's a great guy and I feel privileged to have worked with him for this contest. Thanks, Bruce! :)

Treasure Hunt Contest

NOTE: This post will stay at the top of my blog for the next week. Scroll down for my other posts. Thank you!

Update: If you tried to email me by clicking the link in this post and it didn't work, you can manually type in my email address instead: ablondeandherblog AT yahoo DOT com

Also, if you're worried about protecting your identity should you win, you have the option to send your mailing address directly to Bruce (who will not share it with me or anyone else), instead of to me. And I won't be the least bit offended because I am *extremely* protective of my identity as well.



A contest, a contest……yay! I’m so excited to offer this contest and I’m not even going to win anything myself, lol! But I think you all are going to LOVE this and have a lot of fun with it.

Bruce Littlefield, author of the book Garage Sale America (the book that I reviewed here a few weeks ago) has offered to give away an autographed copy of his book to one of you, PLUS one of his garage sale treasures.



Bruce will be hunting for the treasure in a garage sale this Tuesday, with all of you in mind. How cool is that?! I will udpate with information on what the "treasure" will be once he finds it.

(I previously said it was this past Saturday, but was wrong. Apparently, I'm calendar-challenged lately because I also thought his Today show stint for "the things America hoards" was this past Sunday. It's actually Sunday the 29th. Sorry if you Tivo'd the show on Sunday for nothing!)

The treasure will be worth far more than what Bruce pays for it, something he's very good at (as you'll see in the YouTube video below).

All you have to do to enter this contest is go on a fun and easy "treasure hunt" and answer three questions. In order to make this fair, PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR ANSWERS IN THE COMMENT SECTION! When you find the answers to the three questions, email them to me instead at this address. ( ablondeandherblog AT yahoo DOT com )

If you get the questions correct, I'll enter your name into Random.org, which I'll be using to select the winner (this is only a tool to make sure that selecting the winner is fair and random. Your name is NOT stored at Random.org).

And if you mention this contest on your blog, you'll get a bonus entry! Just put your link either in your email to me or in the comments section.

The contest will run for one week (ending at 12 a.m. on Tuesday, July 17.) I will announce the winner that Tuesday.

Okay, ready to play? Hint: The answers to question 1 and 2 can be found here. The answer to question 3 can be found in the YouTube video below.

Happy hunting! :)

Question #1: How did costume jewelry come to be called "costume jewelry?" (Answer found on the landing page of Garage Sale America's website. Place your cursor over the items pictured there and a box will pop up with fun trivia and tidbits of information).

Question #2: Where is the World’s Largest Garage Sale? (IMPORTANT: We're looking for the LARGEST garage sale, not the longest).

Question #3: In the YouTube video below, what is Amy Robach from the Today show wearing that Bruce says will get her a bad deal at a garage sale?