Yayza! ▲nni.

Things are just swinging along today!  Lots of happy happenings.  I keep offering cookies to all the kind people who are tweeting and posting about our current giveaway.  I better stop before I find myself in an overwhelming sea of cookie dough.  Although, that could be kinda fun… Like that scene in Patch Adams where the old lady swims in a pool of cooked noodles.  Only, instead of swimming, it would be more like laying on top of the gooey mess and slowly eating my way to the bottom.  Oh, you don’t think I could eat an entire kiddie pool of cookie dough?  Think again.

{ Untitled by Anni Abeja Indie }

Giveaway! Embroidered Necklace from Marañón

EDIT: This giveaway has ended.  Enter our current giveaway here!

We’re having our fifth and final giveaway, folks, and this one’s very special.  As many of our faithful readers already know, Brian and I are engaged and we’ve entered the Crate & Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest.  If you’ve already heard about this 10 times, don’t stop reading!  For those of you who are new to the Westervin blog, lemme esplain!  In order to get to the next round in the contest, we need to be amongst the top 50 vote-getters.  We’re barely hanging on — somewhere around 200th place — but we’re not giving up hope.  Should we win, our wedding will be unique and sassy, like us!  We plan to purchase goods and services that are eco-friendly and that support small, local businesses and independent craftspeople.  Craftspeople like the shockingly sweet Lorena of Marañón.  I plan on wearing one of her refreshingly cool embroidered necklaces on the big day.  To help us win, Lorena has kindly donated one of her necklaces for a giveaway.  This giveaway!  We ask that you vote for us in the contest, and in return, you will be entered to win the hand-embroidered and -sewn Peacock Fan Necklace above.  If you’ve already voted for us, you’re half way there!

How to enter:

1. Follow this link to our Ultimate Wedding Contest entry page.
2. Click “Vote for this Entry”
3. Enter your email address (you will NOT receive spam, this is just to verify that you are an actual person)
4. Leave a comment on this post with your vote number (e.g. I’m vote #170).  To get your vote number, just check the vote count on our entry page after you’ve received your confirmation email.*  In your comment, be sure to include your name in the “Name” field and your email address in the “Email” field.
5. Tell others to vote for us.  Why?  Because you’ll get additional entries and increase your chances of winning the necklace!  So tweet about it, blog about it, post a link on your Facebook wall or email it to your friends.  Just ask them to leave your name in their comment (e.g. I’m vote #170 and Kelly Jones told me to vote!)
6. Give yourself a pat on the back!

*If you’ve already voted for us chances are I know about it.  Don’t worry about the vote number unless you remember it.

This giveaway ends Sunday, March 14th at 11:59pm CST

Westervin Wear: Baby it’s cold outside

Behold!  My Bloganista outfit for week 3, complete with go-to scarf, new booties and a hearty disdain for Chicago winters.  Now, I’m a southern girl with a circulation problem, so I’m no champ when it comes to bearing through the cold.  If you ask me, Chicago has a wind that will blow right through you and steal your soul.  And yet, just the other day, I saw a young woman walking by in a mini skirt and stilettos – no leggings, no tights, no nothin’.  I wanted to slap her on the wrist and say, “GUUUUURRL!  Get some clothes on!  No one’s gonna care how sexy your legs look when you have FROSTBITE.  Try balancing in those heels without any TOES!”  Fortunately, I was able to restrain myself.

Westervin Wear: Bloganista v.2.0

Fun with Photoshop!  I’m really enjoying this Bloganista Flickr group.  It gives me a reason to put some real clothes on every once in a while.  That and having a lady-lunch with my gal-pal Lynne!  Panera mac & cheese, you do me right.

Westervin Wear: I’m a Bloganista!

The bubbly-cute Erin of Design for Mankind has started a pretty fun Flickr pool for blogging gals… like me!  It’s meant to show that we “don more than sweatpants and slippers” everyday, but I’ll be honest with you, readers… I only got dressed up so I can join the pool!  Ssshhhh.

Today I Love: “A Collection a Day, 2010″

Over at Poppytalk, one of my daily reads for inspiration and diversion, I came across this exciting find. “A Collection a Day, 2010” is a new project by Lisa Congdon (who I love and featured two weeks ago), in which she will create and document one collection of small related items for every day of the year. I think my anal retentive tendencies are rejoicing as much as my appreciation for common yet beautiful things. Like Lisa, who’s appreciation for collecting and arranging small treasures started in childhood, I too remember spending far too many hours organizing and displaying my possessions, be they the crayons arranged in a color order that made sense only to me or the chest containing rows of tiny plastic toys that I received from my dentist.

I especially love how Lisa has opened the project up for discussion and encourages “you to share your thoughts about what memories the photographs and drawings of my collections spark for you and what, if any, sense of nostalgia or repulsion they make you feel”.  I guess her collections have happily reminded me of little orange trolls and crayon rainbows.  What memories do they spark in you?