Our First Birthday With A Giveaway To Celebrate!

We're celebrating our first birthday here at Elizabeth & Co.!

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It's been a whirlwind year - fun, exciting and sometimes exhausting! I started the blog in conjunction with teaming up with the girls to host occasional vintage tag sales. The blog would be my way to document our little adventure and share some of our furniture painting projects. It started almost by accident. Megan was visiting and we were in the kitchen chatting about the possibility of a blog and getting ready for a cookout. Next thing I knew she was on the computer and we had a blog. I had no idea what I was getting myself into! But somewhere along the way, the blog became so much more personal for me and that's because of the connections I'm made in the last year. I've learned from and been inspired by so many talented bloggers. You have been so incredibly generous! And I am so appreciative of our fabulous followers. A huge thank you to each and every one of you who takes the time to visit and leave such sweet and supportive comments. We couldn't do this without all of you!

{Megan, Susan, Karla, Sharon & Roxane}

So of course we need a giveaway to say thank you for being here! I recently received this beautiful custom made sign by the talented Andrea from Signs by Andrea. I love it! We live in Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay is an important part of the life and ecomomy here.

Andrea has generously offered a free personalized sign to one lucky Elizabeth & Co. follower. The sign will be valued at up to $50, chosen from the standard designs. *USA shipping only.



Andrea's signs are painted on weathered wood and have a fabulous vintage feel.


Each sign is a one-of-a-kind treasure.


Wouldn't this make the perfect wedding gift?



And I promised you cupcakes, right? So in addition to the sign, the winner will also receive a copy of Betty Crocker's The Big Book of Cupcakes, two packages of cupcake baking cups and some cute little sprinkles.





And six additional winners will receive a set of the cupcake baking cups and sprinkles. That's a total of seven winners! Why seven? Because we just reached 700 followers and we're pretty excited about that! I wish we could throw a birthday party, but at least I'll know that some of you will be eating cupcakes!






*To enter the giveaway, just visit Signs by Andrea and come back and leave a comment telling me which sign is your favorite. As an added bonus, Andrea is offering $5 off any sign ordered through the giveaway period and for one additional week after the winner is announced. Use code E&Co5OFF in the comment section of the order form. All seven winners will be announced on the first day of summer, June 21st! The giveaway is open to all followers, old and new!


Thank you again for being here!

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Giveaway Winner and Featured Follower

It's time to announce the winners for all the giveaways from the fifth annual Cottage Charm Giveaway Event sponsored by Kim at The Twice Remembered Cottage. Thanks so much for organizing this event Kim! A total of 49 blogs participated this year. What fun! I am giving away one of my Burlap and Ruffles table runners.



And the winner picked by RANDOM.ORG is Marianne from Country Glamour Home. Marianne created a beautiful patriotic tablescape for the holiday weekend, so be sure to go check it out. Congratulations Marianne! Email me your mailing address and your choice of colors - natural, sage green or chocolate brown and I'll send your table runner on it's merry way! And thanks to everyone who participated! If I could sew fast enough, I'd send you all a table runner!

And now I'm so excited to introduce you to one of my followers! Stacey just discovered the blog world in the last year. She is an empty nester who has found that sewing and diy projects are just the perfect way to fill her newly found free time. Stacey is just learning to sew and saw my table runner tutorial. Even though she was a bit afraid of ruffles, she decided to give it a try. And just look at the result!

I love that Stacey put her own twist on it! She found a combination of fabrics she liked at fabrics.com (Premier Prints Paisley Chocolate and Topeke Solid Chocolate). Stacey says she's ready to make some changes in her home and has also made some pillows and covered a lampshade. How fabulous is that!


I was so thrilled that Stacey took the time to send me a note and some photos of her table runner. I just had to share. Thanks so much Stacey! I think maybe you should think about starting a blog of your own!

You can check out the Burlap and Ruffles table runner tutorial here. If Stacey can do it, so can you! And be sure to come back tomorrow for the start of another giveaway. We're celebrating our first birthday here at Elizabeth & Co. There will be cupcakes!

French Blue Dresser

This one is a beauty!

Even in her before shot, she looked pretty good. The real problem was that the veneer on the bottom two dawers was all bubbly. I had no choice but to peel it all off. Ugh!

I thought the blue was a perfect fit, so after all the repair work, I went with Sherwin Williams Boathouse Blue. After a little distressing, I mixed up some black glaze and finished up with a coat of wax.

Like I said, she's a beauty!



I'm still trying to catch up from the weekend and get around to see what everyone has been up to. But blogger is having problems again and I can't sign in to leave comments - so frustrating! And all the posts in my google reader are showing up as unread, even after I read them - very confusing! Hopefully this will be cleared up soon!

And don't forget you have just a few more days to enter the Cottage Charm giveaway event! I'm sharing one of my Burlap and Ruffles table runners in your choice of color. If you can't leave a comment, send me an email and I'll enter your name. And be sure to check out all the other wonderful giveaways in this blog-wide event and meet some new blog friends in the process!

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