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Friday, November 14, 2014

My First Blogiversary & Giveaway



Welcome to my first blog Anniversary.
 I'm so grateful to all that have supported me.



I've gone from Court Clerk, to Legal Secretary, to Real Estate Agent to .... this. 


My blog started from family encouragement because I always redo, recycle, repair, and re-design everything I get my hands on. They really pushed me last year when I used birthday gift money to buy a dining room set and turned it into our kitchen storage island. Taking them seriously,  I worked on four chairs using recycled leather belts and finished a few other projects to launch "Redo It" on November 14, 2013.  I've done a large amount of work on and off the blog scene since then. 



My most popular and craziest project to date is the Toy Horse into Garden Sculpture. 




I've worked extremely hard and learned a wealth of information within the last 12 months from my blog friends.   If you are considering a blog and someone tells you it's so easy, they aren't completely honest or they don't blog.  My redo work is easy for me... but the blogging isn't. It's scheduling, it's social networking, contacts, tongue in cheek chances and challenges, emails (boy, are there emails!), updating, ...and so much more. It's exhausting. It's a full time job. The key to maintaining it is... fun. Making it fun everyday. 

Starting small with no idea what to do, I can state that it has been an education venturing out into the blog world. There's the good, the bad and the ugly.  I've researched, reached out, experimented with various promoting ideas, made so many wonderful friends, expanded my skills, and now I'm starting a small local business.

Now to the present: 


It was back to school for my youngest son, and we had family birthdays, and some local social activities during September but... it was my busiest blog month! Not only was the workshop raising sawdust, but my activities were above normal (for my standards anyway). 


I had the opportunity to curate "Ways to Fake Leather" for HomeTalk. It was so much fun to explore HomeTalk contributors and share their creations.




Utilizing Minwax stains into a table top design not only demonstrated a unique use of stains, it created a great makeover for an accent table.



As DIY guest designer for The Crafters Workshop, I demonstrated how to use One Stencil Four Ways with four different projects



Then I had the awesome opportunity to try Websters Chalk Paint Powder. It was very easy to mix and use! The results were fabulous!



I started Co-Hosting Retro Re-Pin!  The party that's right up my alley! I love to pin and we "reuse" everyone's old posts (or new ones for newer bloggers) and pin them to our boards. Love this party! 
new Retro-Re-pin-Party-Button-400x400





I started a new weekly series "Friday Five", featuring my five favorite discoveries during the week.




I set my own record for a project producing month with these lovelies in addition to all of the above projects.
Secretary Desk     Easy Chalkboard
70s Coffee Table    Upcycled Treadle Sewing Machine Base    Ugly Thrift Store Dresser
Chair Makeover: Miss Velvet    Old Chair Restoration: The Gentleman    Chair Makeover: Miss Rose
Designer Vanity Makeover


I had my first ever booth sales event for the pieces I restored and upcycled. I sold everything but three pieces. Well, one was on hold. So two were left.



Oh, and I met Vern Yip. (insert big smile and fanning myself)
What an exciting moment in my life! He is everything he appears to be on television and other media. Extremely kind, intelligent and personable! He autographed an upcoming project piece I have and my new business card.  I truly admire his "less is more" style.  His designing skills are just simply unrivaled. (sigh, again) He discussed his design ideas and was highly interested in mine. Nicest guy ever! 

And I ended the month guest hosting more parties! If this is the start to my new year, I'm going to be busier than ev-ah!

I want to thank each and every one of you for landing on my blog, following, making friends with me and giving me the confidence to go on. There are a select few of you that have really been very helpful and special to me. (You know who you are. THANK YOU!) I started out only to give ideas and inspire. But this journey has turned into friendships, learning and sharing experiences. For that, I'm so very grateful. 

Are you ready to share the next year with me? Who knows what we will be doing together! I've got some fun stuff planned. It's always a surprise.



Let's start with a Giveaway, shall we? 

Thanks to my lovely co-hosts who are joining me to share this event, we are each celebrating by giving one lucky winner all of the following prizes:


I have a $25.00 American Express Gift Card to giveaway... 
Original Gold

and Two 12"x12" TCW Stencils to giveaway 









Kristina & Millie at
2 Crochet Hooks

have a gorgeous hand crochet Juliette Cloak to giveaway
($150.00 Value!) 
 Displaying Juliette Capelet.jpg




Leslie at The Crafty Side Of Sarcasm

Displaying IMG_3201.JPG

has a $20 Visa Gift Card to giveaway!



Terms and conditions

Giveaway is open to any resident who is 18 years of age or older who lives in one of the 48 US Contiguous States. This giveaway starts on Friday, Nov. 14th at 12:01 am (EST) and ends on Friday, Nov. 28th, 2014 at 12:00 am (EST). The winner will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to respond. 


The winner will be drawn randomly through Rafflecopter which uses Random.org. This blog, Redo It Yourself Inspirations and co-hosts, reserves the right to obtain names and email addresses solely for this Giveaway only. The winner has 48 hours to respond to claim prize. If potential  winner forfeits or does not claim the prize, prize will be verified and re-awarded in another random drawing. The winner will  be announced on the Rafflecopter form on the original giveaway blog post. 

This blog, Redo It Yourself Inspirations and co-hosts  reserves the right to use your first name and last first initial in order to announce the winner AFTER the prize is claimed; the right to tell the sponsor of the prize the proper information including but not limited to:  Full Name, Full Address, Email Address, Phone Number and anything information needed to claim the prize. 
VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. 
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Google, Bloglovin or Instagram. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this sweepstakes and not to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, LinkedIn or Google, Bloglovin or Instagram, or any other entity.

Good luck to everyone! 





a Rafflecopter giveaway



23 comments:

  1. Marie@The Interior FrugalistaNovember 14, 2014 at 9:28 AM

    Congratulations on your 1 Year Blogiversary Robin! Wow, your blog has come a long way in just one short year - impressed the heck out of me. Looking forward to seeing more of your amazing transformations in year 2!

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  2. Thank you so much for your support, Marie! I look forward to many more happy experiences and friends like you! :)

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  3. Stacy&Eric Anastasia VintageNovember 14, 2014 at 2:00 PM

    My heartfelt congratulations, Robin! I can't believe you're only a year into this - you've done such incredible work in such a short time! I'm so excited to see what the next 12 months has in store :)

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  4. Thank you so much for your kindness and encouragement, Stacy! I can't wait to share the next year with you and our friends. I can tell you are having a fabulous year as well, love your work! :)

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  5. I'm not a "do-it-yourself" expert at all - so I always get a lot from all of your posts - so I don't have a how-to request - I'm just soaking it all in.
    Thanks so much for this Giveaway & congrats!

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  6. Thank you so much for joining in the celebration, Angel!

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  7. I would love to see some crafty ideas to make my woodsy backyard garden come to life! I'm thinking sculpture, arbors, fences, anything I can make on my own and still look wonderful.

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  8. i read a lot of blogs,too many so i made a pact if i signed up for a new blog another blog has to go so please know i was impressed, i can't get enough furniture make overs and i do have a question besides wax what do you think is the best topcoat for chalk paint? thanks and congratulations xx

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  9. I need all the help I can get so any ideas are good. I love seeing re-purposed, reused items. Nothing like recycling and turning something old into something new.

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  10. Great suggestion, Kathy! I'm still working on my backyard. In the flower areas, I've added wrought iron plant stands and placed colorful bowling balls in them. Now I'm making a place "For the Birds" along my garden shed. I have landscaping fences and a garden pond, but not an arbor yet. I'll be sure to add some of those posts with collaborations. Thank you!

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  11. I've used lacquer a couple of times, only because I wanted to glaze over without being "chippy" and it's water resistant for table tops. Polycrylic works quite well for a permanent and durable finish; it would be my best choice. It's actually a personal preference and how the piece is going to be used. Thank you, Chris! :)

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  12. I agree, finding something new in an old discarded item is fun and rewarding. Thank you, Sandra! :)

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  13. Congratulations! Really your only one year into blogging? You have so many projects under your belt and youvr accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. You go girl!

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  14. Thank you so much for the encouragement, Natasha! I hope I can keep the pace. :)
    Hope you have a wonderful week!

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  15. I'd love to learn more about installing lighting.

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  16. I have one of those coming up and will certainly post it. Thank you for visiting! Hope you have a great weekend and a very happy Thanksgiving next week!

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  17. Happy blogaversary! Thank you for the giveaway opportunity. Hugs

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  18. Congrats on your blogiversary! Looks like you are sharing some great projects!

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  19. Thank you so much for joining in the fun, Katherine!
    Happy Thanksgiving!

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  20. Thanks so much, Linda! I'm so glad you are celebrating it with me :)

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  21. Hi Robon! I've been having a look see and wanted to say a belated congratulations to you on your anniversary!

    Also, I was wondering about your commenting system. There doesn't seem to be a way to sign in with my blog url and I tried to log in using Google, but it gave me an 'oops' and then forced me to log in using my full name.

    Anyway, just wondering what the advantage is in using disqus?

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  22. Hi Doreen,
    Using the disqus helps tremendously with spam and unwanted phishing links. It's a nuisance for my readers to leave a real link in a comment for us, I understand, but I do check them to be sure we are safe on my blog.


    Thank you so much for the best wishes :)

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  23. The winner is Heidi! Congratulations, Heidi!. Hope you are enjoying your prizes! Thank you for participating. I truly appreciated everyone's visit. Thank you for celebrating with me.

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