my blog anniversary - a week of giveaways

Welcome to my blog's first birthday week, and a week of giveaways.  Something new each day, something to celebrate, to enjoy as much as I have enjoyed my first year of blogging.

My blog has changed my everyday life.  A year ago , I bravely promised  that the year 2010 would be the year to reinvent myself, but I had no idea it was going to be this much fun!

Here I am 12 months on,  with a blog I love, new friends on all continents (some of whom I have been lucky enough to meet already),  writing, having fun with my camera, and ADORING the emails waiting for me each morning.  My children look at me differently, my days are packed to the brim, and I feel creative again!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

You are a truly talented, inspiring and generous bunch of bloggers.  I am honoured and delighted to have got to know you.

So, since we are day ONE of the week, it's time for the first giveaway.
I'd like you all to help me make this week a big success for my kind sponsors.  So join in all the giveaways and let's show these kind girls how much we appreciate what they do!

I have been lucky enough to get to know Ande and her wonderful blog  Chickory because her sister bought something from my shop!   This, my friends, is how the blogging world works.  Ties are formed, and those ties spread out to others and the fun just keeps coming!  

Ande took the deliberate decision to move out of Atlanta and live somewhere where she could grow a food garden and keep her chickens and dogs in a country setting.    She works in her garden and sells her produce from the back of her pick-up truck, at the Blue Ridge Farmer's market. Last year she grew sunshine yellow carrots, all kinds of heirloom tomatoes, lots of flowers, peppers, radishes, spinach and lettuces, lemon cucumbers, and crimson sweet watermelons. This year she'll be going for pumpkins. 

She grows some lovely old fashioned cutting flowers and supplements them with local wild flowers to make her bouquets. At the market she also sells her folk art paintings on wood,  eggs from her chickens and  cards printed  from her paintings of forest and country life.

I love this shot of her truck at the farmer's market, I can tell you she'd be a great success if she drove up like that to our local market.

Now Ande is a busy lady.  Besides taking care of her garden and her animals she loves to paint.  She sells her paintings at the market, at her Etsy store and also at Big Cartel.  She also illustrates children's books, you can find her books here.

This year has brought a load of snow in her direction, which gave her the opportunity to take 'cut-out' photos of her chickens,  and to film her dogs fooling around in the garden.

Ande is most generously putting up one of her paintings, my favourite actually.  It is painted on 12"x16" wooden board.  She calls this painting French Hen Under Flowering Quince.  She used the ochre colour background to remind her of the cheerful shop windows she saw on a trip to France.

The painting comes ready to hang - don't you love the clever detail on the feathers?!

To enter this giveaway it's easy: just pop over to Chickory, leave a comment,

then come back and tell me.  

For a second chance, (and a separate entry please!), take a stroll around one of Ande's stores, either at the Chickory Etsy Shop or at Chickory Big Cartel or both!
Once you've checked out the store or stores, come back with one or two more entries and tell me which of Ande's items you like best.  (That's going to be the hard bit, because everything is wonderful!)
Finally you can have one more entry if you post or tweet about this, or if you put up my giveaway button linking back to one of this week's giveaway posts.
- separate entries for everything please!

The winners of all of this week's giveaways will be pulled out of a hat on Friday 4 February.

Good luck in this draw, you're most welcome to come back tomorrow to join in with  Giveaway number Two.