Scrimpalicious Anniversary Giveaway - CLOSED

Hey friends! I just checked my calendar and I'm shocked and amazed to realize that it is almost the two-year anniversary of the beginning of Scrimpalicious.

The first logo was nowhere NEAR
as cute as this

This has been a wonderful two years and I've loved writing my blog and sharing my thoughts, projects, recipes, and ideas with all of you.

So, to thank you for sticking with me through it all, I've decided to have a giveaway. There will be one winner, who can choose one of the following fabulous prizes. Each one of these has been chosen to celebrate one of my favorite blog entries from the last two years.

• On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen - Menu Planning Monday
• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 - Julia I Ain't
• Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Bacon, by Mr. Scrimp
• A scarf, t-shirt, or cardigan from Maggie's Organics - Why Organic?
• Roma Traditional Style Pasta Machine - Recipe: Homemade Pasta

So, what do you need to do to enter?

Product Review: Hot Prints Photobook

Last month, I found a website for a company called HotPrints that is running a year-long promotion--one free photo book per month, with free shipping, for twelve months. Crazy rad, right?

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I decided to go ahead and see what I could do with it. I uploaded some photos from our wedding and went to work.

The website itself was pretty easy to use. It took a while to upload enough photos to fill the book, but it was very simple once everything was uploaded--just a lot of clicking and dragging. There were a tolerable number of layout and design varieties, and I was pretty happy with the potential of my book when I finished.

Well, it got here a couple of days ago. I'd say it took maybe 3 weeks but I was silly and didn't actually record the exact interval.

All in all, I can't complain about something that was free. Still, I wasn't completely satisfied. Photos were smaller in the book than the preview made it look like they would be. The book was paperback, more like a 20-page comic book than anything else (slightly heavier paper). The print quality wasn't bad, but the photos did turn out a little dark, so if I do it again I'll have to be sure that I lighten my photos more than I think they need before uploading them.

The promotion is sponsored by advertising of course, so there was a full 2-page spread of ads printed in the middle of the book, although it's designed to be easily torn out. I have to admit, I didn't even look at it--just ripped it out and tossed it in the trash.

There are also ads on the outside back cover, which is of course a little harder to tear off and throw away.

I'll probably make another one or two of these, because hey, it's free, and you could put together a nice little collection of comic book-sized mini photo albums without much trouble.

Overall verdict? It's definitely not a service I would pay any significant quantity of money for, when there are much higher-quality services out there with better layout options and hardcover books. But, if you've got some photos that you want to put into a booklet without spending a ton of money and don't care about those things, you've got nothing to lose, really.

Note: This review represents my opinion only, and was not sponsored or paid for.

Fleischmann's Giveaway

I really love fresh-baked bread. I've even posted the recipe for the no-knead bread that I make. I also love cookbooks (and I've done a blog post about that, too!).

I was reading the fabulous blog A Year in Bread, and blogger Farmgirl Susan posted a link to a Fleischmann's Yeast giveaway for a no-knead bread cookbook! All you need to do is go here, fill out the form, print it, and mail it with $1 for shipping and handling to the Fleischmann's Yeast company (address on the website).

This offer is only good while supplies last, so you should probably jump on it now. I know I'm going to.

Stockings!

Well, we had an even busier day than I thought we would. Mr. Scrimp got the tree up and it is standing in the living room and settling its branches as I write this. I had a couple of hours of work to get done, and a couple of hours of wrestling with my computer and trying to get it to turn on.

So, I'm sorry to say, I still haven't got that bonus five dollar decor post done. That will teach me to promise to deliver blog entries I haven't finished writing yet. But it will come in the next day or two!

In the meantime, how about digging through your scrap fabric and making a couple of these Christmas stockings with this free pattern from Craft Leftovers? This would be a great use for fabric from a loved blanket or article of clothing that's too tattered to use but of too much sentimental value to throw away.