The very awesome Raising Men giveaway. Right here. Right now. Let’s GO

I know that I’ve been threatening to launch this giveaway for over a week, but holy rabbits on toast things have been all kinds of cray at The Birdhouse, to the level that we’re about to start hiring. Excitement times ten. 

As you know, it was my birthday last week. In honor of this, I wanted to celebrate you. I’m totally on your side. So for my birthday, you could win all of this in one go. Yes, all of this goes to one person: the winner. I don’t actually know how to emotionally prepare you for this. The prize consists of:

A R500 Woolworths voucher to spend on fashion, beauty, flowers, jewelry, accessories – whatever you like! I only recently found out that you can shop online for everyyyything via Woolies’ website. And that you can create different shopping lists and that they deliver to your door. I don’t know why I didn’t know, but it’s changed everything I thought I knew about the world, and gifting to family & friends outside our city. View their new website over here

A NoMU Recipe Box, Grinders, Rubs & Hot Chocolate. NoMU adds an incredible amount of flavour to your home cooked meals, giving those ordinary dishes that real professional, fancy restaurant quality that you’ll grow extremely attached to. Last night we made chicken burgers with their Moroccan Rub, which I just had to mention; because it will change your life. We use NoMU every day at home, as you know by now. You won’t find anything better locally (arguably internationally) and you can shop online.

A kids photo shoot with Ninasaycheese. This quaint photo studio is run by Vanessa Lewis who is arguably (definitely) the best children’s photographer in South Africa. She designed and created the Ninasaycheese sets and outfits – selected each prop herself and creates beautifully styled themed sets for occasions such as Christmas & St Valentine’s Day. She has all the outfits for various ages and her sets include Forest, Pilot, Tea Party and Circus. My boys have both been photographed by her in the Circus and Forest sets, and I’ll treasure those pictures for keeps. Win your own shoot as part of this giveaway.

Included in this prize is two packs of nappies & wipes from Pampers Premium Care. You can’t go wrong with Pampers, and we never have.

One Dove hamper containing various goodies. This includes their new Hydro Nourishment and Intensive Nourishment lotions, shower gels, deodorant and soap bars. If you don’t win this giveaway – don’t worry – I’ll be doing another one for them again later this month. Follow them on Twitter for details @DoveSouthAfrica

A R500 Spar grocery voucher to spend on experiencing their delicious Freshline range. I’m busy doing a food series with them, because they have everything you need for perfectly healthy & delicious lunch boxes. Fresh fruit, individually wrapped muffin packs, long-lasting rye breads, mini fruit juice boxes, seeded rolls, little fruit packs – they really have everything as far as bakery items & fresh produce is concerned.

Two Hey Gorgeous products – Vanilla Bath Milk & Cupcake Gift Set. Hey Gorgeous is for those wanting to feel pampered & indulged (so basically everyone). You can hop over here to see more of their range. They’re launching their website soon, and Raising Men has loads more to say about this brand and our partnership. In the mean time: PRESENTS!

A Spindel valued at R1599.00 – my favorite household item that we use daily. Basically, once your clothes have been washed in your washing machine: You have two options in Winter: Tumble dry them for 2.5 hours and like 100 units of electricity, or put your garments on a clothes horse in the middle of your kitchen for 3 days to dry. It’s not pretty guys. The Spindel is like a mass spinning vortex of awesome – you put wet clothes in there, plug it in (uses about same wattage as a light bulb) you put an empty container at its sprout, turn the nozzle and kick back. Within seconds, a little waterfall pours out – like 80% of the wet and excess water comes out in around 2 minutes. Then you turn the nozzle, pull out your things & put them in the tumble dryer for 15 or hang on a clothes horse overnight and your things are dry by morning – even in winter, even indoors – I am not messing with you. Even bath towels. It’s small and tucks in to a corner or in to a kitchen cupboard. I’ve had mine for about a year and I made them give me one to give to a Raising Men fan. You need to watch this little demo video here: Spindel Specialist Laundry Dryer. You can buy one from TakeAlot here for R1499.00. Yes I am trying to sell this to you, because I am obsessed and I cannot live without our Spindel. Obsessed. I wrote about it last year here. I lost 7kg with my Spindel. KIDDING (Am I really though guys – am I?)

In Good Company is now open in Cape Town and run by one of my favorite people – Maike McNeill. She just got these storage boxes in at the shop- imported from a Danish company called Rice.  A set is valued at R2250 and you can pick if you’d like a boy or girl set. I saw them with my own little eyes last weekend. They are so awesome. I blogged about these storage boxes here last year – I cannot believe that they’re in SA now. Well done In Good Company. You can view pictures of the Cape Town store here . It looks just like the inside of the gingerbread house.

Two Love Milo Cushion Covers – Branch & Birds (Value R600) They’ve become one of my favorite online stores. I have a collection of their crockery, tea pots, fabrics and of course – their wooden plates. I have these exact cushions on our bed at home – they’re so bright, different and cheerful. I love that they’ve taken so much inspiration from nature.

Included in the prize is 5 liters (or 5 x 1 liters) of Plascon Paint. Go on to the Plascon Trends website for new trends, inspiration and their latest Colour Forecast. Use this paint to add bits of colour to your home. We’ve recently added candy stripes to one wall and painted a single wall in the boys’ room bright yellow with white shelves. It looks so… happy. You don’t need a lot of paint to add interesting and colorful areas to your home. You can choose one or several colors if you win this – and I’ve added two examples of really awesome ideas. Do it. 

A selection of wine from Fairview Wine & Cheese – the Extrano range. Right now, they’re running a competition on their Facebook page If you win, they will fly a faraway friend to Cape Town for you – from anywhere in the world! Missing someone? A friend overseas that you haven’t seen in years? Enter! Upload a picture & description and the picture with the most votes wins the ticket! How rad? Anyway – if you win this hopping good giveaway, you’ll get a box of their delicious Extrano wine.

Included in this giveaway is the whole Organics Kids range – three large 2 in 1 shampoo & conditioners and a detangling spray. Confession: I use the Strawbelicious on my hair – often. I love that my hair smells like strawberry bubblegum all day. My locks need extra nourishment, so not too often. My boys use this range, so I asked the Organics team if I could give another pack to my readers and here we are.

This is a lot of stuff you guys. Thirteen prizes from different brands. “Okay okay Tash – how do we enter?”

I’m going to make it slightly tricky. This is not about a quick win or to increase stats or numbers – this is a gift from me to you because I want you to experience all of these nice things. I have very carefully selected each and every item in this giveaway as we’re very fussy about quality here at the bunny house. The value of this loot is approximately ten thousand rands.

To enter this giveaway, I want to know who you are. Comment & introduce yourself to me. To win all these goodies, I just want to know something about you. I’ll close the competition (next week Friday 23 August), print all your introductions on to paper, cut them out and Benjamin will draw the winner from a container of sorts -which we’ll document because he’s so cute with this stuff. Your comment doesn’t have to be the best one in the world, I just want to meet you. I’m so curious about who reads my thoughts every day, and I’d like to hear from you – I really do. This competition is only open to SA residents, and because there’s wine on the table, you need to be over 18 years old to enter. If you’re 17 and you read this blog, then I don’t know.

I realize that a lot of my friends read Raising Men, and I am not excluding you. My two year old Benjamin is choosing the winner so unless he really is Superman (he genuinely thinks so) and has x-ray vision, it’s safe to say that this competition is fair and that all friends of Raising Men can enter.

You need to (have to) comment here to win. **For an extra entry** (that goes in to the same draw), you can tweet “I want to win all the things in the @Raising_Men giveaway http://bit.ly/14xxt3y” so that’s a maximum of two entries per person y’all.

Whichever comment Benjamin draws will walk away with R10,000 worth of really cool prizes. Good luck guys and can’t wait to meet you. Aaaaaand: GO.

WAIT. Stop. 

Please note that I approve comments on the back end to protect my blog from spam. So even through you won’t see your comment immediately: It’s waiting for me to publish. Okay now GO. 

**Update** I have been in near tears today reading your comments – understand that I’ve never met most of you, I have no idea who hides behind Raising Men’s blog stats. I talk and talk and don’t make sense and get emotional and this is all me – but I didn’t know a thing about you. Today has been amazing and I’m so touched and happy and this is just great. Okay sorry. Go.