2013: You Win Some…

As another year draws to a close, it’s time for me to check my Google spreadsheet, flick through my winning letters file and laugh at my photo albums as I look back on my comping successes and failures over the past 12 busy months… first up, this year’s wins and top moments.

WIN! At the end of the post you’ll find details of how YOU can win a prize in my #SuperLuckyStories competition!
 

What with moving house, working and Ryland doing less hours at nursery, my comping time was limited this year, which sadly meant taking a break from filming and editing my epic video entries! I still had lots of success though, winning 168 prizes worth over £16,000 in total, including a once-in-a lifetime trip from Indesit to watch my husband play football in Milan (read about that here).

One of my first fun prizes of 2013 was the Zookeeper Day I won by purchasing Flash at Wilkinson, and posting off the receipt with an entry form (read the smelly details here). I also won £300 Selfridges vouchers a couple of months ago in another purchase necessary competition with Scholl/Tesco, which I’m looking forward to spending at the weekend!

In February I entered a few Valentines themed competitions and won a set of red GHDs with this entry:
 

And a spa day at DeVere hotels with my Beetroot pancakes:
 

I love using Instagram, and there have been some really fun and inspiring Instagram comps in 2013 – I reckon this trend will continue in 2014 as more people start using it – especially as Facebook has started asking people to link their Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Ryland buried me on Porthcawl beach, and we won five pairs of Happy Socks:
 

This Father and Son shot won a Murdock Man luxury haircut, shave and facial for my husband:
 

Talking of shaves, Blissworld ran a Twitter #fuzzoff photo comp for the best moustache and I won £500 to spend online with this piece of artwork on my top lip…
 

And as you know I love recycling, so I reworked this idea for Movember – winning a night in the new Amsterdam Art’otel, plus a beard trimmer from Philips on Twitter with this shot:
 

In the kitchen, I was busy making spicy artichoke and mackerel salad, which won me a Kitchenaid blender from Green Giant:
 

My homemade pizza won me a v. posh Barbour picnic blanket:
 

And a fun ‘Octopus’s Garden’ lunchbox won £100 Amazon vouchers from Tots100:
 

In Summer I moved from Nottingham to Brighton and as we sold our old home including the kitchen appliances, I was on a mission to win some new ones!

One of my favourite photo challenges was the Samsung/Currys PC World “Eco Challenge” competition where you had to upload a photo of what you were doing to save energy at home. This was really generous, with six winners getting a kitchen appliance. I won a fabulous fridge-freezer with our photo of candlelit Scrabble:
 

I also won a Bosch dishwasher for my new home from Appliances Online, with this photo that I submitted during their fortnightly live show! This is WELL worth tuning in to if you can, as they’ve super generous with the prizes – note that references to AO or using their logo are often winners!
 

And Brabantia wanted photos of their Wallfix in use, and I won a new ironing board, laundry bag and pegbag with my grey elephant constructed from sweatshirts…
 

Jackpot Joy asked for gameshow themed photos in one of their fun comps, so I submitted my take on Carol Vorderman doing Countdown and won a digital camera:
 

J2O was a competition I tried to get everyone to enter, as with daily prizes there was a great chance of winning. I entered around ten times and bagged two £20 vouchers.
 

Perfect timing for the new house, I won a £500 Hillarys Blinds voucher on Pinterest. Also on Pinterest, I won a £500 McArthur Glen voucher which came in useful to clothe the family for winter.

I entered a handful of radio competitions, winning an iPad Mini on Capital FM – perfect entertainment for Rob’s daily commute to London – and a new Canon printer for my office with Juice Brighton. £250 Maplin vouchers from a text comp in my local paper was spent on a coffee machine, shredder and loads of plastic storage boxes for the house move!

I did manage to squeeze in a few video entries – this one for the #eBayStories competition won me £200 PayPal credit:
 

And this one for the #WhichStyleisUpYourStreet competition won me three pairs of Kurt Geiger stilettoes worth £850 – this only had a handful of entries, as you needed to own a pair of KG shoes to take part.
 

I even won a birthday cake for my Mum’s 70th with this birthday message for Travel Republic:
 

Other prizes included £100 Petit Bateau vouchers, £100 M&S vouchers with Vanish, while Ryland dancing won him £100 of Disney toys – all of these were low entry video comps which took an hour or so to do!

One of the best prizes I had in 2013 was £500 of shopping and restaurant vouchers – and I didn’t even win them myself! The charming Ben Shephard won them for me by pairing shoes on the Shop Talk online chat show…
 

As Christmas approached, I won two big Lego prizes with photos of Ryland enjoying his Lego vehicles…
 

…and heard that I’d won an iPhone 5s in a prize draw with Busuu on Facebook.
 

Finally, I had some fun this Christmas with my silly photos, winning a Greggs voucher and an Accessorise scarf. My Santa selfie won me a Nokia Lumia 1020 when my ‘disguise’ popped up as a winner on screen during Homeland. I almost fell off the sofa with shock!
 

And there you have it – my 2013 successes in a blog post. A wonderful, exciting year that made me love my hobby more than ever!

Competition!

Like last year’s SuperLucky Stories post, I’d love to do a post about YOUR 2013 creative wins (videos, photos, treasure hunts, Pinterest etc) – and I’ll be picking one contributor at random to win a surprise bundle of comping goodies from Amazon!

To take part, send your photo, video or link along with your postal address to di@superlucky.co.uk before Monday 13th January 2014 – I’ll only publish your first name with your contribution, and you can tell me about just one prize, or as many of your wins as you like!

Thanks for enjoying my SuperLucky blog – and best of luck with your comping in 2014!