A New Way For Bloggers To Run Giveaways + BH Cosmetics Giveaway Update

Wow so much for keeping up with blogging!  Even that turns out to be difficult with my stupid broken foot!  Crutches make it hard to even get around the house -- it's a pain to mess with my lightbox, lug my camera around, and set up props or products for pics -- thus making me too lazy to take pictures for my posts.  I mean I could blog all day if it was just the writing part but who wants to see posts without pics??

It's officially been two weeks in my cast and I've done pretty much nothing except read and watch tv.  My brain has turned to mush from watching all four seasons of Gossip Girl.  I have to say, I don't think Blake Lively is very photogenic because I always thought she looked average and was surprised the model-loving Leo would date her.

That is until I saw her in the Green Lantern, which then in turn prompted me to finally watch Gossip Girl.  She looks gorgeous on TV!  The paparazzi pics really don't do her any justice.  And normally I wouldn't watch a show like Gossip Girl but I'm seriously in LOVE with the fashion -- it's like Sex & The City but younger -- absolute fashion porn!  I can't believe it took me so long to catch on!

So once again I've gotten TOTALLY behind on blogging -- I have tons of giveaways, lens reviews, and product reviews pending and also I know everyone's been waiting on the giveaway winners.  I actually have my Sigma Giveaway winners ready but will be announcing them in tomorrow's post.  Why do I feel as if I always lag on announcing giveaway winners haha?  Maybe because it takes AGES to organize spreadsheets and check the thousands of entries.  Which is why I was really excited to discover Rafflecopter!

Rafflecopter is an AWESOME new way for bloggers to run their giveaways efficiently.  Basically you can enter all the giveaway requirements, say how many entries each requirement is worth, and include a clickable link.  It saves so much time because it simplifies the entry to the readers -- they don't have to count or figure out how many points they have and they can simply click a link to follow you on Twitter or Facebook.

It also protects the privacy of the entrant so they don't have to leave their e-mail in a comment which can lead to spam, allows you to export the entries to an Excel spreadsheet, and my FAVORITE part -- it pretty much auto checks all entries for you AND detects any duplicate entries.  With this I can finally announce winners the next day!  Rafflecopter is still in beta so it definitely has some kinks they need to work out.  It's also currently invite only but if you sign up for the waitlist, they usually send out an invite code within a few days.  Sign up here.

So I'm giving it a little test run today.  I spoke with BH Cosmetics and they have agreed to give me an extension on my 88 Color Cool Matte Palette Giveaway.  I've already entered all the previous entrants into a form and the new entrants can try out my Rafflecopter form.  It will only run for 3 days from today until Friday at midnight EST.  I've had to change around the point system a bit but not to worry -- for those of you who already entered I added the correct number of points to match the new rules.  Please do not re-enter as Rafflecopter will find you haha!