An EGG~cellent Treat for TWO!

Two Winners will win a 
Egg Cup Bunny & Premo! 24 color Sampler set. 

To enter visit and leave a comment on the giveaway post on
Swirly Designs Facebook page before Tuesday April 1st at 11:59 pm.
To double your chances enter on the
 Polyform Products Facebook page.

You can find the How-to of this project on the sculpey website!
Two random winners will be chosen and announced on 
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
Your Easter Treats will be sent to you just in time for Easter! 

Hop to it!

Our American Made story

Hello!
Happy August! Can't believe how fast summer is flying by!

We received an email this week about Martha Stewart honoring 10 American Makers at an upcoming event they are hosting this fall.

If you are Creative Entrepreneurs who is making products that are innovative, inspiring and beautiful you should enter! We thought we would enter our little Swirlies into the mix and see what happens.  We will let you know how it goes. There might be some kind of voting come September that we might need some help on as well. 

Here is our page on the Martha Stewart site. We did notice that some of our profile text was cut off as well as weird cropping with some of our photos... so we thought we would re-post them again here:

Here is the full text that we uploaded:
Our American made story:

Welcome to Swirly Designs studio where we create holiday cheer all year!

We are Lianne & Paul Stoddard the artist and creators behind Swirly Designs where our passion for decorating for the holidays inspired us to combine our artistic skills to create our own collection of original handmade polymer clay ornaments.

Our story began in art school in Boston. I studied graphic design, while Paul majored in Illustration. In school, I dabbled in polymer clay. I made jewelry and pins for family and friends. I loved the way the clay was easy to use and I could create unique pieces.

After graduating, we both pursued work in our field but we were always drawn back to working with our hands. Going back to the medium that I discovered in school, we started to experiment with creating pieces in polymer clay.

We launched Swirly Designs right around the time we got married, in 2000. Being artists and designers we tend to be a little picky when searching for holiday ornaments for our own tree. Not finding exactly what were we looking, we decided to create our own ornaments using polymer clay.

Combining my graphic design sensibility and Paul’s illustrative talent we created whimsical pieces and started giving them as gifts to family and friends who then encouraged us to start selling them. We produced a small catalog one holiday season, taking our own pictures and designing the catalog ourselves. That proved to be a success, and the following year we got a booth at a local holiday craft show here in Boston. The response to our ornaments was so great! We sold lots of ornaments during that show plus heard lots of positive feedback from customers. This was enough encouragement for to us do this full time.

Each and every ornament is hand-sculpted, hand-painted and beautifully embellished by us as we interpret traditional holiday images through a contemporary lens all while juggling our growing family.

Our studio is always swirling with new and interesting holiday festivities and we are so blessed our ornaments have become part of so many people’s holiday traditions.  

-------------

 

 Wish us luck!

Oh how we LOVE gifts!

Happy Friday everyone!
Today we received a package from Martha Stewart.

Why you ask? Well back in February we entered a photo contest that they were running.
Last week we were notified from MarthaStewart.com that our Valentine Garland How-to project was one of the winners of the Martha Stewart Living Handmade Valentine Photo Contest they had on their website. Yeahhhh for us!


Our how-to garland project was created with the Martha Stewart Crafts heart shape punch.


It was so exciting to open the package and see what we won. Inside was a letter on MSLO letterhea, a 12 x 12 pad of spring colors scrapbook paper and one of her Punch around the Page set.

Thanks Martha for our gifts and we look forward to crafting with our new cool products.
Have a crafty weekend everyone!

Meeting Matthew Mead and a GIVEAWAY!

Last week I had the pleasure to attend the Matthew Mead Decorating for the Holidays presentation at Company C in Concord NH. Lianne really wanted to attend event to but had went to represen the both of us. So I apologize for the bad photos..that iss usually Lianne's forte.


So I did the hour drive to Concord NH to check out the presentation, not really knowing what to expect. The event was held at Company C, a retail store full of colorful modern home furnishing. They set up a large screen in the middle of the store, showing the cover of Holiday with Matthew Mead. I spoke to one of the sales people and they said they were expecting approx 130 people at the event. I wasn't able to get a seat but I did manage to work my way towards the front of the room to snap a few pics.


Here is Matthew Mead introducing himself to the crowd and sharing a little about his background. If you haven't met Matthew before, he is a very friendly apporoachable creative gentleman. His hour or so long presentation was full of behind the scenes stories (which I personally love to know) and photos of the process of creating and producing his new holiday magazine.


During the presentation he also invited a few people in the audience to come up and see how simple and easy a lot of the projects and desserts are to create that were featured in the book~azine.


Here is the red paper wreath along with other wreath samples that is displayed on the cover of the magazine. Matthew explained to everyone how simple it is to recreate this for your own front door.


There were two tables full of items that were featured in the magazine.


After the presentation Matthew took some questions from the crowd. I found out that Matthew is hoping to make his magazine quarterly and the next issue will most likely be Summer. We were also treated to taste some of the yummy cookie recipes that are in the magazine. I got to sample the Austrian Chocolate Ball cookie..it was yummy!


Matthew then stuck around to meet a great and sign copies of his book~azine. So, as always I was thinking of our wonderful swirly blog readers, I picked up an extra issue and had Matthew sign it (see above image) for one lucky swirly reader....


So here is all you need to do for this early Christmas Gift GIVEAWAY!!

One lucky winner will receive an autographed copy of Holiday with Matthew Mead.
Just leave a comment on our blog sharing something to do about the Holidays (an idea, tip, color, memory... anything goes).

Contest will end midnight MONDAY DECEMBER 6TH (EST) we will pick one random winner and send them this wonderful autographed book~azine just in time for Christmas.

FIVE Optional Bonus Entries - Leave each extra entry in a separate comment.
• Follow Swirly Designs on Twitter and let us know in your comment
• Like Swirly Designs on Facebook and let us know in your comment
• Follow the Swirly Blog and let us know in your comment
• Join our e-mailing list and let us know in your comment
• If you have your own Blog, spread the word about our giveaway on your Blog and let us know in your comment, with a link.

~ Good Luck!!

THIS GIVEAWAY WILL RUN THROUGH MIDNIGHT ON DECEMBER 6, 2010 (EST). WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN USING RANDOM.ORG FROM ALL VALID ENTRIES AND NOTIFIED VIA EMAIL. WINNER WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO CONTACT US BEFORE ANOTHER WINNER IS CHOSEN.
GIVEAWAY IS OPEN TO U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY (18+).

And the Winner is.....

A huge thanks to everyone who entered our little Halloween Pumpkin Treat Box giveaway over the weekend. We were very happy with the responses and we plan on doing more giveaways this Holiday season.

Soooo without further ado....

The lucky winner of our Halloween Pumpkin Treat box is:
Celina from Scrap Vamp

Celina email us your shipping information so we can send you this little treat in time for Halloween!

Thanks everyone!

Swirly Halloween Blog Party GIVEAWAY!

What's a party without a party favor... How about a GIVEAWAY!!

We will be giving away one of our limited edition Halloween Pumpkin Treat Box to a lucky party goer who leaves a comment on our blog sharing something to do about Halloween (an idea, tip, memory... whatever goes).

Then at the end of the party (contest will end midnight Tuesday Oct 19th (EST) we will pick one winner and send them our treat box just in time for Halloween.

Optional Bonus Entries - Leave each extra entry in a separate comment.
• Follow Swirly Designs on Twitter and let us know in your comment
• Like Swirly Designs on Facebook and let us know in your comment
• Follow the Swirly Blog

~ Goul Luck!!

THIS GIVEAWAY WILL RUN THROUGH MIDNIGHT ON OCTOBER 19, 2010 (EST). WINNER WILL BE CHOSEN USING RANDOM.ORG FROM ALL VALID ENTRIES AND NOTIFIED VIA EMAIL. WINNER WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO CONTACT US BEFORE ANOTHER WINNER IS CHOSEN.
GIVEAWAY IS OPEN TO U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY (18+).

Update Matthew Mead Holiday magazine

We mention a few weeks ago that Matthew Mead will be coming out with a new Holiday magazine in 2010.
Well, we have an update and a link to the new website and how you can have an opportunity to be mention in the magazine:
Head over to Holiday with Matthew Mead to find out how you can win the opportunity to have your blog or online shop mentioned in the magazine. Holiday with Matthew Mead is a "book-azine" celebrating and offering inspiration for the Christmas holiday season. To be released in October 2010, Holiday is offered via online orders only - in limited quantities - and will not be sold on newsstands. But, by simply following the BUY HOLIDAY MAGAZINE link below their banner, you can reserve your own copy of this beautiful magazine, with guaranteed delivery of the magazine straight to your mailbox! Holiday with Matthew Mead is 144 pages of holiday inspiration with well-known and admired designers, bloggers and top-notch features, printed on beautiful paper and not drowning in ads!
Now, head on over for your chance to win!
~ Tell Matthew Swirly Designs sent you.

And the winner is...

Congratulations to... Artfulife
You are the winner of our darling Swirly sunny bunny ornament!
Contact us with your mailing information so we can have this shipped to you asap.

Thanks to everyone who entered our last minute Easter giveaway!
Have a Hoppy Day



*The winner was chosen via random.org number generator.*

A Swirly Easter Giveaway

Spring is here!...well actually we had snow here today in Boston.. but that's another post. Snow or not, Easter is right around the corner (April 4th) and because we are still feeling bad that we weren't able to create a new Easter collection this season (we will have a spring collection coming out in May though) we thought we'd do a Giveaway instead. YAY!


We will pick ONE winner to receive our very popular Swirly White Bunny holding a flower sitting atop a field of yellow, finished with a touch of glitter.
Just in time to celebrate Easter or to welcome Spring. Perfect to tie to someone's Easter basket or give as a nice hostess gift for the holiday.



Here is how you can enter to win this Swirly Bunny ornament:
Just leave a comment on this post and/or follow our blog(via Google friend). If you do both you will have an extra entry for the giveaway.

A winner will be chosen using Random.org on Sunday, March 28, 2010 and will be notified by email. The winner will have 24 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

Don't let this little cutie hop away! Enter today!

Mini Swirly Bunnies on Martha website

How very eggciting for us!
Last year we entered Martha's Easter Creation photo contest. Being huge Easter fans we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to submit a how-to project to her readers. So we sent in our mini swirly bunny how-to project. Swirly Designs was one of the 10 winners to the contest and we won a really cool portable harddrive.

Today we got and an email from a friend telling us that our Swirly bunnies are on the Martha Stewart website under the Your Creations section here.

All of you crafty and creative readers of our blog, go to Martha site and enter your new 2010 Easter creations and maybe you will be this years winner.

ThatsIT!Mommy blog GIVEAWAY

Want to win a Swirly ornament? Check out a wonderful new blog called thatsIt!Mommy

Its a blog by Cecy and Tee who are working parents and first time mommies who blog about their girls’ wacky adventures and will bring you news about events happening in the Greater L.A. area.

Stop by and enter to win!

A gift from Martha

Who doesn't love a free gift. A few months back the Martha Stewart website did a holiday workshops on their website. They have done Halloween workshops in the past and this year they did an Easter workshop. It's a great place to share holiday decorating ideas and pictures. They were also running a contest "Share Us your best Easter projects and Win", so we submitted a couple of our "how-to" projects. We weren't necessarily submitting to win but more for sharing our fun how-to projects. We entered our Springtime Swirly Carrot and the Mini Swirly Bunny

....well a few weeks ago we were notified that we were chosen as one of the winners. YEAH!!!
We were very excited to have been picked and our prize arrived today in the mail:



a 320GB Seagate FreeAgent® Go portable hard drive with docking station to store our favorite photos, videos, music, and more.

Thank you very much Martha & MSLO :)