A Giveaway

After a brief hiatus from work I am happy to say that Lark is back in business! I've made lots of changes including new services and new pricing! Also, there are some changes to Roost! Take a peak around and let me know what you think.

Now on to business! In honor of getting back into the swing of things I am hosting a giveaway. The winner will be chosen at random and will recieve a

FREE!!! CUSTOM BLOG BANNER DESIGN

designed by me.

So what does this mean? Well, follow the instructions below and if you are chosen as the winner you and I will work together to create a unique and very special blog banner for your new or existing blog. Doesn't that sound groovy?

To enter simply leave a comment telling me your favorite child hood summer memory....

I have too many but one that comes to mind is swinging in the hamock with my dad while he sang "In the Jungle, The Mighty Jungle"....he could really nail those high notes! :)

To double your chances of winning mention this giveaway on Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog and let me know about it in another comment.

The giveaway will be closed Sunday July 4th!

** Please make sure you leave some form of contact (email or url) so I can get in touch with the winner**

Update on Jul 5, 2010 by Coco

The giveaway is now closed! Thank you to everyone who entered! I will announce the winner on Tuesday :)

Comments

[Lindsay]

OOoooo....I'd love a custom blog banner!

Every summer when we were little, we would go down to Seaside with another family and cram into a beach house! We had so much fun riding our bikes all around seaside, not to mention the beautiful beaches!!!! Lots of memories made!

[Laurel sauls]

I would be thrilled to win a blog banner! My favorite childhood summer memory is driving down dirt country roads on Saturday evenings with my family, listening to A Prairie Home Companion. Good times :)

[Petra]

My best childhood summer memory is in Finland. Sitting on porch of our summer cottage, early in the morning. Sun is shining and my grandmother is making breakfast. I can feel the warmth of sun on my skin while smelling the comforting smell of bacon and strong black coffee.

[Jen]

I love your style and would love a custom blog banner! My favourite childhood summer memory ... when the raspberries were ready for picking in my Grandmother's garden. We were hardly tall enough to reach them but we would carefully pick them and put them into our little baskets. And every once in a while, one wouldn't make it into the basket ;) Nothing like a warmed-from-the-sun, fresh picked raspberry!

[Martha]

Oh I would love a new blog banner! Let's take a stroll down memory lane.....me and my older brothers would always sneak off to this creak and pretend we were pirates, I of course was the more "prissy: pirate but we had so much fun and thought we were so sneaky but our mother always knew where we were going :)

[Stephanie]

What a fun idea! I'm actually a new follower. I stumbled across your site on Friday via 20somethingbloggers and food blog recommedations. Anyways, I manage and write two blogs so a new banner would be great!

http://thesingleslant.blogspot.com/
http://culinariablog.com/

So you asked to share your fave summer memory. Well, I am a water baby. I legit lived in a swimsuit all summer since my grandma had a pool in her backyard in the country. She also lived on a lake. Whether it was asking my parents or grandparents to time me swimming underwater, judge my dives or new ballet routine (my fave was reinacting Swan Lake), or "design" dresses out of beach towel...I was always having fun at the pool! I was also a bit of a tomboy and could be found catching salamanders, frogs, turtles (which we named teenage ninja turtle names), or snakes. Looking back, being around my family and having fun being the silly girl that I am was always entertaining and brought me great joy! Thanks for letting me share!

[Laura]

Under water, at the noisy town pool, sunlight filters through the silence in broken shafts. Wet, I make my way through the trees to the dilapidated old building that was once a hotel from the turn of the century, now it's completely gone, but then it was a community Rec. center. I hear the can being kicked in the dirt on the path along the way and we all hide. Holding my breath, so not to be found. Tag, you're it! Running, trying to catch my breath, we all retreat into the dark, cool woods and it's quiet again. Later I'll return with the others along this winding, sun-streaked path to the community Rec., with its bent wooden floors and walls and chaos mingling with crafts on all sides. And in the small, dusty library in the back room I would find a book and sail away into another world. Only to come home when I want to.

[Laura]

Childhood summer memories: my submission found at http://www.roostblog.com/roost/a-giveaway.html?lastPage=true#comment8824455

[Julz]

My favorite summer memory is walking 2 miles with all the kids in our city block to the nearest public pool, swimming all day and then stopping on the way home before supper for a popsicle from a neighborhood grocery store in a wet swim suit, tired and sun-drenched.

Love your style and would welcome all the help I can get on my blog. :-)

Julie

[Teresa Savage]

One of my favorite summertime childhood memories was family camping trips and taking the canoe out onto the lake. My dad would almost always stand up and start rocking the boat saying "whoa whoa we're gonna flip!" We never flipped or went in - he was quite the jokester. :)

I love your work and would really enjoy a blog banner!
Teresa

[EmilyY]

I have been wanting to start a blog, so I would love a customized banner! One of my favorite memories growing up was when we lived in Maine for a summer and we went out to fields and picked massive amounts of strawberries and blueberries! Then my mom would always make a yummy cobbler with homemade Maine ice cream after dinner. :)

[laurentrain]

my favorite memory would have to be the endless summer days spent at the pool. Mom would bring us McDonalds daily and we would stay at the pool from the time it opened til it closed! ...now, since I am in an office 5 days a week I really miss the good ole days of being a pool rat!

[Melissa]

Yay for a new post and a giveaway! I'd LOVE one of your custom banners!!

I lived in Kentucky until I was 7, and there is truly nothing like the summer nights there. I loved chasing lightening bugs in my yard, catching them, and putting them in mason jars with holes cut in the lids so they could breathe. Erin and I would stare at the glowing jars for what seemed like hours!

[Melissa]

just left a status update on facebook about the giveaway! thanks for such a great opportunity!

m

[Ashley]

Oooooh...FUN GIVEAWAY!! :)

Favorite Summer Memory: Picking blackberries with my mom and sister at our family farm, coming home with our baskets filled to the brim (and faces covered in blackberry stains! hehe!) and making a yummy-licious cobbler with homemade ice cream. Mmmmm...

[Dawn (KitchenTravels)]

What a great giveaway! I have so many favorite childhood summer memories. I just wrote about one on my blog: picking blackberries with my cousins in North Carolina. Another would be swimming with my brother and sister, when we would "talk," give each other kisses, and laugh ... all underwater. Childhood really is the best. :)

BTW - your new site design looks beautiful.

[Dawn (KitchenTravels)]

I tweeted about your giveaway! http://twitter.com/KitchenTravels

[Dawn (KitchenTravels)]

Hmmm... my comment about berry picking in N.C. + swimming with my siblings was attributed to "Ashley" for some reason?? Weird!

[Sarah Margaret Wade]

A favorite childhood memory of mine would have to be making sand-pies in our backyard sandbox. I'd decorate the top of them, making patterns with red Nandina berries, and then I'd set up a make-believe store and pretend to sell them.

[Devon Gregory]

Oh, YAY!!!! I'm so happy your doing design again. Funny - I actually just e-mailed some of the people you sent me TODAY (I was in secret mourning I would not get to work with you), but I would love a little freebie too! :)

My favorite summer memory: picking blackberries outside out neighborhood pool wrapped up in towels and smelling of chlorine. Our fingers would be purple and our arms all scrapped up, but we would have quite the bounty for cobbler making and cereal-topping. Oh, how I do love blackberries!

P.S. Loving the new look - although I loved your old one, too!

[Coco]

Dawn, it looks like your comment went through...the one above yours is Ashley's so perhaps you saw her name above yours and thought yours was signed Ashley :)

[Lillian]

So many childhood summer memories involve water - pools, beaches, water parks, swimming lessons. I just couldn't get enough! I love it, too, because I'm now able to watch as my own little ones are growing their own sweet summer memories and they're both loving everything water-related as well:)

[britney]

love your blog and such a fabulous giveaway! memory: we lived in florida at one point while growing up and my favorite tradition happened during the Christmas season. We would pack a late-night picnic and drive with the car top down to the beach, looking at all of the light displays along the way. My brother and I sat nestled under a quilt in the back seat singing Christmas carols at the top of our lungs. Once there we'd chase the waves and eat our packed treats.

[Egle]

Coco, I love the new look of 'Roost'. It looks so chic, elegant and stylish. Perhaps there is no need to mention, that are so talented and did really an incredible job!! Love it here.

My sweetest memory of childhood summers is me and my daddy going far away from the city filled with dusts and picking small wild strawberries. We used to take our bikes and ride a long way down to the forest where these sweet sweet berries were growing up. Just chillin' around, joking and eating bunches of berries straight forward after we picked them. Those were the times...

[Egle]

And I tweeted about your giveaway here: https://twitter.com/zaidimuaikstele

[Danucite]

Hi, Coco! The most deeply embedded memory of my childhood is me sitting and reading a book in my hidden treehouse (a big tree with comfortable branches to sit in) in a small village near the Baltic Sea. I was living there all my Summers together with my Mom, my sister and my brother. I loved being alone now and then and I loved reading - treehouse was my perfect dreaming place.

[Danucite]

I made the post of your wonderful site and Giveaway on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/dana.kalnina

[Brooke McClurkin]

Wow! What a wonderful giveaway, we could really use it!

[Rosy]

Strawberry picking with my Mum - I was terrible and didn't help at all, just sat on the straw covered ground munching on as many berries as I could!!

[Brenda Bruce]

The "gift for you" is exactly what I need to get my blog started! Your beautiful pictures and graphics set a very pleasant and peaceful presence to your website. Very inviting!!
Growing up, each day brought new exciting outdoor adventures. I loved spending time outside! But I must say that the most memorable time would be rushing across the old wooden plank that extended over the little creek next to our home to see my friend. We would then go out to the greenhouse to play "hide and seek" amongst all the plants. The smell of freshly watered soil was amamzing to me. After our time of playing, we would head out to pick some wild blackberries. These blackberries were only perfect after placing them into a bowl of fresh milk and a little sugar. Absolutely delicious!! Memories......

[Spike]

summers at the beach with my brothers

[Sherri B.]

I would love to have you design my banner especially since I really don't have one. My favorite childhood summer memory would have to be when I would stay with my grandparants and would help my grandmother in the garden and then bring the produce in for dinner...it's always about food with me.

[Jill]

I love custom headers and would be thrilled to have you design mine! Best blog give-away ever :) Thank you!

[Missy]

I can't tell you how excited I was when I found your blog (via Sprouted Kitchen) yesterday! And then to top it off I read this post about your banner giveaway, and I would be thrilled to have my new cooking blog ( afarmerscookingjourney.blogspot.com ) made over!
As far as my favorite summer memory goes, I think hands down the memory that is most vivid were our beach nights. I grew up in Northern California, and every Sunday after church a bunch of us families would drive out to the beach and spend the evening watching the beautiful sunset, and making s'mores by the fire. It is something I will always remember. Sadly enough we moved to Arizona, and although I can't spend my evenings at the beach, we still make fires nearly every night, and roast s'mores!

[Missy]

I just updated my facebook, and am working on a blog post as I type!

[Melani]

We're in Cornwall, my back is tanned but my front is completely white as I've spent the summer bent over exploring tide pools, we're on the pier fishing for crabs. We lower buckets with some kind of white bait, I can't remember what but I think it's some kind of fish, we lower our yellow buckets attached with red string down off the pier and they come back up filled with crabs, crawling all over each other. I can feel the sun, how happy I was there with my mum, dad and sister and the delight of seeing things coming up out of the water.

[Missy]

I just posted a blog about this!

http://afarmerscookingjourney.blogspot.com/2010/07/cutsom-blog-banner-contest.html

[Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets]

I'd love a custom banner. Wonderful giveaway :).

[Lauren]

My favorite summer memory is when my family and my good friend's family rented a big house on the beach. It was so fun to get to "live" with my friend for a week!

[Elise Dean]

I loved playing kickball with my neighbors, swinging as high as the sky, and playing from sun up to sun down with my best friend/sister :)

[Joan]

The smell of lime-trees and hot air on a countryside where I spend almost all summer every year. Mine grandmother old fashioned polish pie - strawberry in a June, blueberry in a July, Applepie in an august. Free time with my sister - playing hide and seek with a plot - we have small forest next to the house. It was our kingdom. After many ours of being Janes in a jungle we come back to eat Pierogi with a sour cream. We sat outside with a cup of fruit Kompot and wait for sun to come down.

[Rachel (Hounds in the Kitchen)]

I love our summer camping trips.

[Marcia]

Eating home grown watermelon under the shade of our peach trees.

[Marie]

When the ice cream truck was in town, we could hear it coming. So we use to start running in its direction to get the best choice of frozen treat. My favorite one was the rocket!

[Brenda Bruce]

Just shared your post with a "pioneer woman" friend of mine (on facebook). :) Found your post originally on her website!

[Carrie]

Your blog is so beautiful - and I would love, love, love for you to create free banner art!! WOW!

My favorite childhood memory..being outside ALL day long. Popping tar bubbles on the road, picking wild blackberries, cooling our feet in the creek, playing flashlight tag with all our neighborhood friends. So wonderful!

[Emily]

My favorite childhood memory would be swimming in our backyard pool every year on my birthday! I am loving the new design for the blog!!

[Jenny]

Just like everyone else, I want to say how beautifully designed your blog is! I think my favorite childhood memory is going to Coney Island Wiener Stand with my family... and getting to pick songs on the jukebox while I ate my coney dogs and drank my redpop. :)

[Mosey]

My favorite summer memory is going to the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi and spending time with my grandmother.

C- I love your work and would love to have it on the blog! I also would love to see you if you get this sometime this weekend. We'll be here until Sunday afternoon and then we're headed to Portland. Call me if you can meet up tomorrow! 205.527.7208

Mary Morrow

[liz berg]

I have a lot to learn about blogging, but a wonderful banner from you would be a great step into making a fabulous looking blog. Love your site!!!