Gratefulness Friday: Enter to Win a $50 Gift Certificate to the Paraders Vintage!

**THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED! THANK YOU TO ALL FOR ENTERING!!*

Hello and happy GRATEFULNESS FRIDAY GIVEAWAY, vintage lovers!

First, for those of you who are new to my site, welcome!! To those of you who are returning — and coming back day after day to see what’s new! — THANK YOU!!

I want to start off today’s gratefulness Friday post with a “thank you affirmation” for being here, because I have decided that moving forward my #1 goal is to give more attention to this site. I want you to come here everyday and see a new post that is enlightening, educational and encouraging.

I believe that it is my sincere duty to create the “who, what, where, when, why” online destination for vintage lovers everywhere: Thank you for helping to make this a reality!

Now, onto the giveaway!!

Sammy Davis Vintage lovers new and old: Today’s post is my chance to literally “spread vintage love” by writing a post inspired by my personal thoughts of gratefulness as experienced during the week, and then ask you a gratefulness-provoking question to answer in the blog post comments or Facebook comments in order to enter today’s giveaway.

Today’s giveaway is a glorious one because it is my FIRST where you are winning a gift certificate to a fabulous online vintage store: The Paraders Vintage.

Not only that, but you can shop the Paraders all weekend long using the coupon code “SAMMY D” at checkout to get 20% off your purchases.

Keep reading after the jump to learn how my mom’s incessant phone calls inspired my gratefulness story this week, and to learn how you can enter this week’s giveaway with your own story of the “gift of family.”

This week’s giveaway is a particularly special one because for the first time EVER, I’m hosting The Paraders Vintage founder Rachael in this Sunday evening’s Google + hangout live video chat.

We had a great conversation with some seriously stylish vintage lovers last week, and I’d love for some of you to join in on this week’s video chat to connect with other vintage lovers and learn how The Paraders Vintage buy, sell & market great vintage pieces from the Heartland of America — CHICAGO!

Please be on the lookout for my announcement on Facebook for the 8PM EST chat this Sunday, November 6th. Check out this blog post from last week for more information on how to set up Google + — and add me to your “circles” by clicking here!

I can’t wait for so many of you to enter today’s giveaway! Thank YOU for spreading vintage love, and have a glorious fall weekend, all!

xx, SD

 

I’M GRATEFUL FOR … MY MOM’S MULTIPLE PHONE CALLS!

My Mom & Dad, circa sometime the early ’90s — check out her blazer’s snazzy stripes!

While closing up shop at A Little Wicked last night my mom called me.

Now, my mom calls me A LOT — practically every other day or so. And each time she calls she says something to the tune of “not having spoken to me in a while” and “wanting to catch up.”

She calls me so often that admittedly, sometimes I ignore her phone calls! I’m sure you’ve all been in the same place with your parents or another member of your family who is frequently in touch about, well, not a whole lot!

Now while I could have waited to call my mom back last night, I decided to return her ring while closing because I’d already ignored her call two days before (woops!) It was time to “catch up about nothing” in other words!

After having spoken to my mom for a quick 10 minutes as I walked from the store to the subway to hop a train home, I got to thinking about just how lucky I am to have a mom who wants nothing but the best for me — which is why she calls me multiple times a week!

As I rode the train home, I stepped back in time to reflect on how much my mom has positively influenced me as both a parent, a friend and a source of inspiration to be a confidently independent young woman.

For as far back as I can remember, my mom was a “working mom.” While my friends’ in elementary school were picked up by their mom’s at 3PM sharp, I had to hang out in the “after school program” until 6PM, when my mom would come RUSHING in to take us home wearing a sleek business suit, a snazzy pin and her hair and makeup still perfect after a 8AM to 5:30PM job as a bank manager.

Looking back, my mom was always doing a gazillion things at once. She was a working professional and a wonderful mother, wife and person. She wasn’t just a source of income to our family, but a source of inspiration to her children, too.

If my brother and I wanted to join a sports team, YES! She would make it work and get us in a carpool so we had a ride home from practice while she was still at work.

If I wanted to have a big party with all of our friends at the house, YES! She would let me send out the invitations and plan the food and fun myself — I can clearly remember hosting the most epic sleepovers with 10+ girls in middle school. How she dealt with so many preteens making a mess with makeup and clothes in one space, I don’t know!

My mom was a super mom, but it wasn’t the fact that she took care of her family that made her super. It was the fact that she took care of HERSELF and her own professional goals by climbing the ladder of our local bank so that she could use her talents and intellect for her own self fulfillment.

While it wasn’t always easy having two parents who worked full time, it was thanks to my mom’s demonstration of self reliance through her work that she was able to teach her family how to be independent in ways that I have only registered with me now in my ’20s.

We wanted more money? Here are your chores for that allowance! Do you want to join the basketball team? You need to ask a friend to carpool with you! You want to go to college and study abroad in the UK, live in NYC for summer internship and eventually MOVE to the Big Apple after college graduation? Well young lady, you need to apply for scholarships!

My mom never thought twice about being a full time corporate working mom: It was what she HAD (and WANTED!) to do, because it was finding her own independence away from family life that ultimately inspired my brother and I to grow up believing that “we could do anything” with hard work and focus.

Now that I’m successfully living in the city and chartering my own career path of making vintage fashion accessible to the contemporary woman, my 56-year-old mother calls me often to see “what she needs to teach me.” And while I get frustrated at these frequent calls in certain moments, I can shift my perspective to see that she’s doing exactly what she’s always done to inspire me and remind me of the power I have within.

Next time a member of your family calls you for the “gazillionith time,” or bothers you with the same probing questions when you visit for the soon-to-come holidays, shift your thinking from “annoyance” at their interest to “appreciation” and “admiration” of it instead.

Because my mom worked full time while raising a family, she is one of the top mortgage agents at her bank, helping people everyday to buy the home of their dreams.

She does nothing but give to her community through her talents, and at the end of the day what does she do? She calls her children to simply GIVE some more.

I am grateful for my mom’s inspiration in my life — both then, now and forever into the future!

xx, SD

WIN A $50 GIFT CERTIFICATE TO THE PARADERS VINTAGE!

HOW TO ENTER GRATEFULNESS GIVEAWAY #15

For a chance to win a gift certificate to The Paraders Vintage Etsy shop valued at $50, you must enter between today Friday, November 4th and by midnight on Monday, November 7th.

You can only enter once, and all winners will be drawn at random using the site random.org. Winners will be announced by Wednesday, November 9th.

For this giveaway, you must do **3** things to officially enter. But no worries — they aren’t hard!

FIRST

1. Follow The Paraders blog

SECOND (CHOOSE ONE !)

2. Follow The Paraders on Twitter
3. Like The Paraders on Facebook
4. Join The Paraders newsletter

THIRD

Answer the following question in the comment fields or Facebook comment fields below this contest post:

**How has a member of your family done nothing but “give” to you? What did they do and how did it help you?**

 

OTHER IMPORTANT RULES

**Entrants/Winners must be legal U.S. residents of the lower 48 states (not including Alaska and Hawaii) and at least 18 years old as of November 4th, 2011.

**For full contest rules and regulations can be found here

**All information submitted by contestants is subject to Sammy Davis Vintage’s privacy policy found here

 

SUPPORT VINTAGE SELLERS!

The Paraders Vintage reached out to me to coordinate today’s amazing Gratefulness Friday Giveaway — and I am SO grateful that they did!

I am wowed by the attention they give to their online shop. The pieces are pristine and truly remarkable in every sense of the word.

Thanks to their geneorisity, you can not only enter today’s giveaway and perhaps win some free credit toward vintage fashion love, but you can use the code SAMMYD in check out to receive 20% off anything you wish to purchase, too!

Please visit their Etsy shop to see the beautiful vintage pieces above for sale, and more!

Rachael, founder of the Paraders Vintage sent me some lovely words to share with all of you. Please read and be sure to drop them some love in their shop and on Facebook, Twitter and their Blog!

*******

Hello!  I’m Rachael, creator of The Paraders – the online vintage shop of Chicago.

The Paraders is full of wearable vintage from the 20s through the 80s that makes a girl look lovely and feel lovely too!

Our blog compliments the shop style with “dating vintage clothing” posts, vintage buying and styling tips, and my adventures through and aside from the shop.

As our shop expands into a full-blown independent website over the next month, please stay in touch with the Paraders to hear all about what it takes to jump from Etsy into a bigger, scarier market.

Also, stay tuned for our Paraders s/s 2012 dress collection!

Thanks so much for listening and have a wonderful day!

xx, Rachael

*******

THE PARADERS VINTAGE SELL ON ETSY