MAY WINS

***STATS***

Comps Entered: approx 2600, plus approx. 1000 Twitter RT's

Comps Won: 35

Ratio: 1:103

Approx Prize Value: £1401

Longest Winning Streak: 9 Days Straight

Non-Comping Days: 6

Some dude with funny hair, a heroin addiction and a penchant for cartoon bananas once sang "you're going to reap just what you sow" and that has been my feeling for this month. I took a week off comping to do some script (re)writing and although its likely that I've missed out on a few competitions, I figured it would be for the greater good. And I was right! My hard work paid off and my short film script got chosen to be made for broadcast on the BBC. Stay tuned! I think its true with comping also- put in the hard work and eventually it really does pay off!

May also brought us Star Wars day, some bank holidays, the FA Cup, Eurovision, a new series of Twin Peaks and my youngest cats birthday! Unfortunately the hashtag #InternationalShizumaZeroDay was not trending, so I was unable to enter any comps for that. Meow.

I've added a couple of extra stats to this months post: 'winning streak' (how many days in a row I have won a prize) and number of 'non-comping days', just for fun. Oh and I was asked if I would be doing some infographics. At some point I might attempt some swingometer style animations, but for now its pie charts. I do love a good pie chart: here's a nice one to start with, to illustrate where this months wins come from (BTW Im not really big into doing Facebook competitions...Im sure I would win lots more if I did, but I like keeping my FB pretty private).

***ENTRY PLATFORM***

***PRIZES***

1. Personalised Collar Stays- a reet posh prize from the Abercrombie Cumbes Instagram site. A simple follow, comment and like, and out of the 6 entries, mine was chosen. Yay! Im having these personalised for my friend Scot's boyfriend (with a rude pun about being "stiff"- teehee) I think he will love them!

2. Cobra King 7 Fairway Golf Club from a prize draw through the OnlineGolf site. Not many people know this about me, but Im an absolutely fanatical golf fan! No, wait, sorry thats a total lie. I just like entering competitions, and lets face it, sometimes we don't even look at what we are entering. So I won this, its a stick...for hitting things...its worth some cash I guess. I don't actually have any golfing mates to give this too, which is a shame, coz its actually pretty smart. In this case, its getting sold on eBay.

3. "BBQ Voucher" won from a RT & Comment comp on the Sunny D Twitter page. You had to comment what you were doing over the bank holiday weekend and I posted a pic of my mom sat in the garden under an umbrella, trying to enjoy the typical British weather. It worked and they sent us a BBQ!! How nice! Here's the photo...Ive used it for a few comps now!

4. Primark badge set from the OnMyWay_ByMarie Instagram site. A simple comment stating which set of badges you liked- about 6 people commented, but only 2 of us actually said which one we liked (!!!) so by default we won!

5. Drink Me Chai Peppermint Tea from their Instagram site. Just a comment and like- you had to tell them your favourite flavour (mine was Spiced) and they would send the winner a tub. 33 entries in total...I wonder if they gave a tub to everyone?? Either way, a lovely win and a tasty chai tea!

6. Handmade Glass Necklace from an Instagram comp from SusanElizabethDesigns. Simple follow, like, comment, tag comp with only a few entries. Lovely necklace and I know just who to gift it to.

7. Blogger Kit won from a Rafflecopter on the EthanAndEvelyn website. I had 30 out of 180 entries on that, so a 1 in 6 chance of winning. Not bad! And if you are wondering how that would look in a pie chart....

8. Dexters Workwear Power Gloves won on a prize draw comp that appeared on my Facebook. The main prize was for some power tools, with 25 runner-up prizes of the gloves. Wont say no to that!

9. Anatomicals Headache Balm on their Instagram site. This was a re-post comp, which I hate doing, but considering I won with them before, I figured I would give it a go! About 4 days after posting, they messaged me to say I had won, so the next day I deleted the post. That may be a bit rude to the company running the comp and I am a tad unsure of the etiquette on that. If anyone has thoughts on that, let me know!

10. Free Escape Room game at the Cardiff Escape Rooms! This one was trade off of prize v's embarrassment. You had to call them and in your best 'spy' voice say "the seagull has landed". For 10 seconds of cringe I won a free game for me and my mates. I love stuff like this, and in fact, this is the second one we have won (my mate B entered a comp with a different company and won that too!).

***PFFFFFT!*** It was a bit bloody hard too!

11. Phone Power Bank from the Strongbow Epic Festival purchase/prize draw comp. When I got the email my heart skipped a beat and for a moment I thought I might have won the festival experience prize....but no, not this time. Still, cant complain! Power banks are always useful! (Isn't the email title cruel tho??...).

12. Grow-It bags from a Twitter RT and entry form comp by Grow It. We are a family of gardeners, so this is a welcome prize.

13. Tote bag from a prize draw by Healthista. A few winners on this I think and we could choose from a bunch of t-shirts or a tote bag. I liked the tote so went for that.

14. Lia Griffith paper set and subscription won from a prize draw on Folksy. A nice prize for a crafty person like myself, especially the years subscription to the Lia Griffith site, which has loads of templates, tutorials and ideas for things to make at home. The other part of the prize was a load of crepe paper for making paper craft flowers with. This isn't really my thing, but hey, might give it a go!

15. Seoul Station on DVD won from a prize draw in Zeo Magazine. I love winning films...ever since Blockbuster closed I kinda miss handling physical DVD's (its so retro now!!). Plus this looks like a great piece of anime, totally up my street!

16. A £1 scratchcard randomly won on the bigDL app! I saw someone on the Lucky Learners site had won some shot glasses on there, so I figured Id give it a pop. Not sure what the point of the app actually is, but a free scratch card after a few days of playing is kinda cool, especially if I win big!!

***EARWORM ALERT***

17. "Booooorrrrrrnnnnn ffrrrrreeeeeeeeee as free as the wind bloooowwwwwwwssss......" Sorry not sorry! Blu ray copy of Born Free from a Rafflecopter (my least favourite/successful entry method so far), from Flickering Myth- 2 entries out of nearly 800. Haven't seen this film for years, so looking forward to watching that one.

18. Tassimo Coffee Machine! Rydw i'n hoffi coffi!! As all kids who did GCSE Welsh in the 90's know, that was the basic phrase to use in all your exam questions! (NOT REALLY). Anyhoot, this was from a purchase & prize draw competition on BelVita breakfast biscuits (as a side note to that, well done to them for creating a product that we didn't know we needed! Biscuits...for breakfast...thats a thing now??). But yeah, buy the promotional pack, enter your details and the barcode on their site, then you get put in to a prize draw for that week. They give away 150 a week for about 10 weeks I think, so a damn good chance of winning...in fact I was pretty sure I would! 3rd week of entering and I got the happy WEM. Great news, coz I just broke my other one. Oops.

19. Mortal Instruments colouring book from a Rafflecopter (another one!) on the Culturefly site. Sometimes, I wonder why I entered some of these comps....I probably thought it was some cool vampire thing that my mate would like, but she has never heard of it! But hey, Im sure I can find a good home for it, with someone who relishes in colouring outside the lines like I do.

20. Ricola Sweets Tin & Sweets from a prize draw held by Ricola. I think you had to vote for a yodeller, who would then win a holiday or something. I put a vote in for someone who had only a few votes, as I am a fan of the underdog. I don't think it worked. Must remember that when the election comes up...

21. Another £1 Scratchcard from the bigDL app! Lets hope its a winner!

22. No biggie.......just a little competition from a magazine called Marie Claire....only a bloody holiday to Marrakech!!! [insert shocked face emoji!].

This type of competition is known as a 'Mag Daily', where you can enter every day for a few weeks, plus there is the option to share via Twitter, Facebook etc for extra entries, so theoretically you could have maybe around 100+ entries each in this. I entered once. Crazy! Its also very cool that the person handling the prize is called 'Karma'! I guess it was just meant to be. And for a pointless illustration of the chances of winning this, lets take a look at a pie chart...

23. Orange Is The New Black S3 DVD from a Twitter comp with Sony Channel UK. An embarrassing one: tweet them a picture of you with something orange. Im debating whether to put up the picture here...I will see how brave I feel.

***FELT BRAVE***

Please excuse the lack of make-up and crazy hair- I was having a Dr Seuss moment!

24. Carling Zest 4-Pack. Some dude scored a goal in a footie game, which means, according to the Carling Tap app, I can buy some beer and they will give me the money back on it. Chin-chin!

25. Revolution: New Art for a New World DVD, from an unknown competition. Some high-brow documentary that no one has heard of...including me! But sometimes Im an artsy type, and I do love a bit of propaganda.

26. PVC Polytunnel from a RT and entry form comp on Twitter from Grow It- my second win from them in a month! Cool prize because it means we can now grow chillies in the garden and make some chilli jam!

27. Pyrex Cook and Store Set. This one was a Facebook app entry that flashed up on my timeline. I think they give something away each month, so one to look out for in the future too.

28. Custard Book. Yay! This was won as part of the Ambrosia 100th birthday comp, where you had to send them a selfie with one of their products. You can enter every month until the end of the year and theres 100 prizes each month. Obviously, I was hoping for something better than a book, but hey, its still lovely to win!

29. Modern Women: 52 Pioneers book from a prize draw through the Mslexia website. I don't think this was listed on any comping forum I use and I found it by doing a Google search for competitions. Im sure it would have been pretty low entry as its quite a specialist site and a perhaps not so desirable prize. But Im happy to win: reading about 52 awesome women (including my favourite lass Bjork) is pretty inspiring.

30. £20 One4All Voucher from a RT comp on Twitter. My Twitter wins have been pretty rubbish this month: most likely because I haven't entered as many as the previous month. You can spend these vouchers in loads of places, so super useful and will probably be stored until I have to get Christmas presents...or emergency alcohol!

31. Camping bundle (tent, 2 sleeping bags and lantern) from Capital Outdoors via a Facebook app. Super chuffed to win this as I really want to go to a festival this summer, so hopefully I can put it to use!!

32. Flintstones The Movie bluray from a Twitter RT comp by 60MinutesWith. Quite an old film to be giving away, so Im guessing its a new-to-bluray release. 4 winners from about 200 or so entries, so pretty decent odds.

33. Stabilo Pens from a giveaway on their website. One lovely Lucky Learner spotted this and posted it in the group- the first 1000 to enter their details would win a set of pens. I think probably quite a few from the group would have one. Nice prize as PENS are FRIENDS.

34. Meal for 2 at Frankie & Benny's from a prize draw on the Bridge FM website. Found this one while doing a Google search for local comps (not on Facebook)- I didn't find many! They don't specify in the T&C's what the meal for 2 consists of...Im hoping at least a glass or two of wine??

35. A £10 voucher from Johnstone Paints on Twitter. For this one you had to tell them what colour of paint you would choose to use. I picked a vibrant pink from their range to use in our garden. I even included a picture of our garden...can you guess which one?

***ALSO RANS***

A voucher for a session at GOALS from the Lucozade comp....I don't think there are any round here, plus not my thing anyway.

Free taster meal for 2 at Bella Italia- I think they were giving away thousands of these, but it was a fixed date and time. I had better things to do, so I didn't go in the end. Apparently, according to reviews, I didn't miss much.

Tickets to a free screening of the new King Arthur film thing....in Edinburgh!! God knows why/how I won that! Must have thought I was entering for a national competition, not a region specific one-oops! I emailed them back to say thanks, but to redistribute the prize.

In all, a bloody brilliant month, not just in prizes, but in life too! I hope everyone else had some great wins.

Love your hair, hope you win!

Lexx