Halloween is only four days away. Wow, time flies when you’re driving all over Texas visiting friends and family, and someone else at at your house watching your cats and unpacking boxes and organizing your house.

Coming home to a clean, orderly house that doesn’t have a stack of boxes in the corner of each room was so wonderful. Brenda did us a good deed. I’m going to pass it on that by GIVING AWAY my two remaining crocheted trick-or-treat bags, totally FREE!

The catch is that Halloween is only four days away. As much as I love you guys and want to spread goodwill and all, I don’t want to spend a fortune on overnight shipping. Therefore, this giveaway will close on Wednesday, October 29th, at 4pm PDT. At 4:01 I will use random.org’s number generator to pick two winners, and will mail the bags to them via USPS Priority before 5pm that day. Since Priority Mail takes 2-3 days within the continental U.S., there is a good chance your bag will get to you in time for Halloween…and there is a chance it might not. Just so we’re clear.

If you’d like the chance to win one of these bags, follow these two simple steps:

1. Leave a comment, telling me about your best/silliest/most memorable Halloween costume. It’s okay if you can’t think of a costume story. I’d like to read your stories, but if you can’t think of any just leave a comment saying you want to enter.
2. Email me (bethanyactually at gmail dot com) the name and address where I would send your winning bag. (Note: To make it easier on me, put “halloween giveaway address” as the subject. Because I’m going to close the giveaway and then mail the bags out within an hour, you must email me the shipping address in order to be entered. Unless, of course, you know with 100% certainty that I already have your address.

Good luck!

At 4:03pm PDT, I am closing comments. Thank you so much for all your Halloween/costume stories. I enjoyed them very much! You are a creative lot and I got some great ideas. I’m about to finish up some administrative details and then I’ll pick the winners.

Don’t forget, my friend Jill is hosting a raffle giveaway for a custom pottery piece, painted by me! It’s for a very good cause, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and you only have to donate $1 to enter. The giveaway ends Friday, October 10, so please go enter while you still can! Jill is really close to reaching her fundraising goal—let’s get her even closer!

Just a few of the photos faved for the Great Gumball Giveaway! Click on the photo to view the credits.

WOW. Over a hundred entries! I know SAJ, as Gumball’s creator, is happy that so many of you love her little pink kitten. And it was fun to see all the photos you chose as your favorites—43 different photos from the Flickr photostreams of verymom, gibbbrothers3, maxg94, angellaD, filegirl, *momster, falwyn, ninjapoodles, heymrswilson, frugalmom, Hove_actually, Oh My Stinkin’ Heck, secret agent josephine, nicole_kempka, G-man2006, and me.

But I suppose you really just want to know who won the mug, right?

I used random.org’s integer generator to pick a numbered comment. And even though I wish you all could have been winners, I only have one prize. So the lucky winner of the hand-painted Happy Gumball mug is commenter #44:

(Photo by RhiRhi on Flickr

Rhi In Pink! Congratulations, Rhi! Email me your address, and I’ll ship the mug to you pronto.

Thanks for playing, everyone!