You all had beautiful trees, and it was very tough to pick our favorites, but we have finally selected the winners for the Christmas Contest and it’s time to announce them! We had planned on posting the names of the winners, but decided it would be more fun to share the pictures of the winners’ trees instead. So without further ado, here are your 2012 CS Christmas Tree Contest winners!

We asked you how you wanted voting to take place, and it was a pretty unanimous decision that you wanted the staff to pick their favorites. So we will be picking the winners of this contest. Therefore, this will be a subjectively judged contest. First and foremost, everyone needs to know that this will not be a contest to see who has the biggest, most spectacular, or expensive Christmas tree. We will be judging on lots of criteria, including personality, among other things. The CS Staff will pick our favorite trees, and we’re looking for things like the trees that are most personal or special to their owners, ones with unique flair, or trees with interesting decorations that have stories behind them. Don’t be afraid to submit your tree just because you think it can’t beat bigger ones. We look for the little things, so everyone has an equal shot in this contest!

There will be three winners this time – a Grand Prize winner, second and third place winners. The prizes are as follows:
Grand Prize (1 available) – The Grand Prize winner will receive one electronically delivered gift certificate valued at $75 USD plus a bonus exclusive, one of a kind, hand crafted CS Panda Mascot Necklace!

2nd Place (1 available) – The Second Place winner will receive one electronically delivered gift certificate valued at $30 USD!
3rd Place (1 available) – The Third Place winner will receive one electronically delivered gift certificate valued at $15 USD!

Please carefully read the following for rules and how to enter so we can make sure your entry is received and is counted:

Rules:
1) Entries must be received by Midnight Mountain Standard Time (GMT -7) on December 22, 2012
2) International entries are welcome
3) This is a contest for our Facebook fans, so you must provide a link to your facebook account so we can verify you’re one of our lovely fans and tag you in the announcement of winners.
4) Make sure you also provide a valid email so we can contact you if you win.
5) Submit up to three pictures of your tree, highlighting key features and why your tree is special to you.
6) Winners will be notified by email and tagged in a post on Facebook, and MUST reply to claim their winnings by December 29th.
7) If not all prizes are claimed, we will shift the other winners up and pick our next favorite tree(s) in line until we reach 3 winners – second chance winners will be contacted December 30th

How to Enter:
Fill out the comment form linked below, with valid information.
You must attach at least one image, and the combined size of all your attached images must not be larger than 2 MB or the entry will not go through.
If you have trouble attaching your images, you may upload them to an image host (i.e. TinyPic.com) and paste the links into your entry comments.
Leave notes in the Message box telling us why your tree is special to you, highlighting things like special ornaments, your favorite decorations, your traditions, etc.
Make sure you are taken to a page telling you that your entry was successful and redirects you to the CS Contests home page. If the page looks broken, your entry was probably not successful due to your image files being too large.
Wait a few minutes and make sure you receive a confirmation email letting you know that we received your entry. If you do not get it in several minutes, make sure you provided the correct information such as email address and check that your pictures aren’t over 2 MB combined.

We would also like to encourage you to upload your pictures to our Facebook wall to share with the rest of our fans – but be aware that this is not an official way to enter. Entries MUST be sent through the contact form.

*SUBMISSION FORM! CLICK HERE TO ENTER!*

Winner Selection:
Winners will be picked by the Cute-Stuffs staff based on pictures and descriptions provided. We will choose our three favorites and notify the winners on Facebook and by email.
Winners will be notified on December 24th. All winners must reply to claim their winnings by December 29th. If winners do not contact us by the 29th, we will shift the original winners up in the prize ladder and choose second-chance winners until we fill each empty space. Second-chance winners will be notified December 30th.

As another small bonus for all who are participating in our contest, use coupon code CSCHRISTMAS2012 for 30% off orders over $20 (valid through Dec 22, 2012). PLUS every order this Christmas season gets an extra free gift included!

We hope everyone will participate, and good luck to you all! Thank you for all your business and support this year! Merry Christmas!

All Orders containing ANY Rilakkuma product, will get a second Rilakkuma item of equal, or HIGHER value! We have a lot of items on the way (yes, more Rilakkuma) and we need to move some of our stock, any coupons you may have are OK on these orders.

This offer applies to any and all Korilakkuma and Kiiroitori items as well. If you like all of them, make a note on your order in the comments area during checkout which character you’d prefer to have as your mystery item(s) (Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, or Kiiroitori)! We are very generous so you will not be disappointed! This also does not apply to the usual free item, you will still get that, so basically you will be receiving 2 free items with your order(s). Or, depending on the amount, possibly more? ^_^

We really need to get some of these items moved, so the larger your order, the more freebies we’re likely to throw in there. This isn’t a sales tactic, it’s literally the reality of the situation guys. Ultimately if we don’t move a good amount it will be pulled from the site and sold in bulk, so if you’re interested in bulk or wholesale, please contact us here as well, because we will not be re-stocking most of these items once they’re gone, both because of room, and also because of scarcity of the product(s) as a lot of them are no longer available, or have been discontinued.

We may also throw in extras in non-related Rilakkuma orders as well. If there’s something you for sure DON’T want, leave a note in the note area @ checkout!

This offer will take place through AUG. 10,2012

Here are the winners of the 2012 CS RILAKKUMA GIVEAWAY:

WINNER 1. (Grand Prize!)  RUTHIE CLAIMED? YES! PACKAGE STATUS: UN-SHIPPED

Please go through the shop and select your Rilakkuma items in accordance with the original rules, and then contact us and share your choices, and for shipping information, message us first if you have any questions! Please select “claiming prizes”

WINNER 2.STEPHANIE CLAIMED? YES! PACKAGE STATUS: SHIPPED

Please go through the shop and select your Rilakkuma items in accordance with the original rules, and then contact us and share your choice, and for shipping information, message us first if you have any questions! Please select “claiming prizes“

WINNER 3. JENNY CHAU CLAIMED? YES! PACKAGE STATUS: SHIPPED

Please go through the shop and select your Rilakkuma items in accordance with the original rules, and then contact us and share your choice, and for shipping information, message us first if you have any questions! Please select “claiming prizes“

(We would love it if you would take some pictures and share your winnings on our Facebook page wall!) Thanks again to all you loyal Cute-Stuffers who entered the contest.

• Winners – please follow the above instructions.

• If prize is still unclaimed by one week to date of this announcement, a second chance drawing will take place. So please check back until all prizes have been claimed to make sure you don’t miss out on winning still. We will make sure to remind throughout the week on our facebook page

Before we go, in the future, please make sure you follow the instructions in each individual giveaway. ONLY entries posted on the blog are counted. We still find people do not follow these rules, and your entries were not counted unfortunately. PLEASE read all instructions!

Note: Comments will be invisible to save page loading time during the contest!

In this article we’re going to feature a few of our favorite items from Rilakkuma that are in the shop, or coming to our shop in the near future for this giveaway. We are going to be adding more Rilakkuma items throughout the entire giveaway for you to choose from that will not be excluded from the giveaway, so check back periodically. Best way to keep track, is to use your wishlists! There is  NO PURCHASE NECESSARY – we’ve made sure there are many ways to enter for everyone!

IMPORTANT: Comments will not be visible after you post them, and will remain so, this will save page loading time for everyone. They will be made public the last week of the giveaway so that everyone has a chance to make sure they got all the info posted they wanted to.

This is going to be a strict Rilakkuma giveaway, so if you’re a fan of Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, Kiiroitori & San-X, this is for you!( Or enter for a loved one!)  All three of our favorite Rilakkuma characters will be included in this giveaway, so depending on what you win you can choose your favorite, or mix and match characters for your (grand) prize.

We will have 3 winners in this giveaway! One lucky Grand Prize winner will get to pick out a large Rilakkuma bundle, containing one item each from each of these categories below, as well as a hand chosen mystery gift from our staff! We will also draw two runners-up who will get to choose one Rilakkuma item from one of these categories: (Keymats, Keychains, Phone straps) – Don’t forget, you can use our phone straps for purse charms, necklaces, rear view mirror charms, etc. use your imagination!  Here are the categories we will be offering in this giveaway:

• Rilakkuma Dust Plugs – We have quite a few different styles of these, and a couple more coming in the next week or so for you to pick from long before the giveaway is over!

• Rilakkuma Cord Winders/Organizers – all rilakkuma styles (located in the electronics category)

• Key Chains & Key Mats (excludes plush)

• Flashing & Non-Flashing Phone Straps – excludes plushies (flashing or non)(note: you cannot “make it flash”, but you may choose one already equipped with the flasher)

• Lens/Trinket Box 

• Stationery – Limited to: bookmarks, pens, storage folders, deco tape, clips, mouse pads (excludes large plush pen holder) – (mousepads are located here)

• Misc. Items – Includes nail clippers, brass bells, mouse pads

Don’t worry if all this sounds complicated, we will work with the winners on their prizes. Just bottom line to remember is, Rilakkuma only!

READ THIS CAREFULLY! Here’s how you can enter:

For each kind of entry you do, you need to post a separate comment to this blog post. (Don’t be alarmed if your posts aren’t showing up right away, as said, we’re keeping all comments private to cut down on page loading time for commenters) If a certain thing gives you more than one entry into the contest, you must make a post on the blog for each entry. For example – if you sign up for the shop newsletter, you will need to make 2 comments on this blog for your entires like so.

Comment 1. Signed up for shop newsletter (entry #1)

Comment 2. Signed up for shop newsletter (entry #2)

If you don’t follow these instructions, the random drawing system we use will not know how many entries you have. Additionally, if the random drawing lands on an invalid or incomplete blog post (entry), another one will be randomly chosen. We will not be responsible for entries that aren’t received due to not following instructions.

Complete the following things for entries into the giveaway. If you have already completed any of these things, you may use them as entries into the contest, just don’t forget to post about them.

So, here’s the easiest, most common entry:

Tweet what you see below & leave your tweet url in a comment: ( 1 entry ) ( you can do this once a day for as long as the contest lasts so 1 entry per tweet per day ) Can tweet right from here! ( look at bottom bar and click twitter button on the right side ) Just remember to leave a comment each time you tweet so they’re counted, so tweet & comment daily!

#WIN! [ Cute-Stuffs.Com - Kawaii Spring #RILAKKUMA Giveaway! ] #giveaway Enter @Cute_Stuffs –> http://bit.ly/csrilakkumagiveaway Ends 5/01

 Many more ways to enter!

1. “Like” our  Facebook Page [leave your fb name with comment] ( 1 entry )

2. Leave a comment about this giveaway on our Facebook Page ( 1 entry ) [leave your fb name with comment]

3. Follow us on Twitter ( 1 entry ) [Leave your @twitter name in comment] Can follow us right from the twitter link on the bottom bar here on this page

4. A simple comment on other items you saw in our cute-stuffs.com shop that you’d like to see in future giveaways (1 entry)

5.Tell us your favorite Rilakkuma product in the shop (1 entry)

6.Sign up for the shop newsletter (2 entries)

7. Refer someone to us (2 entries) [there's a place on signup where they can enter your email or name]

The Big Stuffs!

1. Blog about us! (3 entries) [paste blog url post in comment]
2. Rate and follow us on Networked Blogs [leave fb username in comment] (3 entries)
3. Linking us on your site’s sidebar (2 entries) [leave website url in comment] Can find link buttons HERE, or use the one below. This will be 2 entries for linking the contest, and/or 2 entries for linking the shop. ( so 4 entries if you do both, please post separately )
4. Subscribing to our blog here via the side-bar to get emails via feedburner when we update (2 entries) (this is different than registering down at the bottom of the site, but you can do both!)

• The really big stuffs!

1. Leave a product review on cute-stuffs.com ( 4 entries ) – you must have purchased the product from us, however, otherwise it won’t be counted, as we like to remain true to our customers. So you must include either your Order# or purchase date & item name


2. Post a product image (purchased or won from cute-stuffs.com) to our Facebook Page [leave fb name in comment] (2 entries per photo, leave separate comment for each image posted )

3. Place an order! You can input “Spring giveaway 2012” in note area @ checkout ( 6 entries)

Hurry and enter! The contest will end May 1st and winners will be announced May 4. INTERNATIONAL ENTRIES ARE WELCOME – NO COUNTRY RESTRICTION

Shipping will be a flat rate box, both domestic and international, no restricted countries! You will be provided with a tracking/confirmation number if domestic, International will be provided with a customs form number, also used to track. We are not responsible for customs charges to your country.

****HAPPY EASTER!****

BTW – If you haven’t noticed, we’re on Listia! Check out our mini FREE Auctions over there in the sidebar! –>

We will not use or share your email or other information in any way shape or form other than contacting you to claim the prize, or for newsletter purposes if you are signed up.

Seasons Greetings Cute-Stuffers! We hope everyone is having a wonderful December! We’re writing today to announce some big news and keep everyone informed about what’s going on with the shop…First, I want to remind everyone that the deadline for orders to be guaranteed by Christmas is December 18th (today!). Your orders must be completed and have cleared payment by the end of the day for us to ship them in time. I’d also like to remind everyone that if you have a list of things you like in the shop, sign in and make a wishlist! It’s printable and shareable, so you can email it to friends and family to share your favorite items!

Now for the main announcement – I (Josey) will be moving at the end of this month, so Cute-Stuffs is coming with me! Things will probably get a bit chaotic, but we will treat your orders as carefully as we always do here. As much as we will try to ship orders as fast as possible, shipping times might be a little erratic during moving (and the winter in general because of the beautiful Colorado winter weather). Your orders will usually ship out within 2-4 days of completing your order at the latest. There is some good news, though. Packing everything up is sure to turn up some interesting cute-stuffs that might be hiding in our stock – this means we will be giving out some extra neat surprises soon! We might even feature some of the cuter ones on Facebook to give you previews of our surprises!

One last thing. I know we have been promising a giveaway since well, forever. And I’m sorry we haven’t put one up since then, but we have found ourselves incredibly swamped with our specials and shipping for all the holidays. But… to make it up to you we will start work on a new one very soon. Look for this giveaway near the end of the month!

First, some reminders. The deadline for orders to Arrive By Christmas is December 18th for domestic US shipping – make sure to have successfully completed and paid for your orders by the end of the day. Contact us for any questions. Also, don’t forget about our new wish lists! It’s a good spot to keep track of your favorite things and share them with your friends!

If you are searching for your favorite things, make sure to be general with your searches. Specific searches might not show you anything you like, so try searching by character, brand, or function for the best results.

We’re going to try to update this list as much as we can, but double-check the shop just in case we haven’t gotten to it yet or maybe overlooked it. We’ll start out with the things that are currently available in the shop.

Currently available:

• Headphone & 3.5mm plug mascots – Here’s our personal favorite of the new stuffs – we will be getting some beautiful charms for phones that fit in standard headphone jacks! Very handy for accessorizing your favorite electronics, music players, and phones if they don’t have a loop for attachments! We have Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma in stock now! We will also be receiving Angry Birds, Hello Kitty bows, pandas, larger Rilakkuma ones from the Honey and Café series, and various other styles. Some of these characters flash when using GSM phones, and will also help keep your headphone jacks free of dust and debris, all while looking absolutely adorable. More details on these items coming soon in the second half of this blog! You can find the new headphone charms here.

• P.S. Rilakkuma fans, we also have some adorable plushy tape measures that want to go home with you today! They’re very handy, plushy, and perfect for snuggling! You can take a look at them here. For more Rilakkuma news including a new Café series plushie, check the bottom half of the blog!

• Contact cases/Trinket boxes – We have TONS of new contact cases to choose from in several styles. There are plenty of popular characters to choose from, and several shapes, sizes, and colors. We find these very handy and not limited to contacts, so use your imagination – they make great pill boxes and trinket cases, too! Our personal favorites and featured cases for this season are capsule-style and have the most adorable animals on them! We even have Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, and Kiiroitori! We’re offering a special if you purchase more than one of the capsule-style cases, so make sure to take advantage of that if you like to mix and match. Take a look at them here!

Capsule-Style, Sparkle Cases, Pastel Cases

• Keychains – Lots of new unique keychains made it to the shop lately. We have some very cute licensed Hello Kitty keychains that feature her dressed up in costumes of her friends! (Cinnamoroll, Keroppi, Kuromi, My Melody, Badtz Maru available)
  Lots of new Domo-kun keychains, some with Domo in various cute disguises.We also recently added a MocMoc and a Rilakkuma keychain, so be sure to check those out too.

• Nail clippers – We have a bunch of new nail clippers featuring several of your favorite characters! Hello Kitty, Cai Cai, MocMoc, Rilakkuma, Domo-kun – they’re all here!

• Phone Straps – We have several new adorable phone straps in stock, too! Domo, MocMoc, Angry Birds, the Nanaco giraffes, and many others are all hoping you’ll take them home with you this year! Click here to see all of our newest additions!

Coming soon:

(Check out our recent pics on Facebook!)

• Rilakkuma Café & Rilakkuma Meets Honey Series – We’re getting several of these beautiful and rare charms in! We will have keychains, plushies, headphone plug mascots, and leather phone pouches, so pick your favorite or just get them all! These cute charms are San-X licensed and feature your favorite bears and chicken dressed up as cute honeybees and stealing honey, or dressed cutely for a coffee shop outing.

• San-X phone stands – For all you San-X fans, and maybe those of you who want a nice spot to keep your phone neat and nice, keep an eye out for our new phone stands. We will be getting Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, and an adorable black kitty with boots named Kutusita Nyanko. These are all San-X licensed as well.

• Leather phone pouches – We will be getting several styles of leather phone pouches to keep your Droids, iPhones, and iPods safe and stylish on the go. We currently have 2 styles in stock but will be getting several more! Styles will eventually include Domo, Paper Mario, Rilakkuma Café (mentioned above), MocMoc, and Cai Cai.

• Rilakkuma Stapler and File boxes – Keep your desk and papers neat and organized with some Rilakkuma staplers and file boxes! We will have both Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma staplers to choose from, and Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, and Kiiroitori file boxes!

• Cord Winders and organizers – We’re getting even more cute cord winders in! We will have new Rilakkuma and MocMoc winders in the long loop-through style, and we’re getting some adorable San-X Kutusita Nyanko and Sentimental Circus magnetic clip-style cord organizers to help you stay tangle-free!

We hope you enjoy our newest products, and as always we love hearing your feedback! This post is going to be updated occasionally, so make sure to check back here often for new stuffs! Make sure to also follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get notifications when we update! You can also find subscription options via the sidebar. Additionally, you can join our forums for exclusive offers!

 It’s time for Halloween! To celebrate, Cute-Stuffs will be having a Trick or Treat with our customers! And we don’t like playing tricks!   All orders placed from now thru Tuesday, 11/1  will get a cute Halloween-themed bag with an order-related treat inside! (see pic below) No minimum order amount is required, and all our international friends will get treats too! The special Halloween treat will be hand picked by us just for you (we like to match characters and colors you’re partial to in your order), and will not replace the usual extras we send out with our orders – you will get both. Place TRICK OR TREAT in the note area during checkout to participate!

 In other news, we are planning a new giveaway soon as many of you know, we’re sorry it’s taking so long to get ironed out. However, in the meantime, we’re focusing on a picture contest. This will require you to be one of our customers, (having made a purchase at some point) and we think it will be really fun. We are planning on having a photo contest featuring your own charms that you’ve purchased from us! If you want to prepare for the contest, practice your picture taking skills and see if you can take some unique shots of your Cute-Stuffs charms! We want to see the unique things you’ve done with them ^_^. We will post more details as soon as we have everything figured out but we hope everyone will participate! We will make the announcement soon – there will be a deadline announced, so all orders place from now until that deadline too will be available to participate.

We hope everyone here has a safe and happy Halloween, and gets lots of goodies this year! We’re looking forward to picking out treats for all of you fans, and we will have more announcements coming soon about some adorable new products and more surprises as the holiday season draws near, so stay tuned!

Don’t forget to like us on facebook and join our forums for exclusive offers!

First of all, we would like everyone to know we have added a Forum to the shop! We would love it if all our fans would come join the Cute-Stuffs team and other fans of cuteness in discussing cute things from all over, and meeting and sharing with new people. The forum is not limited to Cute-Stuffs.com. It is intended to be a gathering place for all fans of cuteness, and therefore we would love it if everyone shared whatever they find. There is a section for networking where you can plug your shops and your creations, and also a section of the forum for kawaii sales and trades between forum members! If you prefer to just relax, we have several off-topic forums where people can share their hobbies and interests, or just chat about random things with other members. The forum is still growing, but please stop by and say hello. We look forward to meeting you! People who have registered for the shop within the past few weeks have already provided a user name for the forum, older customers will have to go and sign up on the forum home page. We are excited to try this out – we will see in a month if we have a few more active members and then ask everyone if they enjoy the forums enough to keep them up. Sign up today – we will be posting special offers and things occasionally for our forum users!

The first thing you might notice when you browse the shop is the new Wish List feature we have added to all the listings. If you have an account with us, you can add all your favorite things to your wish list! You can even search by name or email to view your friends’ wish lists, and you can also email a link to friends and family to share your favorite products with others! When you are ready to purchase, you can view your wish list to add your wishes directly to your cart.

When you check out, you may notice a section for “points.” This is a new feature we are still working on that will be up shortly. Soon, we will have a points program for frequent shoppers to earn credit toward some rewards! We will let you know when it is launched, but until then if you make purchases from today until we launch it you can let us know and we will add your points or find a way to say thank you and credit you for your purchase.

And last but not least – the item updates. We have added several items to the shop lately, and Domo Kun and Rilakkuma lovers are especially in for a treat. We added a few rubber phone charm pairs including some adorable elephants, Baby MocMoc, Domo Kun, and beautiful Panchuki Pandas. These pairs are perfect to share with your loved ones! Also for the Domo fans, we added a very fuzzy plushie, and some smaller plastic charms with a very unique spongy look to them. Rilakkuma fans – for you we have several new unique Rilakkuma items. There are 3 new styles of cord winder including 2 “Rilakkuma Cafe” themed ones with Rilakkuma, Korilakkuma, and Kiiroitori, and a car-themed one with Rilakkuma. We also have a cute and squishy Korilakkuma phone charm. Lastly, we have some very unique Rilakkuma-themed foods including two flavors of a beautiful Rilakkuma styled sprinkled donut – chocolate and strawberry. We also have the same flavor of dipped Rilakkuma strawberries! And the best part is they are scented! You can find all these new products and a few other new ones here.

Sorry for the long post but we were so excited to share all these new things with you! Come take a look at everything new at Cute-Stuffs and we hope you enjoy!

P.S. – Since our forum is brand new – we’re going to be rewarding our top posters and those who participate and help us get the ball rolling! We will be in contact with you individually who do so!

We are working hard to keep this as neat and non-intrusive as possible, but we/you will experience a little bit of inevitable downtime on and off, so you may want to place orders soon if you have your eye on something and you have to have it soon!

Unsure how long this process will take in its entirety, so we will keep you updated as things progress. If you need to contact us you may do so here, or on our facebook for the time being!

ALL orders placed will be processed as normal, please do not be alarmed if you are unable to access your account, or place orders, as it is temporary, and you may always contact us for your order status if you’re really curious, or to place an order by speaking with one of us directly.

UPDATE – 6/16/2011 – Shop will still be down on and off – may experience some bugs or issues, please report them to us!