*This give-a-way is CLOSED. See who won here!
Today I want to talk about RedEnvelope. Not the red envelope you get in the mail when you forget to pay your electric bill too many times in a row. No, no, that is a bad red envelope. I want to talk about a good RedEnvelope. A RedEnvelope that represents fun, personalized gifts for friends and family. And why would I talk about this? Because, you guys. They sent me two products to review and offered to give one of my readers (that’s YOU) a one-time use $100 gift code to use on any of their fabulous products. Winning!
(Is anyone saying that anymore? Duh – winning! Are we over that? Moving on…)
Our family room, last month. Hence the Halloween centerpiece on the coffee table. Notice anything different? Hopefully you notice LOTS of things different, since the last time I posted a family room decor update it looked like this. Yikes. And remember when it looked like this? It’s come a very long way, and is finally FINALLY done. As in, there isn’t anything else I would add, I love it, it is exactly the cozy, weird, hobbled together reading nook I always dreamed it would be. (What does my family room have to do with your chance to win a $100 gift code? JUST WAIT.)
The first product RedEnvelope sent me was a personalized pillow that ties my whole sofa together. I didn’t get to choose the graphic, but I did get to choose the text (though the character and line restrictions were super strict) and I was really happy with how it came out. The pillow cover is made of a rough canvas material. Not necessarily cozy for snuggling up with, but I have a feeling it will last a long time. The screen printed graphic looks great. The font, though small, is pretty crisp considering how nubby the canvas is.
I wanted the pillow to read, “Snyder Family. Lots of love, lots of pet hair,” but the restrictions prevented me, as the graphic is designed to include family member names, not sentences. I managed to get away with what you see above and I dig it.
RedEnvelope asked that I rate the product out of five stars, one being “I hate this” and five being “this is the best product EVER.” I give this pillow three out of five stars. As much as I love the pillow, and I really do, it loses a star for its price and another for the quality of the pillow insert. While the pillow cover looks nice, the insert is awful. If you lay your head on it, it completely flattens out. It feels cheap. Like something you’d buy for five dollars at Pick n’ Save. Which is why I was a little horrified to find out that the retail on this pillow is $59.95.
Theo doesn’t care, as long as he still gets his belly rubbed.
If I received this personalized pillow as a gift, I’d be delighted. It’s adorable, and as I said earlier, it really pulls my sofa together. But if I paid $59.95 for it, I would be really upset when it arrived in the mail and I realized how poor the quality of the insert is. Especially if I intended to give it as a gift.
Now, if I only paid twenty-five bucks for it, I’d be thrilled. At twenty-five bucks it would be a five-star product. But for sixty dollars I expect a softer pillow cover and a much, much fuller, thicker, more pillowy pillow insert. And yet, I love it’s look and I would absolutely buy it if I had a gift code to spend.
This air plant and glass globe also came from RedEnvelope. It’s a nifty item that would look great in a garden or, as shown above, in a window. We’d like to hang it but it didn’t come with anything to hang it from and we’re not sure what to use. String won’t be sturdy enough. Twine would look tacky. A chain would be too harsh for the delicate glass. Maybe fishing line? This is another item that would make a cool gift, but again, I balked at the $29.95 price tag. An air plant is five bucks at the Garden Center, you can get pebbles for free at the beach or nearest stream bed, and the glass globe comes from CB2 (they didn’t take the CB2 sticker off the bottom before they sent it to me) where you can order it for $3.95. Now, if it also came with something pretty to hang the globe by, and something else to put in the globe for some added pizzazz (a miniature skull or a frolicking ceramic animal, anyone?) I might not have suffered the same sticker shock. But it doesn’t, so this also gets three out of five stars for being overpriced.
Overall, I’m enjoying these items and I’m especially jazzed to offer one lucky reader a $100 gift code. The holidays are coming and this is a great chance to pick up Christmas gifts for your wife, Chanukah gifts for your husband, a present for your sister, your father, the cute kid you babysit, whomever. They have something for everyone – personalized ornaments, gorgeous jewelry, fun novelty gifts. I adore this personalized pie plate, and they even sell a personalizable beer holster. You can’t tell me there isn’t a man in your life who wouldn’t love his own beer holster.
To win, check out the website at RedEnvelope.com, then come back here and leave a comment telling me who you’d like to surprise this holiday season with a personalized gift. For additional entries, tweet a link to this post, link to this post on Facebook, “Like” RedEnvelope on Facebook, whatever you want. Just be sure you come back here to leave a comment and tell me what you did. Each comment serves as one entry and you can enter as many times as you want. Contest ends Tuesday, Nov. 24 at 8 p.m. PST. The winner will be chosen at random and announced Wednesday, November 23. The day before Thanksgiving! So you’ll have something to be thankful for. (Just kidding. You already have lots to be thankful for, I know that.)
Ok, kids. Comment away!
P.S. I was not compensated for this post, though I did receive the two items pictured above at no cost. My thoughts and opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.
