Celebrate With Us! ~*GIVEAWAY*~

Happy June! Lordy be, can it really be the mid-point of 2021 already?! The past year has been a whirlwind for our family, and for some reason I decided mid-pandemic, 8 months pregnant, and drowning in commitments that it was a great time to finally build a website. Well, suffice it to say my unveiling was lackluster at best, and my first year of content was minimal, but I did the thing I’d been aiming to do for a decade: My own domain and stand-alone website. I haven’t given it the attention it needed, but it’s been here for a year. How about now we have a big celebration of that year we mostly survived, and share some love?

The mission of my blog since 2004 has been to share my heart and encourage others. That hasn’t changed at all, but it’s grown. Since Creating Essence began many moons ago, I shifted focus as life shifted my path, and I’ve added facets. For the last 4+ years we’ve also been adding to YouTube, and since January this year I’ve been working on a joint venture with my husband on our podcast. This past month in May 2021, our family went through some major shifts of heart and focus once again, and are feeling called to adjust how we share ourselves accordingly. In short: More website, less social media. Here on my website, I can share my heart directly on a multitude of things without being censored by bots or stifled by computer algorithms that think they know what viewers want to see. If you’re here it’s because you want to share community with us, and I respect your personal time so much more than any automated tag system, algorithm, or bot can comprehend. I’M SO GRATEFUL YOU’RE HERE! I pray with everything I publish that what we share can be helpful, encouraging, heart-warming, or in some way useful, and I appreciate your pause to check it out. I hope it’s worthwhile and uplifting to you.

In celebration and to thank you for the gift of your few moments here every now and then, we’re doing a giveaway. I love small businesses, and whenever possible, I make it a point to spend my hard-earned money on small businesses local to me. For that reason, the three businesses I chose for our prizes are local(within 3-4 hours), family owned and operated establishments that produce goods I know well and can personally attest to being high quality, excellent craftsmanship.

Freckled Farm Soap Company

Crystal and Kevin, together with our children Breckin and Bryce, are the family behind your soap. Crafting our raw goats milk into the perfect eco-friendly soaps and fine-tuning new recipes are the ideal outlets for our creativity. We are proud to live in our rural community in Goochland, Virginia, making agricultural products together.

Farm Life Outfitters

We are a husband and wife team, southern born and bred. We love all things farm and country. The Lord inspired us to start a collection of family apparel that would honor Him, so Farm Life Outfitters was born in 2016. Our prayer is that our small business will provide a way to pursue a simpler more purposeful life. Located in Mount Gilead, North Carolina.

Seeds For Generations

Before I could walk, my parents had me out in the garden with them, and once I could walk, the garden became my pasture for grazing.  They planted important seeds in me – love for God’s creation, enjoyment of working with my hands, and an appreciation for the thought and effort that goes into growing food. I’m doing similar work with my seven children, working to pass on the legacy of gardening to them. Our family business sells 100% heirloom, open pollinated seeds and related gardening products. Located in New Castle, Virginia.

What are the prizes from these wonderful businesses, you ask? Well, here are the details:

There are three prizes- each prize is a $25 gift card to one of these shops* to be drawn at random on Sunday, June 13, 2021.

How do I enter? Simple! Sign up to be on our mailing list. No, we’re not going to sell your information or stuff your inbox with nonsense. At the most, you’ll receive a weekly digest of what we’ve published across our website, YouTube, and podcast platforms- a really easy way to keep up with us without checking multiple places throughout the week. When you clicked on this page you should have seen a pop-up prompting you to sign up for our newsletter. That’s it! Missed that? Refresh the page and check to see if you have a pop-up blocker on our website. If you’re already on our mailing list, you’re automatically entered to win!

*Three different winners will be drawn by random number generator.

We are customers of all of these businesses. We have not been paid for our recommendations. Special thanks to Michelle at Farm Life Outfitters for generously giving us the gift card for the giveaway when we asked to purchase one.