I’ve got a fabulous giveaway today for any pregnant lady (or for those that love them!) It’s called Let’s Dance Together and is a prenatal dance fitness DVD.

Prenatal Dance Fitness is a transformational wellness program safe for pregnancy combining breath work, visualization, yoga, labor prep, mindful movement, graceful dance, energy work, baby bonding and relaxation. Easy to follow if you are a beginner and supportive and refreshing if you are a fitness enthusiast, you will feel balanced, beautiful and graceful as your belly grows and prepared for labor when you big day arrives. Use this DVD as a daily escape to nurture yourself and bond with your baby.

What a fun way to stay in shape during the special time of pregnancy. If you’d like to win this fabulous DVD, leave a message on this post by Tuesday, April 20th. I’ll choose a winner at random and announce the lucky guy or gal the next day.

Image: Let’s Dance Together

The b5media Lifestyles Channel is excited to announce our Second Annual Channel Wide Blogtoberfest!

Blogtoberfest will run an entire two weeks throughout our channel beginning Monday, October 6th and wrapping up Friday, October 17th.

Here’s how it will work:

Each day select blogs within the channel will post as usual, the only difference is, they’ll post our beautiful Blogtoberfest button (shown above) and a special note letting you know that it is a sponsored post. That particular post will have a secret prize assigned to it from our list of awesome prizes that will be announced prior to opening day.

All you have to do to enter to win that prize is leave a comment! That’s it! All prizes will be available to the U.S. and Canada unless otherwise noted. We do have some goodies for our global friends too!

Within a few days of leaving your comment, check back with that blog to see what the prize is and if you’re the lucky winner as well as instructions on just how to claim your prize.

Our objective is to reward our loyal readers and subscribers. Loyal readers will know when to comment, if they’ve won and how to get their prize! Pretty good, huh?

Does that sound like you? Do you want that to sound like you?

If you would like to become a loyal reader, visit our channel blogs - add them to your favorites, subscribing to their feeds and checking back are the only ways to win.

And well, with the holidays just around the corner, it’s a great way to kick off your holiday shopping! For Free!

We do hope you’ll come celebrate Blogtoberfest with us! Happy Fall Y’all

[post text by Gayla McCord]

So who is the one lucky winner of Building With Awareness - A DVD & Guidebook On Building A Straw Bale Home? I usually let my son draw a name, but this contest was pretty big. We had a ton of entires. Talk about paper waste to write all the names down.

That said; I randomly generated a winning comment number, and the person who wins the DVD & Guidebook is…
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I don’t do the Bloggy Giveaway normally, but I’m doing it at another blog, so I figured why not do it here as well. The prize I picked for this contest is really cool, my favorite DVD, well, technically this is not my favorite DVD ever - that would be Sleep With Me - a really cool movie.

This is however my favorite building DVD:

Building With Awareness - A DVD & Guidebook On Building A Straw Bale Home is awesome. Not a new DVD, but in my opinion, one of the top straw bale resources. We’re talking 5 hours of how-to straw bale. The movie is excellent, and even though it’s long, you’ll be totally into it the entire time.

Take a look at the home in this movie:

It’s a beautiful house - it’s actually right near where I used to live in New Mexico, hence the balloons. The DVD and guidebook are award winning (many times over) and cover building facts, costs, how-to visuals, ideas for planning, plus you’ll will learn how to construct post-and-beam straw bale walls to code, and also about how interior adobe thermal mass walls can improve efficiency. This home generates 100% of its own electricity with photovoltaic panels on the roof - which you’ll also learn about. There’s also a great chapter section on earth plaster walls - good, good stuff.

The guidebook was recently added to the DVD to make a complete set. I bought the DVD long before the guidebook came out, but other folks I know who have it say it’s great, just as informative as the DVD. It looks like it’s laid out nicely. Click on the picture below to see it closer up.

Now if you want to win this DVD & Guidebook you’ll have to do something a little crazy…
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Sorry for the lack of new posts yesterday. We were having a bit of a server issue. It appears to be all fixed up now (knock knock) thanks to our stellar b5media tech team. In any case, I didn’t exactly break down and cry because it gave me a little time off (with no guilt) from posting. Secondly, on the advice of one smart fellow, I decided to surf all my fave architect and design blogs, something I rarely have time for lately. Good thing I did too, because one, I haven’t done a web round-up for a while, and two, look at what I found.

A bed at Freshome! Not just any old bed - this is the stuff dreams are made of people. A bed that rocks!  See more, learn more about this bed, at Freshome.

A Daily Dose of Architecture has plenty o’ pictures of the fabulous new National Swimming Center in Beijing, China. Below is a shot of it all aglow at night.

The Council House 2 building utilizes smashing eco design, and wait until you see what it does. Go to the CH2 - cuckoo post at Architechnophilia to find out.

CubeMe has a structure (not a house sadly) but a structure, none the less made with 24,000 peaches. Holy.

Dezeen is having a contest with Pecha Kucha Night. They’re giving away ten copies of the new Pecha Kucha Night book. Which you want, believe me. It looks stunning.

Visit BLDGBLOG for a post on a recent and fascinating design competition. The competition does involve the idea of destruction of architecture, but still, it’s a really interesting read. The picture below is one of the ideas to spring fourth from the competition.

Lastly, deputydog has six cool star forts. Below is one, but many more great photos at deputydog.

And in other deputydog news, I finally got around to adding that blog to the Offbeat Homes blogroll. Which brings up another point, if you like great architecture, design, or green building, (or all of the above) you should check out the blogroll here. I could have pulled cool stuff from all of the blogs on the list, but due to lack of time of course that would be insane. Still, each and every one of the blogs I have in the blogroll is worth a look.