***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries – see who won below!***
And our lucky-slash-friendly winner this week is… Jennifer M (whose best friend is her husband. They met in college studying architecture together and now work together). Congrats!
If you saw that title above and thought “oh, like the Bestå media storage system from Ikea” instead of “typo alert!” then you may be just as into the fine purveyor of flat-packaged Swedish furniture as we are. And if you’re not the only Ikea lover in your circle of friends, then you’ll be happy to learn that this Saturday on March 9th Ikea is celebrating BYOF (Bring Your Own Friend) day as part of their ongoing Life Improvement Project. The day will feature freebies, special discounts, seminars, activities, and even gift card giveaways. Speaking of which… they’re giving one lucky reader three $100 gift cards right here this week (one for the winner and two for his or her friends) – which I’m pretty sure would solidify your status as BFFs for life.
- PRIZE: Three $100 gift cards to Ikea
- TO ENTER: Comment on this post with the words “BYOF ME!” and tell us…
- BONUS QUESTION: … about your BFF. How did you meet? How long have you been besties. What’s the weirdest thing you love doing together? Do you have funny nicknames for each other – or a secret handshake that involves winking and doing the Macarena?
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: One
- PRIZE SHIPS: We always beg every vendor to ship internationally but some companies are not legally able to vend things beyond specific areas (more on that here). This giveaway is open to the United States.
- GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Wednesday, March 6th at 8pm or at 10,000 entries (whichever comes first)
- USUAL STUFF: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winners will be selected using random.org and announced on Thursday as an update to this post. That’s right, come right back here on Thursday for the announcement of our winners. Good luck…
- ***COMMENT ISSUES? If you’re trying to enter but keep getting a “duplicate comment” warning, click here to see how to solve it!
Note: We aren’t paid or perked for hosting these giveaways, we just do ‘em to thank you awesome folks for stopping in. See our Giveaway FAQ page for more info. Pics courtesy of Ikea.
lara says
BYOF ME!
My bestie and I met on the first day of 6th grade. We’ve been friends now for 20 years. One of the things we’ve always loved to do is long road trips. But, we haven’t done one in years since we’re now married with young children. Maybe when the kids get a bit older we’ll do fun family road trips again!
Bec says
BYOF ME!
My bestie is my friend, Snotface. We no longer use our real names because they aren’t needed. We love the movie “Drop Dead Fred”, so we drink and speak in British accents and call each other Snotface. My children are called Snotface Jr. and Mini Snotface when she’s around, and we pretty much entertain ourselves with silliness. It’s awesome!
Chelsea T says
BYOF ME!
My best friend and I met in 7th grade, and have been inseparable since. We now both have daughters the same age, and have husbands that are a bit DIY-challenged. On a Saturday afternoon, you’ll probably find us wielding saws and power sanders, while the girls play contentedly in the backyard.
Tamrah Ryan says
BYOF ME!
My best friend and I met in a design class in college… when we hang out we basically talk non-stop the entire time. No awesome nicknames or secret handshakes, though!
Ashley Gisch says
BYOF ME!!
My best friend and I met in college and lived together for 3 years after graduating. We are all about having a crazy good time doing whatever anywhere; we even sent in an audition tape to get on the Amazing Race….although sadly they didn’t give us a callup.
emily says
BYOF ME!!! i met my best friend in 1st grade!
Anne M says
BYOF ME!
My bestie is my sister!
Caitlin says
BYOF ME! Met my best friend in grade 8 and we’ve been friends ever since!
Shannon says
BYOF ME!
My best friend is Meghan. We met in 9th grade of high school and we have been friends for 20 years!! Probably the weirdest thing that we have is “code talk” We have special names for people and actions and abbreviated talk that we do so we can communicate to each other. For example we often say “LUMI” which stands for love you mean it :)
Kala M. says
BYOF ME!
My best friend and I met in high school. Oddly enough my mother met her first when they moved to the area. Mom worked at the library and Sarah came in and checked out practically every horse book. My mother told her that I also liked horses and that we would probably be good friends. When Mom told me about it I was the typical teen thinking OMG my mom is trying to make friends for me. She ended up becoming friends with the girls I hung out with and suddenly one day in Biology we realized who each other was. Now it is something we like to look back on and laugh about. I guess Mom’s sometimes do know what they are talking about. LOL.
Dana says
BYOF ME!
My BFF Ashley and I met in high school. We’ve been best friends for 15 years. We’ve actually only lived in the same state for 2 of those years. In October, she will be my Maid of Honor in my wedding :)
Tammy H says
BYOF Me!
My BFF are my husband and my mom. I am so lucky to have them in my life!
Krista says
BYOF ME! My bestie’s name is Kara… lives in Atlanta and we need to live in the same city again. Move to CHICAGO!
Annie says
BYOF me! I knew my best friend and I were meant to be when we took the day off work with the release of the final harry Potter book and spent the whole day reading together. We finished within five minutes of each other — and that was only because I had taken one extra bathroom break!
Laura Loiselle says
BYOF ME!
My best friend and I met in high school and have been through many highs and lows but today we are still the best of friends and both embarking on the exciting journey of buying and owning homes and starting families!
Lori says
BYOF Me! My best friend lives up in New England and we met in grammar school. No matter how much time passes or our lives change, it seems like we pick right up where we left off!
Theresa says
BYOF ME!!!
My bestie’s name is Katie. We met approximately and have been soulsisters since. We met at church and have found ourselves in many a predicaments together….always laughing along the way. Our nicknames??? Beaver and Goldie.
Marque says
BYOF ME!
My BFF is the sister I never had. We met in high school and we can both recount the moment we moved from “acquaintances” to “best friends forever.” We were at a diner with large group of friends, one of the members being her ex-boyfriend, who proceeded to embarrass my bff in front of the whole table. I piped up with “Back down Ron, she doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.” and that was that. Friends forevermore.
She’s off at college 3 hours away so for now we write emails back and forth. We ALWAYS address each other as Joel and Clementine (I’m Clementine), from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We have since 2006.
The weirdest thing we do is try to sneak up on each other crouched down, arms constricted like a raptor, and we wait for the other to turn around before screeching. Oh and one time, dear BFF did this thing where she only gave me prechewed gum if I asked for a stick. Why? who knows, we were weird.
We also have a shared extreme love for manual photography. We hoard cameras and polaroid film. We used to hit all the old photo-booths we could. We made silly sharpied t-shirts that said “FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS GO DIGITAL.”
There are friends we make because they are the people who happen to be in our environment or family, friends you’ve just always had. But my girly and me, I like to think our friendship is a driving force. We love learning about new things together, trying new things, we look to each other for inspiration and advice, moral support and fun. I’m very lucky to have a fulfilling friendship such as this in my life and I never intend to let it be neglected.
Wow this made me more emotional than I thought it would, ha! Well, there’s my entry.
CTDC says
BYOF ME!
Lauren H says
BYOF ME! I have several best friends and have been best friends with them for a long time!! Nothing better than besties!!
Jen says
BYOF ME! Pam and I met in 8th grade and believe me this story is legendary it’s been told so many times (by Pam of course!). I had just moved to GA in 8th grade and had no friends. Long story short, I was walking to lunch in the hallway and she came running up to me talking ridiculously fast that she didn’t like people walking alone and did I want to be her friend. Who could say no to that! My mom ran into hers during parent/teacher night and proceeded to tell her how much of an angel Pam is. Guess that one went to Pam’s head a little… haha!
Beth says
BYOF me! My sisters are my best friends. We’ve taken some great road trips together. If I win, it’ll give us a great excuse for another trip!
Kati says
BYOF ME!!
My BFF and I met while working at Target in the summer of 2004, we lived together for a couple of years and talk pretty much every day still. Love her!
Lindsay says
BYOF ME! My best friend is a friend from college, and we lived together for two years after college too.
Val says
BYOF ME!!
I met my BFF at a scholarship audition. Fortunately, we both won different scholarships and ended up having a blast together all through college (and still to this day!).
Emily W says
BYOF ME! My bestie is my sister. And our favorite thing to do is target practice :-) Love it!!!
Laura says
BYOF ME!
My bestie and I met the first day of high school, and have endured forensics classes, rock climbing, missing trains, working at the Renaissance Faire, and traveling to New Orleans together.
We’re celebrating out Lucky 13th this year (yes, we totally have a friend-anniversary)!
Samantha says
My best friend and I have known each other since 6th grade. I call her Tater and I am the Samous Esamous (my name in Latin according to the zoology major). I weirdest thing we do to each other is probably our overly cuddly nature. I swear if I weren’t married and she wasn’t in a commited relationship their might be some rumors floating around about us!
Kelly says
BYOF me, please!
lucy says
BYOF Me!
I met my BFF on our very first day of university – we were two clueless girls waiting for an English tutorial at 8:30 AM on Monday, not realizing that they didn’t have tutorials until AFTER the first lecture. We waited about 15-20 minutes then said, “Want to go for coffee?” We’ve been friends ever since – almost 30 years!
Amy says
BYOF ME!! I met my BFF when I was 2 and we’ve been besties ever since!
Tracy says
BYOF ME! My best friend is my husband, cue the awwwwws!
Katie says
BYOF ME! We met when she convinced me I should play water polo…much to my suprise I ended up loving it and we keep in touch every week despite our multi-state separation!
Jeanine says
BYOF Me! My best friend I met in college – and miss living in the same city!
Elise says
BYOF ME! My bestie once helped me maneuver a way-too-big-for-us-to-carry couch into my living room. I’m sure my new neighbors thought we were crazy…but that’s what friends are for :)
Meredith says
Is it nerdy to say my husband is my best friend? He is. And we met in a dog park whereby my dog stole his dog’s toys…. nerdy, yes.
LaurenCarny says
“BYOF ME!”
My bestie (otherwise known as the BFF) and I met at church when we were in 8th grade. I thought she was a weirdo (she watched Care Bears at 14!) and she thought I was a snob (I was a cheerleader). After a year, we realized that we actually we’re both dorks. Our favorite thing to do together is reenact various serious moments of Lord of the Rings as well as sing some of the (many) songs that we have made up for LotR.
See, both dorks.
Shannon says
BYOF me!
I have known my best friend my whole life – she’s my cousin :)
Derrelyn says
BYOF ME!
I am totally corny and stupid for saying this but my Best Friend is husband.
I’m not a girls girl, and I have a hard time making being best friends with other girls and so he really is the one i tell everything too. :)
Nadia says
Byof me! My BFF and I met in 4th grade and do everything together!
Celia White says
BYOF ME!
I call my BFF BF, actually, for “babyface”. It makes her melt. We met in San Francisco in 1999, both sitting on the floor on our leather jackets at a poetry reading. She just sent me a link to a great explication of the “Purple Rain” scene from the Prince movie of the same name. Love.
Whitney says
BYOF Me! My bestie of 6 years are planning a girls weekend to my dad’s ranch to learn how to shoot. Do I need to explain why she’s the best?? Um, hellooo!
Megan says
BYOF ME!!! You reminded me that I need set up a coffee date with my bestie!
Bonnie says
BYOF ME!
True story, first time my bestie and I hung out – we stumbled on the fact that we both secretly covet Ikea (we don’t have an Ikea in Hawaii!), we knew we’d be friends for life.
LauraCinIndy says
BYOF ME! Been friends forever!
Sara says
I met my BFF 13 years ago during college orientation. We hit it off instantly and remain close even though she lives in Ohio and I’m currently living in Oregon. Fun fact: she and my mother have the same birthday.
Rachel H. says
BYOF Me! I met my best friend when she was born 25 years ago, she’s my baby sister and she just got engaged! Where did that time go?
Lynn in Michigan says
BYOF ME!
My BFF and I met 20 years ago when we were both working for the same law firm and in the printer room complaining about our husbands. Everyone always asks us if we are sisters and we say we are. Soul sisters; kindred spirits! Interestingly, though she and I have remained steadfast and true over the years, neither of us is still married to aforementioned husband! And she’s the kind of friend who would use the winning IKEA giftcard to help me buy the last few Besta pieces I need for my new place!
Heather V says
BYOF me!!!!!!!!
Erin says
BYOF ME! My BFF has to be my honey. We were set up by a girlfriend and while I gave him the cold shoulder at first I quickly changed my tune. We have been married for 5 years now and have a secret language we use to subtly communicate to each other (no I am not telling you..re: secret!)