I feel the same way about giveaways, I've run three in the year and a bit since I started my blog, and two have been won by girls I know are regular readers and commenters, which was really nice.
Congrats on six months sweetie, and I'm sure whatever you choose will be lovely!

Jesss xo

I feel the same about giveaways, I'm a bit wary when bloggers have them going on all the time!
I've never done one so in terms of organizing it I'm clueless but maybe it would be sweet to do one with two or three of your favourite beauty products? I think that something personal like that is really special and people will appreciate it :)

6 months is awesome, I love reading your blog :) Congrats :)

Elle xo

Thank you for the mention lovely, that's so sweet of you! I love your blog! You should definitely run a giveaway, it's a great way of thanking people and it's quite exciting too! It's a great way of celebrating your milestone! It's so great that you're honest with yourself when it comes to blog giveaways, I always delete the blog comments from people who I think are only entering for giveaways and I also block them from following my blog. I'd rather have honest followers too! Just keep doing what you are doing hun, your blog is fab! :) I'd recommend Rafflecopter it's the system I've always used and it's a great way of ensuring people are entering correctly! Good luck with the blog it's coming along great! I'll definitely be the first to enter if you do run a giveaway! :) xo

i like rafflecopter as i think people find it very east to use. i use it for my own giveaways as well and love it. i enjoy holding giveaways and entering the ones of people i follow

I know what you mean about some bloggers running continuous giveaways to basically gain more followers.
At one point I was having a monthly giveaway but then stopped when I realised it was attracting loads of spam accounts and people looking for a freebie.
Now i only run them to mark a milestone or landmark (although I have seen some that turn everything in to a milestone).

I think as long as you're doing the giveaway for the right reasons it doesn't matter.
Don't worry too much about the prize, they don't have to cost the earth.
Also Rafflecoptor is great for managing giveaways too. My first giveaway was an Excel nightmare! Rafflecoptor manages everything for you :)

Hi Gem,
Firstly, congratulations on your fist six months!
As for giveaways,... I'll admit I've followed blogs before when they are running a giveaway, but only because the amount of tweeting that often goes on about them has let me know about blogs that I otherwise may not have heard of. I've never followed a blog, or entered a giveaway on a blog, that I wouldn't be interested in reading the rest of the time. So running a giveaway might be a way of letting genuine new readers know about you.
(Though I know this isn't always the case).
If you were worried about it, you could always specify that your qiveaway was only open to existing followers, or offer them extra entries or something - - It's you blog = your rules!
Hope this helps, and good luck with whatever you decide!
Kel x

I've not done a giveaway for ages, the last one I did had 3 prizes up for grabs cos it was provided by a pr, literally within 24 hours of it ending I'd lost 3 followers! So annoying! I might do a xmas giveaway but I hate the thought of some random who only cares about the prize winning, I want an actual reader of my blog to win! Also I'd go with rafflecopter, but that's cos I'm too lazy to manually check all entries lol! x

I found raffel copter great for my giveaway! I think you should give away what you want :) I am collecting some of my fave budget cosmetics for a giveaway as that's all I can afford. If your readers are genuine they won't care the price of the prize xx

I think rafflecopters a fairer way but It's up to you :D xxx

Great to see people talk about giveaways. I personally have not run a giveaway on my blog as I want to be proud of each and every follower. I don't feel I could do that if I ran a giveaway as new followers wouldn't be following solely because of my content. Anyway yay for 6 months and almost reaching 200 followers :)

mezmadeup.blogspot.co.uk

I feel the same about giveaways - i've never done one on my blog and im waiting until my first 1K followers to do it - i want to feel as if i've gained a good group of genuine readers before i start to gain followers purely to win giveaways. If people dont follow because of this then im happy i've not gained 1 extra just for free prizes :) I will be running one very soon - but i feel exactly the same as you and it was refreshing to read this. :) xxx

congrats on your 6 months :D i found your blog through penelopes beauty obsession and am loving it!! :D www.thelilywhiteenglishrose.blogspot.com

I actually love running giveaways and its not for gaining extra followers. I also work part time and don't have all the money in the world which is why when I'm shopping, if I see something nice and on sale, I'll pick up an extra one and put it aside. I understand why you would feel like running giveaways attract spam accounts because I've actually found it to be true but the best part is, being the blogs administrator, you can remove their entries from Rafflecopter (you can justify it if they're all from the same IP address). I'm trying to figure out if I can delete followers as I know that 5 or so are actually the same person.

Overall though, I don't get more views than when I do a normal post and my other posts still get comments from the readers that I love (I also follow and love their blogs). I've been lucky enough that on my last giveaway, a really nice and genuine follower won.