Contests...

Hello again lovelies. Just writing here today to talk about contests.

An update on the Doctor Who Christmas Competition, they finally announced the winners, and I was not one of them. No worries. A few of the folks have pointed out how flawed the contest was, and I have to agree with them. I hate saying that now, because it sounds like I'm a sore loser, but the rules were to get as many likes as you could in a set amount of time, then the top ten most liked would get judged. Their "set amount of time" wasn't actually set, so there were folks getting as many likes as they could past that "set time".  Had they stopped on Christmas Eve, like they were originally supposed to, the top ten would have been quite different. I blame the people who ran the contest, for not having a certain set of rules and then not even following the ones they had themselves. Ah well though, they'll be having another contest soon, and if I can I plan to enter. Can't win if you don't enter, right? :)

And now I'd like to talk about a site called Spoonflower. It's a site that allows you to upload your designs and order them as fabric. Or you can also order others' designs as fabric. I'm in love with this site, but I don't have the means to purchase any fabric at the moment. However, Spoonflower runs weekly contests for new designs. They give you each week's contest a few weeks in advance to work on them, which is lovely. And the winner gets a $100 credit for a Spoonflower order. But I got wind of all of this just this past Saturday, and wanted to enter the contest that was starting this week. I've mentioned it in the previous posts, the entry was due on the 15th.



So I got an idea late Saturday night/Sunday morning, and thought I should work on it on Sunday and Monday, to enter Tuesday. Except, as you know, I didn't work on it Sunday. I left it all for Monday. I've been sleeping days lately, so by the time I woke up, showered, and ate, it was 6pm. I did some background research on the theme for about half an hour. Oh right, the theme... it was toile de jouy in the theme of a murder mystery. Toile de jouy fabric is this:

It's most commonly a white or cream background, with a repeating design in either blue, red, or black. That's just the commonly used criteria though.


So, at 6:30pm, I started drawing. First, sketching it out, piece by piece. Then hopping on MS Paint and drawing each piece there, before putting them all together. I finished at 11:30am Tuesday.  All the dashes, slashes, and scribbles were so incredibly time consuming and painful. I have a drawing tablet, so I luckily didn't have to try and to it all with just a mouse, but that meant I basically scribbled with a pen for 17 hours. Heh. Here's the finished product:

I'd prefer you click here: linky. to see the image in full view, because small like that you can't see all the detail. lol. I'm quite happy with it. I had originally planned for it to be busier, adding extra platforms with plants or something, but by the time I hit Tuesday morning, I knew I had other errands to run, so I stopped when I was happy with it. Not the happiest, but hey, it works. So I entered the contest, and it started officially taking votes today. There's quite a few entries, many I like much better than mine, but hey, I tried! :)

If you'd like to see my competition, here's the link: clicky

I have my eyes set on entering two more contests from Spoonflower, one that's due February 5th, and one that's due February 19th. We'll see how those go. :)

An update on another contest, in my favorite virtual world: There, I'm a part of a group of writers. Been a part of that group since late January of 2005, and I've loved the group muchly since the beginning. My closest online friends come from there, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. I have since, in the past few years, lost some interest in writing in general, but they still accept me and I'm grateful. Anyhoo... the reason I joined the group in the first place was because I'd stumbled across their small forest and found out about their annual writing contest there. I tmailed the leader, asking if I might be able to enter the contest, and also how to use the books in world, because by then I was only three months old, and didn't even know books existed in the world. He responded kindly, even offered to give me a book, and in February, I had put down my first entry to their first annual contest. Okay... now, before you go and say "Holy COW noxy! You have some memory!"  That would be incorrect. I still have the tmails! Ha. I originally thought I'd met the leader of the group in world and that's how I found out about the contest, but then, just for the heck of it, I went to check my old email to see if I still had anything about it. And lo and behold, found this tmail:

Subject: [ThereMail] Hiya!!! 

 

Hiya!! So um, yeah I stumbled across Wordgrove last night and found out
about the writing contest. I'd like to try. Hehehe. But um... I've never
used a book here... so I gots no clue what to do. LOL. Do I just buy one
book and um... give it to you?? Cuz I'm sooo clueless. LOL. Thanks!!! 

  -noxy

Along with his response and then another tmail from him telling me he enjoyed my entry a week later. lol. Ahhhh memories.

ANYHOO, a couple years ago, as you well know, blog, There closed. And then, a while later, it reopened. So there were a few years without the annual contest. This year, it was decided to hold it again, much to my delight. But the theme, "drama", was killing me. Ha. Normally, I'll stick the theme in the back of my head and something will eventually find its way out. (Except for that first contest: "The Legend of..." where I imagine I had something pretty quick to tmail the leader... I'm not a very social person at heart, so me tmailing a stranger asking how to enter their contest is a big thing) But this theme was not cooperating. It was quite general as far as directions go, which was quite unhelpful. However, on Saturday, something popped up. At the same time I got the idea for the murder mystery Spoonflower contest. There are normally three categories in the writing contest, and all of a sudden I had ideas for all three! It was almost as if I might have had the ideas already, but they were blocked somehow on their way out, and then when I got the Spoonflower idea, it pushed aside the block and let the other ideas out.

Granted, the ideas aren't like, amazing or anything, but I was quite relieved to still have a chance at participating in this writing contest. Yesterday I worked on the prose, which I think is stupid and gave me a HUGE headache when I finished it, but I think, deep down, that was my aim for the story, so I figure it's successful in that respect. I also did the journal entry, which was simple, and possibly today I might try working on the poem, which should prove difficult, seeing as how I haven't written a rhyming poem in.... ten years? Wish me luck with that! Ha. Woot!

So there's all that. There's also the annual Enchanted Doll contest. The artist, my favorite artist, holds this contest almost every year, (she was so busy last year she couldn't hold one, but the three years prior she held one, and then there's this year) and gives anyone entering a chance to win a doll of hers. The first three years the winners got a porcelain doll, but this year will be resin, to promote her new resin line. That's not me complaining though, I can't afford either version of her doll, so I'm psyched to have another chance. lol.

The first year was just a simple "Enter you name and win!" thing, where you filled out a form, and one was chosen at random. But she decided, along with many of her fans, that we'd like a chance to deserve the win, rather than have a random win. So the following year, she held a contest where you made something tangible that was Enchanted Doll inspired and sent it to her. You know that entry, blog, it's here. And then the next year was a digital entry depicting designs for an Enchanted Doll. I got a consolation prize for being a mind reader. lol.

This year, we're supposed to send her a postcard, depicting a beautiful place. Could be real or fiction. Can be a store-bought card or hand drawn or whatever. Something that might make her want to travel there. So I sat and thought about the most beautiful places I could think of.... and my mind kept going back to a spot in There. So I went in There today and took some pictures of the spot, and made a postcard image. The entry isn't due until the 28th of February, so I still have time to change my mind, but I'm really leaning towards this place. I love it so. We'll see.



And that's all for contests... I think. I shall end with two pictures:

 Did my nails real simple this time around. Was trying a glitter polish I got for Christmas. :)



And finally this pic:

Last month, to celebrate Cougar Town coming to TBS for its new season, they were having a giveaway every Tuesday. I only remembered to check soon enough for only one of those weeks, and managed to nab myself a wineglass. Got it yesterday in the mail. It's lovely. Now I need some wine.... :)