New Blog Challenge New Rules

After some consideration as to how I can boost entries to the current Blog Challenges I've come up with the following strategy to try out:

You can now enter anything created by yourself that fits the theme of the challenge, this might be a photograph, traditional artwork, embroidery, sculpture . . . absolutely anything handmade as long as you can take a photograph of it and email it to me or post a link.

The aim is to creatively interpret the title not just straightforwardly depict it.

There will be a month to submit your entires then a week for voting.

A prize will be awarded to the winner and I reserve the right to award any additional prizes I feel appropriate.

In the event of a tie I will choose the winner.

In order to enter you should make some effort to promote the competition, post a link on your blog, Facebook, Twitter anything you feel helps others to find the Challenge.

There will be a promotion and chat thread on Etsy, which I'd be grateful if you joined in - a link to the thread will be posted with each new Challenge announcement.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Onto the next Challenge.

The theme is 'Creature Comforts'. Please use this title as a basis for creative interpretation. Post your links on this thread or email me a copy of your entry to amazoncat88[at]googlemail[dot]com

Join in the Creature Comforts chat and promotion thread here please drop in and help promote the competition as well as your own work.

The Challenge will close on the 1st October after which voting will be open for 1 week.

Sorry for the silence . . .

. . . I've been very very busy firstly at a veterinary practice clocking up work experience for when I apply to university. The practice I was at is really lovely, which is quite a blessing as the certainly aren't all.

I also had a baby hedgehog brought to me, which unfortunately died suddenly. This apparently isn't entirely unusual although it is obviously quite upsetting. The little fellow had been coming to the vets with me everyday as it needed regular feeding. About a day before it died we noticed some soreness around its bottom and phoned a large veterinary practice that does all the work for a big rescue centre in London and my vet followed the advice of the expert in London in terms of treatment. The baby suddenly went downhill that evening and I called a lot of local hedgehog people for advise, most of them weren't in or passed me onto somebody else and when I did eventually talk to somebody she wasn't all that helpful and told me I'd probably killed it with the medication I was giving it. All rather unfortunate and given that by the time I was off the phone the poor little thing had died not a great evening but it wasn't until I went back to the vets to continue my work experience that I realised just how rude and unhelpful this woman was. Apparently she stormed into the vets that Saturday and started shouting at the nurse on reception in front of the whole waiting room that she'd killed it and they should all know better. Luckily the people there are really nice and didn't blame me for the crazy shouting woman but I felt terrible. I didn't intentionally mention which vets it was as they were doing me a favour and didn't really deserve to get dragged into anything, they were after all following professional advise. Unfortunately there's basically nothing I can do as I can't even be 100% certain who actually went in and did the shouting as there's a little group of women here who all take in hedgehogs and work together, none of them live close to my vets (which annoys me even more because they clearly made a special trip to do the shouting) so it really could have been any of them. Sorry for the rant but I haven't really had anybody to talk to about this; the whole experience has really put me off and I now feel I can't take anymore hedgehogs to this particular vet.

In more positive news Apple finally got back to me after months and months and I have a job! It starts in a couple of weeks, which is great after nearly a year of basically no money. I should also be starting A Levels around that time so my life is going to suddenly get quite busy. The only slightly annoying thing is that I told the Job Centre people that I had a job and they said 'great but you still have to keep applying to places until you start even though you already have a job', so I have to waste my time and that of the companies' I'm apply to applying for jobs I don't want or need; it is frustrating and seems very silly.

I will be launching another Blog Challenge before the end of the week and put up some Artist Features so keep checking back for updates.

And the Winner is . . .

As we have a tie I will select the winner of this round, I hope that's alright with everybody. As Amie, who is the photographer of #6 won the last round I will award this round to Southern Girl who took #1, I will be in touch with you shortly; well done to you both.

My personal favourite for this round was #2, taken by Kimberly Rose, I love her original take on the theme, not to mention it is a stunningly well taken photograph.

More news and an Undiscovered Artist Feature coming up later in the week.

'Hidden' Competition Entries and time to vote!

It's time to vote for the winner of the 'Hidden' photography competition so here we have the entries:

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

6.

Please use the poll on the left hand side to cast your vote, remember to vote for the photograph that you think best suits the theme 'Hidden'.

The rules for voting are as follows:

- please do not vote for your own entry

- please take the time to promote the competition and the voting on your own blogs, websites etc.

- voting closes at midnight GMT on Monday 10th August.