Creatin' Contest

In 2014 the girls and I entered the Miniatures.com 21st Annual Creatin' Contest.  For this contest, entrants were invited to create a miniature scene from the Houseworks Garage kit (minus the working door.)  We made a ghost house, complete with headless ghost dolls.

To decorate the house, we made miniature headless portraits from internet photos and antique frozen charlotte dolls.

We even found a headless horse:

As I write this, I believe I may have insight into to why we did not win this contest.  But it sure was fun to make!

SCWBI Anti-Valentine Contest

The Society of Book Writers and Illustrators used to host regular on-line writer and illustrator contests.  In February 2008, the challenge was to draw or illustrate an anti-valentine.  I responded with this:

Bob was the model, which I disclose now to avoid centuries of speculation.

What the Fluff? Festival

Marshmallow Fluff was invented in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1917 by Archibald Query.  To celebrate this important event, Union Square Main Streets  hosts an annual What the Fluff? festival in Somerville.  The festival features Fluff-themed cooking contests, games, and exhibits.  Read more here.

If you know me at all, you have already guessed that I did not enter the cooking contest.  However, in the first year of the festival there was also an art contest which invited entrants to create Fluff-themed art.  My original plan was to create a giant Rothko using real peanut butter and Fluff, but the rules prevented me from using actual Fluff as a medium.  I settled for acrylic and colored pencil instead, and invoked the styles of Lichtenstein, Pollock, Rothko, and Warhol.    

New Project

For my next project I have decided to enter the Real Good Toys General Store Challenge. For this contest, we are invited to create a miniature store of our choosing using the Real Good Toys kit.

I confess that I am partial to both miniature stores and contests.  While I wait for my kit to arrive, I will describe some of the contests I have entered to date.

Adam Cadre Lyttle Lytton Contest

The Lyttle Lytton Contest is a shorter version of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which challenges entrants to write the worst possible introductory sentence to a novel. Adam Cadre's Lyttle Lytton contest offers the same challenge, but the sentence must be 30 words or less.

I am proud to say that I received honorable mentions in the 2007 and 2009 contests, which pleased me disproportionately.  But the finest moment of all was when Megan's entry placed in 2010.  Here was Megan's entry:

   "Once upon a time, there was a talking lamp whose lightbulb fell out and hit a person and the person got shocked and destroyed everything."

Cadre wrote of her entry, "This is such an uncanny recreation of the way five-year-olds tell stories that I assume that the Axe Cop audience would buy up the entire first printing." Megan was actually six when she wrote this, not five, but close enough.