Everyone loves a contest, right?  And this one seems perfect for Craftsters: awesome crafts on the cheap!  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make an amazing gift for less than $40.  Easy-peasy!

Here’s the official deets from Venus:

Enter Venus Zine’s 4th Annual Craft-Off Contest
Deadline: September 18

Got a clever handmade gift idea? Does it cost less than $40 to produce? Want to share your project with the world? If you answered yes to these questions, you should totally enter Venus Zine’s 4th Annual Craft-Off Contest, a competition pitting the craftiest in the land against one another to come up with the best, most creative, most fantabulous DIY creations imaginable … on a budget.

Winners will be chosen from the submissions received, and the best projects will be featured in the winter 2008–2009 issue of Venus Zine, on newsstands December 1. Winners will receive a four-issue subscription to Venus Zine — additional prizes to be announced (keep checking back!). Winners will be featured fancy pants–style in the magazine (photo and bio and all) in addition to venuszine.com.

RULES SHMULES

•  Your project should be an innovative, unusual creation using materials whose total cost does not exceed $40. We’re looking for jewelry, clothing, home décor, furniture, bags, accessories, bath and body works, pet goodies, and whatever else you can think of. Try to come up with unexpected uses for objects, or put a new spin on an old favorite. Surprise us with your boundless creativity. The mission is to create gifts to give during the holiday season, but your project doesn’t need to be holiday-themed.
• Your entry consists of two parts:
  • 1. Digital photographs of your project: We will not actually run your photos, so don’t worry about doing a high-tech photo shoot. Instead, we will conduct our own photo shoot for the magazine.
  • 2. A set of instructions for assembling it. How-tos should be concise but sufficiently detailed so that Venus Zine readers may replicate your work. Please include a materials list that gives the approximate cost of each material.
• Any Venus Zine reader is welcome to participate, whether you’re a DIY businessperson or just have a flair for the crafty. Unfortunately, if you’re related to a Venus Zine staffer, you cannot apply. (You know how it goes – we wouldn’t want it to look like we’re biased.)

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR BRILLIANT IDEA

• E-mail jpegs of your Craft-off Contest submission along with how-to
  instructions to craftoff@venuszine.com
  

• All entries must be received by September 18, 2008, to be considered. We will notify you if you are a winner.

• You may submit up to five projects.

Ladies and gentlemen, fire up your glue guns, rev up your sewing machines, and show us what you’re made of!

PRIZES
Interested in applying to be a Craft-off Contest prize sponsor? Get in touch with Anne Brindle at anne@venuszine.com for details. Keep checking back! Prizes will be announced soon.

This press release just came to us from Coats and Clark and we wanted to help spread the word! More details can be found at this link here:
http://www.coatsandclark.com/Crafts/Crochet/Features/Special+Olympics.htm

Charlotte, N.C.—Athletes at the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Idaho will be wrapped in a little handmade love, courtesy of knitters and crocheters across the country. Charlotte-based Coats & Clark is sponsoring a project to provide each athlete with a scarf created in white and delft blue Red Heart® Super Saver® yarns, which happen to perfectly match the colors of the Specials Olympics logo.

The Specials Olympics World Winter Games Scarf Project is now in its second year. In 2007, the program began when World Winter Games organizers decided to give handcrafted scarves to athletes to wear to the Opening Ceremony. They asked local crafters to participate, and the headquarters office was inundated with over 1,000 scarves.

David Gish, an athlete from Idaho who participated in the 2008 Special Olympics Invitational Winter Games, says his scarf is a symbolic memento from the event. “Getting the scarves was very special for the athletes because we knew someone spent their time to make them especially for us,” says Gish. “It is something I will have forever and I know they will be just as special to the athletes next year at the World Winter Games.”

This year, the World Winter Games aims to give a scarf to each athlete, the delegates supporting them and various dignitaries who will be visiting the Games—and they need help to meet that mark. This is where Coats & Clark comes into the picture.

“We’re thrilled to sponsor this project. Our goal is to see 5,000 scarves donated. It’s a big number, but I’m confident we can do it,” says Vicki Blizzard, media relations and special promotions director for Coats & Clark. “Knitters and crocheters are dedicated and generous and are known for rising to this type of challenge.”
Coats & Clark is promoting this project through its web site, electronic newsletters, various consumer shows and magazines so that knitters and crocheters around the country (and around the world) can send scarves to be given to the athletes. No special patterns or skills are required to create a scarf. Beginners, schools, scout troops and other local groups are actively encouraged to participate. “Our only rule,” says Blizzard, “is that the scarves are knitted or crocheted by hand using delft blue and white Super Saver yarn, because these colors were chosen specifically by the World Winter Games organizers.”

Scarves can be simple or complex—last year’s scarves ran the gamut from basic stitches to complicated colorwork and stitch patterns. Personal notes from knitters and crocheters who want to send their best wishes to the athletes are encouraged and should be firmly attached to the scarves, which will be handed out before the Opening Ceremony.

Completed scarves must arrive by January 15, 2009, and should be sent to:
2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games Scarf Project
3150 West Main Street
Boise, Idaho 83702

About the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games: The 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games will be held in Idaho, USA, February 7-13, 2009, and will include approximately 3,000 athletes from more than 100 countries and 6,000 volunteers. Competition will take place in seven winter sports – Alpine Skiing, Cross-Country Skiing, Figure Skating, Floor Hockey, Snowboarding, Snowshoeing and Speed Skating. Competition and other activities will take place in communities and venues throughout Idaho.

There’s a wonderful non-profit in the Boston area called Building Impact who engages people in office and residential buildings in order to harness their collective energy, resources, and goodwill to benefit other high-impact non-profit and community partners in Greater Boston.

NameMedia was one of many companies who worked with Building Impact on a “Ready for School Drive” through one of their partner non-profit organizations, Cradles to Crayons. We all donated school supplies and money towards new backpacks and in each backpack that a child receives will be a handmade card!

Here are some pictures from card-making day here at NameMedia today. Maybe it was the free pizza, maybe it was the opportunity to get away from your desk for a bit, but I think we’ve definitely got some not-so-closeted Craftsters among us!

My favorite cards of the day were by Ed:

And by Kevin:

More pictures of the crafty card-making:

The entry period for the Creativity 350 contest has arrived!

Haven’t finished your project yet? Have no fear, you have a whole month to enter. Entries are due by August 15th.

And then from August 16th - August 31st you’ll be able to see and vote on all the amazing entries.

To enter your project, click the link below and then click the link for either the Craft Contest or the T-Shirt Contest:
http://www.craftster.org/350/

And don’t forget– just by entering the contest, you’re helping spread the word about a very important cause and about the amazing climate change awareness organization 350.org.

Happy Crafting!

This month’s challenge was to think of one of your childhood hereos and craft up some sort of homage to that person using any craft techniques you desired.

The results of this challenge were amazing! From Rainbow Brite to Captain Planet, we saw lots of creativity in the entries.

The winner of this month’s challenge is I Sew Cute with her entry titled, “Childhood Treasures Preserved in Children’s Literary Hero Table…Dr. Seuss, etc”




I Sew Cute created this beautiful table representing Dr. Seuss & The Cat in the Hat, Maurice Sendak & Where the Wild Things Are, A. A. Milne & Winnie the Pooh, and Beatrix Potter & Peter Rabbit. To read all about her crafting process and to see more photos of this project, please follow this link: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=255024.0

I Sew Cute is the winner of a copy of the beautiful embroidery book by Aimee Ray called Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners!

Amazon.com’s description:
Asian-inspired lampshades embellished with flying fish. Canvas sneakers decorated with pink and white swirls. A pretty pillow adorned with a sleeping bunny, sweetly curled up. All it takes to create these appealing projects—or add charming embroidered touches in no time at all—are a few simple stitches, some easy techniques, and the nearly 30 projects in this book. Begin by learning several styles for outlining, filling, decorating, and appliqué. Find out about floss, fancy threads, fabrics, and needles. Get the scoop on hoops, and the lowdown on transferring your very own designs onto every type of fabric. The fresh ideas, witty patterns, and clever color illustrations take stitchers from novice to accomplished in a blink of the eye!

And last, but certainly not least, here are a few of my personal favorites entered in this challenge!

Craft The World painted this gorgeous skateboard in homage to Harley Quinn:

To see more photos and project details, visit this link: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=255129.0

Nannetta paid homage to Babar the Elephant with this colorful embroidery piece:

To read more about Nannetta’s project, go here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=254949.0

Thanks to all of our entrants this month and a very special thank you to Aimee Ray for our prize package!