To those few who know what I mean when I talk about Paper Crafts Magazine, you may know what I'll be talking about here, but to those who don't, it's a pretty cool contest. Gallery Idol 2010 is an American-Idolesque competition in the way that... um, there are finalists... okay, so really in name only. But you get the idea. The first round was open auditions so anybody could submit their designs using the theme "Thank You Cards", and, from those submissions, 20 finalists would be chosen. Now, I told myself I wouldn't be disappointed if they didn't pick me. I was convinced they wouldn't, anyway because stuff like this never happens to me. I was right, they didn't pick me, but that's kind of beyond the point now. I actually wasn't disappointed because when I looked at the 20 finalists that were chosen, while there were some excellent ones, I didn't agree with most of them. So there. It did make me feel slightly better. :) This kind of design competition is really subjective, and, while it sounds like I'm making excuses, I honestly thought at least 1 of my cards had something of a chance. So, no, I'm not making excuses. Believe me or not.
In the Open Auditions, you could submit as many designs as you want so I decided just to do 3 so I wouldn't exhaust all my design options and techniques in the first round, JUST IN CASE I got chosen to continue. My first one I made using heat embossing, stamp masking and precision cutting techniques. The bears are also 3-D, as you can see. I think this one's really cute. I love those bears. They're like, hey, what's up... I'm a bear.
For my last card, I used heat embossing, die-cuts and paper piecing techniques with pearl, chalk and ribbon embellishments. The bird mat and thank you cloud are all 3-D. This is the one I thought had a fairly good chance, and it's also my favorite. For this one, I used the swirly embellishment and the pearl embellishments like I had never done before. I was really happy with the way it came out. This card was really unlike any I had made before, and I could actually imagine seeing it in one of my Paper Crafts Magazines. I love it!
So, despite the fact that I DID not make the final cut, I'm still voting, and that is still fun. There are some interesting themes after that incredibly vague open audition theme. The second one was Sympathy/Thinking of You, and the third one was Masculine Garage. For the third one, they had to make a card for a man using items "from the garage". My favorite was a card that said "I Want to Be Just Like You When I Grow Up" with a little nail (baby nail) and a big nail (daddy nail). It was adorable. The next theme is "Ribbon". Do with that what you will, but it will be really interesting to see what these gals come up with. If you are interested in voting in some of these rounds, you can do that below by clicking on the link. You do have to have an account to vote so you may not want to, but you can view the entries without an account. I'm just saying.
On a side note, tomorrow is National Knit in Public Day! Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to participate as tomorrow we're celebrating Father's Day because my husband has to work on Sunday. I know! It's horrible. But for those of you who can, enjoy the audacity of knitting in public! Be proud of your hobby!