Contests.

I must be a glutton for punishment. The only thing I've ever won in my life was an afghan in a Chinese Auction when I was eight - nothing before that, nothing since - and this month, I've decided to dive head-first not only into the "Eggcellent Upcycling" challenge on Craftster but to throw my work, my Ginger, out there to be considered for the Mortal Plush exhibit (read more about that here: http://www.mortalplush.blogspot.com/). It's all so completely nerve-wracking.

I took another set of pictures of her today (making that the third). Here she is scouting for her next meal..

I hope she gets accepted. I think I may be crushed if she doesn't even though I know there are far more talented artists vying for the same slot I am. The only consolation I have is there isn't a set number of entries they're accepting.. I think it gives me a better shot. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that so I'll sleep tonight.

On top of that, I have my Eggcellent Upcycling challenge entry to finish tomorrow. The idea of the challenge is to take one of those dinky plastic Easter eggs and turn them into something fab. I think my entry's quite imaginative and cute - but, again, I haven't won anything since the afghan and I'm not holding out much hope that those Craftster people will like it. I've posted both Ginger and an homage to Tom Baker on there and I can count all the comments I've gotten on them on my two hands.. clearly they weren't very popular. And then, I look at some of the things that are popular with pages and pages of people saying things like "I'm hitting 'This Rocks' all over this project" and "You're super!" and I go "Really? Because I can't quite see it.." Maybe I'm just too far off. Either way, my entry is almost finished and I can't back out now even though I'm not sure which is more devastating - being too much of a coward to enter or going through with it and not getting a single vote.

I suppose what it comes down to is that I've never been a coward.. and I don't intend to start now.