Creative Wins Round-up

Having just received an email today for my first win of 2015, which was 3rd prize for my jewellery post, I thought I would do a round-up of creative wins from last year. I did a similar post last January looking back at 2013.

I know that some of my readers regularly enter my giveaways, but have you tried creative competitions too? They are fun and usually have a lot less entries too. I’ve been lucky with photo, cookery, video, blog post, pinterest and instagram competitions in 2014. And there are plenty for the children too, although I have to say that my boys have been a lot less interested in drawing and colouring this year. They usually prefer to spend time playing on their ipods but they still make time for fun activity based competitions. However they’ve got clever now – when I mention a competition, they ask me what the prize is and then they decide if they want to enter.

Starting with the boys.  Here are  their winning pictures.

Son2 won a “Bright Stanley” book for his fish picture

Son2 was very proud to receive his prize at school in the John Lewis story competition

Son1 won a comouflage suit for his flowers

And the boys regularly took part in This Mummy Loves Draw With Me monthly linky and struck lucky in September winning a box of crafting goodies. Sadly it looks like the linky has now stopped.

The boys had great fun doing the Warburtons Half & Half Term Games sports challenges and we won lots of sports kit for this photo of the boys doing the short jump.

Doing the Short Jump

We won £100 of Amazon vouchers for our photo of son2 as a #sunaware superhero. He then also featured in the #sunaware video.

Son2 as a #sunaware superhero

We won £50 of Co-op vouchers for this fun photo where son2 refused to look at the camera as he didn’t want to see the heart he was holding.

Our Local Loved Trusted winning entry

A top tip is to always take several different photos. Son2 won a set of Sue Hendra books and a Mr Potato Head costume for this photo of Mr Potato Head that he made.

Son2 hiding behind his Mr Potato Head

Plus another shot of Mr Potato Head won him a runner’s up book in a different competition.

Son2’s Mr Potato Head

We also subsequently entered the photo of him hiding behind Mr Potato Head into another competition for which he won a magazine subscription. So three prizes for making Mr Potato Head, not bad.

Son1 won a runner’s up Nature Explorer backpack containlng binoculars and other goodies for his Robot #rollmodel. Son2 also entered but wasn’t so lucky.

Son1’s robot #rollmodel

The boys won some toys for their road safety creativity.

Road safety

And son2 is still waiting for some books he won last month for drawing Hairy Maclary online. The boys both seem just as comfortable drawing on either a computer with the mouse or on a tablet with their finger as they do with a piece of paper.

Yet Another Blogging Mummy started last year with yet another win with Mission Deli Wraps having done very well with them already in in 2013. This time my Elf wrap won me some festive DVDs which we waited until this Christmas to watch. The boys loved The Grinch best. And as far as I could tell, nobody else even entered this one.

I won DVDs for my ELF wrap

My recipe for Mini Garlic Pizza Wraps won 3rd prize in a Gourmandize competition, which was a month’s subscription to Bonjour French Food, who kindly then gave me a 2nd month free as they had a spare box. We really enjoyed these, so I purchased a gift box for a close friend for Christmas.

My Vine #willitgrill video won 3rd prize, a barbeque and even better, I was supporting Cancer Research by entering. With son1 undergoing chemotherapy, I try to do all I can to support cancer charities.

Having got an iPhone this year, I tried my luck at Instagram competitions and won £50 of John Lewis vouchers for my #iloveadvice photo.

My winning Instagram photo

There are always plenty of creative competitions at Halloween for costumes and pumpkin carving. These are probably a little more popular than most creative competitions, so we were pleased that our pumpkin won us tickets to Harry Potter World. We are looking forward to our trip there sometime this year.

Our winning pumpkin

My Green Pancakes recipe blog post won £100 Sainsburys vouchers and my tyre safety blog post won £250 John Lewis vouchers. And who would have thought that just eating biscuits could net us a prize. But it did, I won £100 John Lewis vouchers for my 42 Days of Summer blog post.

I’ve also tried entering Pinterest competitions and my board for the #VCLifeHacks competition won me a £50 Amazon voucher.

Other creative wins were a photo of my Asparagus Frittata which won me a spices hamper. And enhancing a photo of son2 using the Appy App, won us some juice. And a photo of me munching on a cookie I made won me a personalised recipe folder. And I submitted my existing Christmas Lights blog post from last year to a competition. I didn’t win the main prize but did get a £25 lighting voucher. I also won £100 Red Letter Day voucher for a photo of myself covered in post-it notes. Gosh I did look silly but the prize certainly made it worth while.

And I can’t end without a word of thanks to SuperLucky Di who has inspired me to focus my comping on creative competitions. Sorry Di that we didn’t win the Autumn/Winter 14 Blogger Style Challenge, although we did make the shortlist.

Creative Wins

Although I got bitten by the comping bug about a year and a half ago, it was only last summer that I twigged that creative competitions were the ones to enter, inspired by SuperLucky Di. This was after seeing my sons have success with their colouring and drawing competitions. With creative competitions you have fun and there are probably less entries too.  So I’ve enjoyed myself trying photo, cookery, video, blog post, pinterest and tiebreaker competitions. Here is a round-up of family creative wins in 2013.

Starting with the boys.  Here are 5 year old son2’s winning pictures.  Son2 kept particularly busy with colouring and drawing whilst son1 was in hospital with leukaemia.

Son2 won colouring pencils and paper for his Winter Garden

Son2 won sweets and more colouring goodies

Son2 was a runner-up with his seaside drawing

Son2 won Zuma dog goodies

Son2 won 2nd prize

Son2 won books

Son2 won his design mounted on canvas

Son2 won a sandwich cutter of his design

Son2 won Mr Men goodies

And here are 8 year old son1’s winning entries. He won £100 of Waterstones vouchers for his favourite joke which is:-
Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?
To get to the bottom.

Son1 won a mug for designing a colouring puzzle sheet

Son1 won a circus playtent for his fire-eater

Son1 won JCB goodies

Son1 won a kids cookery set for his sweet potato head man

Son1 took a photo of me and we won a Cornishware mug

My creative wins have mainly been for blog posts. Firstly I was very pleased to be one of 15 bloggers selected to take part in Mission Deli Wraps Lunch Less Ordinary Challenge and even more pleased to be a top prize winner in week 4. Our family had great tasty fun with this one for a whole month.

And I won a £300 hamper for blogging my flapjack recipe. And a puppet for blogging about special toys.

Also had photo wins for my alien sandwich, my cake and son1’s dancing. And my ice cream sundae photo was a runner-up. And a video win for walking to school. But I haven’t explored the potential of Instagram yet as I don’t have an iphone.

Alien sandwich

I’ve also won other non-creative competitions. And although it is exciting to open a prize, especially if it has been sent without prior notification of the win, the buzz is much better from a creative win.

The Lunch Less Ordinary Blogger Challenge – Week 2

I’m taking part in the Mission Deli Wraps “Lunch Less Ordinary” blogger challenge which means I will be blogging about at least one of their challenges that I’ve done during each week.  Some of you may have already read my post of what I did for week 1.

Every week, for four weeks, Mission Deli Wraps will be releasing fun, unusual challenges for bloggers to complete and post about. Some of them will be quite easy, and some will be slightly more challenging.

Mission Deli Wraps is committed to inspiring people to enjoy A Lunch Less Ordinary; whether it’s leaving your desk for an extra half an hour over lunch, swapping your usual packed lunch for a tasty Mission Deli Wraps, or getting covered in tomatoes at La Tomatina in Valencia.

The Challenges are to help inspire the nation do something more fun, exciting and a little less ordinary over lunch.

Round 2 Challenges are:

1) Mini ‘wrappers’ – get the kids to make up the lyrics to a ‘wrap’ about their lunch

2) Have lunch in a less ordinary location! Send us your photos collage at the end of the week – we’re looking for the most creative wrap lunches and locations!

3) Have lunch in your own mini mardi gras – check out the images we’ve sent you as inspiration!

4) Lunchtime less ordinary bus tour. Take some wraps and go enjoy the sights of your local area

Once again, I was late receiving the challenges, but this was quickly resolved after me asking again the next day.  And luckily none required doing something every day, so I could choose from all the challenges this time.  So after reading the challenges, I asked my oldest son if he would like to do challenge 1 and got a resounding yes.  He was very keen to do his own version of “Gangnam style” and immediately started singing his ideas.  We decided that we would also link in challenge 4, by videoing him singing on the kids bus outside the shopping precinct.

Mission Deli Wrap Song
by son1

Whopper Wrapper Style
Whopper Wrapper Style
Whopper Wrapper Style
Whopper Wrapper Style
Eh Sexy Wrapper Wrap Wrap
Whopper Wrapper Style
Eh Sexy Wrapper Wrap Wrap
Whopper Wrapper Style

Goat’s cheese and carrot

So I prepared our lunch wraps – goats cheese and grated carrot, this time using the free pack of Mission Deli wraps that I had been sent in the post.  Then off we went to do the filming, son1 choosing to dress the part with his cap on back-to-front and his hoodie half hanging off.  Unfortunately the video was shorter than I hoped, as son1’s iPod ran out of space, halfway through me doing the filming.  And son1’s singing had to compete against the nursery rhyme from the bus.  But we did enjoy our fun lunchtime less ordinary.

It’s a wrap!

Take a look at Mission Wraps UK Facebook page to see some of their Lunch Less Ordinary ideas.  They are also running a competition on their page for you to set our next challenge.  You could win an “On a mission” t-shirt for your suggestion.  And I hope that my post inspires you to take up the challenge too.

I’m looking forward to what next weeks challenges may be.

And to help the nation liberate its lunch, Mission Deli Wraps have launched a new on pack competition, giving you the chance to have lunch in some of the most exciting places in the world or £10,000 cash.

Disclosure : This is my entry for the Lunch Less Ordinary Blogger Challenge. You can find out more at www.facebook.com/MissionWrapsUK. I have been sent some free Mission Deli wraps and have a chance to win some great prizes for taking part.

Welcome to my blog

This is my first attempt at a blog so I was very pleased to see a couple of people like my most recent post.  It’s great to know that it is being read.

I had some good news today.  I’ve won a competition.  It’s my biggest win to date.  A luxury bath and body set worth over £100.

I’m looking forward to pampering myself with it once it arrives.  I got into comping last year, when I entered several competitions for events at the Edinburgh festival.  We were on holiday near Edinburgh, doing our first house-swap, and were on a very tight budget at the time.  I won tickets to see Julia Donaldson at the book festival, Hairy Maclary and the food festival.  And we were also offered complimentary tickets for Icarus, whilst walking along the Royal Mile.   We loved all the shows and had great fun tasting stuff at the Food Festival.

We enjoyed our house-swap and I thoroughly recommend it as a holiday choice.  We swap with families with similar age children.  You get all the space of a family home and know that your own home is being looked after.  The boys love playing with different toys.  We did a second house-swap later last year to Lincolnshire and are hoping to organise one to Worcestershire this year.

I also keep my eye out for creative competitions for the boys as they both love drawing.  I’ve already posted a couple of their successes on my blog and son2 has now had another win, which I’ll do a separate blog post for, once his picture is uploaded.

Preschool Picasso Competition

Son2 got a runners-up prize for his entry in the Preschool Picasso Competition. A collage scene of the Jack and Jemima range from Oak Furniture Solutions.

Geronimo Stilton Competiton

Proud mummy when son1 was a winner on nutella.