Postcard Competition

I will start with a warning that this is a long post. I have written it over a month, adding to it, as it goes along.

One of the blogs I follow is “Going Gently” by John Gray. Sometimes he has a competition. He had one on pictures made from fruit and veg (a year or two ago) and I entered my jelly fish made with satsumas and my husband’s apple bird.

He is now running a postcard competition, it’s purely for fun. We are to send the postcards to him with an appropriate stamp and the competition runs from 16th January to 16th February. I am writing this post as it goes along, ready to put it out, after judging day.

The postcards should be standard size but can be bought or homemade and we can send as many as we like and for as many categories as we like. John is judge and will send a prize for each category.

The categories are:

Best animal – Best gay – Best country of origin – Best retro – Best saucy – Funniest – Most beautiful – Best scotch egg – Best not in any category and Best message on card.

John Gray is famed for his love of scotch eggs! He is also an animal lover and has dogs and a cat and has had assorted other animals in the past.

When I started to think of what card I could send my husband suggested that I send him our book of boring postcards. We bought it about ten years ago from an antique shop and have had lots of fun showing friends and family the book.

I thought it was a great idea and agreed it was time to send it to a new home. I thought that it would be the sort of thing that John would like.

We don’t have postcards on sale in our area, it’s probably not considered interesting enough, so all my postcards were home made.

I decided to choose one of the most boring post cards from the book as my first one. I put another postcard inside the book to write a gift message on as I didn’t want to write on the book.

I just cannot imagine why this would have been made into a postcard or why anyone would want to buy it. I suggested on the card that John should add a, most boring postcard, category.

There was a comment on John’s blog saying “That nursing home had me laugh out loud!” referring to my card above.

I wish now that I had thought to take a photo of each card but it didn’t occur to me at the time. The one inside the book was a Christmas card cut down to postcard size of some sheep in the snow at Stonehenge.

The third card I sent was also cut down from a Christmas card and was a scene of a pretty cove with boats which was painted by an artist friend of ours. Every year her Christmas cards feature one of her paintings.

This was a greeting card that I again cut down to postcard size. I thought John would like this one.

John is photographing the cards each day on his blog and at this point, out of well over a hundred cards, there hasn’t been a scotch egg card. I made this one myself and am hopeful of it standing a chance in the scotch egg category. I was rather pleased with this one.

John has now received my card above. He titled his post – SCOTCH EGGS (AT LAST). He said that he has received 281 so far. My card was the first on this post and was captioned – The First Scotch Egg Postcard!

My scotch egg postcard got the most comments so far. Comments on this post included:

“Glad you got your scotch egg card. Patience is a virtue!”

“Glad you are only looking at scotch eggs on a PC rather than eating them!! x”

“Do you know how hard it is to find a postcard with scotch eggs on it? Bravo to the sender!!!!!”

“When a scotch egg is cut in half, it’s like two monstrous yellow eyes are looking back at you. The stuff of nightmares!”

“You just love those scotch eggs!”

“Are scotch eggs crispy or soft? Do you eat them hot or cold?”

In answer John replied –  “The ideal scotch egg has a breadcrumb coating and is deep fried. It’s not crispy. It can be eaten hot or cold”

“I wouldn’t have believed there was such a thing as a scotch egg postcard, but there is! That is amazing.”

“My card was supposed to be a scotch egg card. It was the answer to the crossword”

“John – eat the scotch eggs to keep warm”

People seem to have lost sight of the fact that we can make our own postcards. I am saying nothing in answer as I think it’s more fun not to give away who sends the cards.

I can’t believe how many comments the scotch egg postcard got. That’s more than any other card and I’ll take that as my claim to fame!

John originates from Sheffield but now lives in Wales. John said that anyone giving their address would receive a return postcard from him. That’s going to be a lot of postcards for him to send!

I received my return postcard with a thank you message and John’s postcard of his home town of Sheffield could also have gone into the boring postcard category but I was touched to receive it.

I decided to send one final card. This one was cut down from one of my husband’s birthday cards.

I am happy that I have done my bit to take part and will now await the results. This has been a really fun competition.

John has now received over three hundred post cards and has just received a second scotch egg card! Just when I thought I was in with a chance of winning this category I may have been scuppered.

It is a hand drawn card of a scotch egg with a drooling dog beside it, simply drawn, in black with the only colour being a yellow centre to the half scotch egg. It’s the last week of the competition too. I so nearly made it. Oh well, it is only fun and we shouldn’t try to be too competitive I suppose. 🙁

I have just checked today’s postcards and there is another scotch egg card drawn by the same artist. This time both halves of the scotch egg in colour with a black knife and fork either side and below them a dog’s ears and paws. I am definitely beaten now! I know this artist as I read her blog but I am not naming names … yet!

Okay, I didn’t realise that I had a competitive streak! I decided that I would make another postcard. John has welsh terriers, a bulldog and a black cat. I decided to make a collage of these combined with scotch eggs.

I must admit that I was really pleased with this one. I told my husband that I was captioning it “The things that John loves” and he said  – As well as “The Walking Dead” and he hasn’t had one of those either. Uh oh! I couldn’t resist.

I decided to be the first to send a “Walking Dead” postcard too. It’s also a favourite of mine and returns for the second half of the final series at the weekend so this seemed fitting. So this is card number eight from me. These two cards are definitely my final entrants.

Much to my surprise I received a second post card from John thanking me for my entries. It was a photo of his garden back in Sheffield. I wondered if he had forgotten that he had already sent me one. I am feeling very honoured.

My latest two postcards haven’t arrived yet but in John’s latest batch of cards is another scotch egg one. This is a different take on it. It’s a picture of a drunk chicken clutching a bottle of whiskey. In the background some chickens are chatting and the speech bubble says – “Yeah, But She Lays A Mean Scotch Egg”.

Quite a few comments are saying that they love this card and I do too. A few comments are saying this is the best batch yet. The competition is hotting up. John reminds us there is only a week to go!

Okay – this is the very last card. Card number nine.

I took this photograph of the water droplets on the snowdrops in the garden after a rain shower. I was pleased with how well it came out. As John had sent me a postcard of his Sheffield garden I thought that I would send this one to him in return.

This is definitely my final postcard as time is running out now. I have enjoyed sending the cards and checking John’s blog each day to see if they have arrived. This has been a fun competition.

And then disaster struck! John put out the photographs of the day’s postcards. My “Walking Dead” postcard was first.  He wrote underneath it – The first homemade WALKING DEAD postcard! We now know one prize winner.

There was a comment saying “I should have thought about The Walking Dead! Great card”.

Second was my “Things John Loves” postcard but half the photos had come off in the post. The right hand portion of the card was missing. The bulldog, scotch egg and two welsh terrier photos were gone and part of the flowery background of the greetings card I had stuck the photos to was revealed making it look ridiculous.

I was gutted as I thought this was my best card so far. I e-mailed John and explained what had happened and attached the photograph that I had taken of it before I posted it. I asked if he could show it even if it doesn’t go in to the competition.

He e-mailed straight back and said the photo would appear on the blog the next day. What a sweetie! In the morning he e-mailed again to say the photograph was on the blog. It appeared between the “Walking Dead” card and the card with a part missing.

John has said all the postcards may go on his office wall and he will photograph them for us to see on his blog. Because of this I decided to make a replacement card just for him to put on his wall.

The problem had been that I used a greeting card as the card’s base and stuck the photos to the shiny, picture, surface, as I needed the white background to form the side of the card that gets written on. Lesson learned! This time I stuck plain paper over the picture part of the card and then stuck the photos to the paper.

I couldn’t find all the exact same photos again so I just made it as similar as possible.

This is my tenth and final, final, card. John says he has now received over 450 cards so far.

Two days to go and John has now received 471 cards so far. Today’s first card is another scotch egg card. It is two halves of a scotch egg which look three dimensional, as if the halves are just sat on a postcard. The caption underneath the egg halves is “Just For John”.

John is judging on Friday and posting the results on Saturday.

Today my remade card appeared on John’s latest batch of cards, very sweet of him to include it. He says that he has now received over 500 and no duplicates which is amazing!

One more day to go and a total of 515 before the final day.

Among the last day’s postcards was another scotch egg card. It is a scotch egg planet with mini scotch eggs circling it. The total is now 552 received and winners to be announced later today.

The results are in and I am chuffed to bits. Five of my cards appear on the short lists and I have one winner and one special mention.

My scotch egg card appears amongst six in the first short list along with both the hand drawn ones, the planets one, the chicken drinking scotch whiskey and the three dimensional looking one.

The three dimensional looking one captioned “Just For John” is the worthy winner.

I won the most boring postcard with my very first entrant of the, convalescent home, chairs from the boring postcard book, hurrah!

There were four finalists for best hand made cards and I was surprised that my snowdrops appeared as well as the card that I re made of “The Things John Loves” as the first one fell apart in the post.

Finally I got a special mention for my “Walking Dead” card which wasn’t actually one of the categories so I am well chuffed with that.

The comments have starting coming in and one said ” Carol’s, most boring card, winner was totally fabulous. Well done to all who participated and those that won a category”

John replied “Nicely put”.

I commented how chuffed I was to be in several short lists and to win a category and said how much fun it had been and John replied “And you dear Carol seem to be the champion of champions x”.

Fame at last! I am chuffed to bits!

This has been so much fun and I have loved taking part and am on cloud nine with how many of my cards appeared in the final and the comments received. I am a little sad that it’s all over. It’s been amazing!

In two weeks time John is going to award another winner for the best late entry. I will update again then.