Celebrating Childhood – A Creative {Kodak} Competition

At five weeks pregnant, I phoned my friend Laura to share my news and while I was on the phone she told her boyfriend. I heard him say Wow! Oh no, can you imagine how many photos there’ll be on Facebook now! And he wasn’t wrong. I have taken 6053 photos in the last 50 weeks.

As much as I love having pictures of Ameli (and all our travels and our daily life) as my screen saver, I also do a weekly Week in Pictures where I highlight one picture from each day.  In addition, I often make little home videos. I’m not very good at it, so I don’t tend to share them, but our birth story is a good example. I have printed out my favourite photos for a photo album of my daughter’s first year, and I also have a scrap book with bits and pieces of fabric, confetti, receipts and so on to celebrate all her firsts. Finally, we have collages of pictures all around our house that have been edited by a Clipping path service, some of the places we’ve been, some of the most beautiful scenes we’ve seen, a fantastic pregnancy montage and so on. I can’t help it. I’m sentimental like that.
My daughter turns one in just two weeks time and I wanted to do something to celebrate and share the celebration with you, so I’ve decided to have an arty crafty competition right here on the blog.

What’s the competition?

The challenge is for you to create something that celebrates the children in your life – your own, your grand children, your niece, your god-child or your neighbour’s child or even the children you babysit (although you might want to get permission for the last two!)

It can be celebrating the life of your child/ren to date, celebrating a special occasion, such as their wedding, graduation, or birthday. It can be about your summer holiday and what you did, how you spent time together or something from it that you want to remember. So long as it involves children, no matter how young or old they are.

What can you create?

Any medium and format will be fine. You could do a movie, a slideshow, a scrapbook, a photo album, a digital photoalbum, an e-book, a wall hanging, crochet, sewing – anything that involves creating something.

How do I enter?

If you’ve made something through an online medium, you can post it to a blog or an online hosting site (such as youtube) and give me the link below. If you don’t have a blog and want to email it to me, you can do so at diaryofafirstchild @ googlemail.com (leave out the spaces)

If it’s a video/slideshow/song/digital photoalbum etc – no longer than 5 mins please.

If it’s something that is not done on a computer you will need to take photos or video of it and either email, post to a blog or upload elsewhere and add the link to the McLinky.

You do not have to make something specifically for the competition either! Something you made previously will be totally acceptible.

What we’re looking for

We’re not looking for the best editing/photography/master song writer – we just want to see your relationship with the child/ren in the finished product. Something professionally edited and gold plated with no heart will stand much less chance of winning than something that makes us smile/laugh/cry and feel what you were trying to portray.

What do I mean ‘we’?

Well, I couldn’t possibly judge all this on my own! I’ve called in the professionals: my friend, local artist and blogger Maggy Woodley from Red Ted Art will be my co-judge. We will sift through the entries individually, then bring our favourites together and choose the winner from there.

And what will you win?

The prize has been sponsored by Kodak, and the winner will receive a Kodak Zi8 pocket video camera. The Zi8 is the perfect family-friendly camera – it is small enough that it can go in any handbag or nappy bag, is superbly simple to use and is ideal for capturing special moments. It is great under low light so requires no bright light in children’s faces, has a macro filming setting for excellent close ups and is equally good in it’s normal setting. There are different recording quality settings so movies can be recorded in high definition for t.v. Playback or kept in low resolution to be uploaded to Facebook or Youtube with no editing required. There is even a 5MP camera, so it is an all in one memory maker solution for on the go mums and dads, grandparents and anyone else! It’s not just for capturing family images, but can be used in conferences, concerts or any other place you might require a video camera, but this one fits in your pocket and doesn’t require any fancy gadgets or a degree in settings and programmes. (Click for a full review of the Zi8)

Closing dates:
The competition runs from today until 11 October 2010 and the winner will be announced here and on Red Ted Art on 18 October. The competition is open internationally. Judges decision is final, and prize cannot be exchanged for a cash value – All other normal competition rules apply.

The Winner Is:

Well, a little later than planned, but our lovely judge Maggy Woodley of Red Ted Art has picked a winner.

But first a word about some of the entries. All the entries were great, and really touching. I particularly loved how differently people were able to interpret and represent the theme, and surprised by the levels of creativity. I particularly thought the romper suit from Cheeky Mummy was creative genius 🙂

Of course, being a bit of a childbirth lover myself, I was also really touched by Qwerty Mum and her beautiful birth video.

But I have to entirely agree with our Illustrious Judge, Maggy, with her choice of winner, because reading through the blog post and looking at the images she created to celebrate the love she has for her child, I actually cried. When I read it to my husband later, I cried again. It was so moving and touching and I am really happy to announce the winner is…

….

Kerry from And Then All I Thought About Was You
Congratulations, and I hope you enjoy your camera and use it to make many more memorable moments!
Thank you so much everyone for entering!

And a big thanks to Maggy for juding the competition. If you enjoy crafts with your little ones, or if you need inspiration, head on over to Maggy’s blog for a world of ideas.