Congratulations to Jeanne at The Candy Corn Chronicles for winning the People’s Choice Award for her delightfully creepy Anti-Valentines entry: Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.

Thanks, Jeanne, for playing, and email me at holiday -at- dabbled.org, please!

To all the finalists, your stuff was great! Be sure to grab a finalist button here (at the bottom of the Judges’ Picks post) to show off your coolness. And Jeanne, you can get your Winner button here as well!

Be on the lookout for future contests. Last year we had a fun April Fool mini contest, which we’ll be repeating this year in March. Not sure if Summer Doldrums is making a repeat appearance, but we will certainly be having another World Famous Halloween Extravaganza and Contest in the Fall, so stay tuned!

And hey, if you’re new to Dabbled, don’t miss a thing and Subscribe via Email or feedreader*… or Follow Dabbled on Blogger!

See all the Anti-Valentine’s Winners here:
Overall Winners HERE, Check out the Finalists HERE, and Art Winners HERE.

In other news, an update on some of the Cephalopods that swam off to new homes. Bella Sinclair requested the little blue octopus and it made it to Japan – I love her little diver swimming with it! Here are two more that were custom created Valentines gifts from the Valentines Day Special. And the auction for Ethel is over–she’s on her way to Nevada, and her proceeds have gone to the relief efforts for the Australian bushfires!
Want one for yourself? Email me or check out my Artfire Shop.

*(Don’t have a feed reader? Follow a bunch of blogs? I recommend Google Reader). If ya don’t know what this RSS stuff is, read this.

The top picks, and his comments:
1) Missed it by This Much – I loved the craftsmanship that went into this piece! Well thought out and executed. The tiny arrows sealed the deal for me.
2) Cat-pid – I’m a big fan of cartoon-y art. I dig the expression on the cat’s face. It’s kinda like it’s his 1st day on the job, and he’s not quite sure what he’s doing.
3) Caged Heart I’m also a huge fan of really graphic work. The red/black combination is very striking. This could easily be a tattoo.
4) Impasse The negative space created by the white forms in this piece really caught my eye. Also the one little splash of red really adds something.

Winners, email me, and feel free to go snag yourself a nifty little Winner button HERE.

Go take a look at all the cool finalists!

Caged Heart
Not a Valentine
Cat-pid
Cupid Missed
Impasse
Vacuum Card
Barry White

PS: Voting is open til tuesday for the People’s Choice Award — spread the word and go vote for up to 3 favorites from the main contest.

Realizing that all our judges are crafters rather than illustrators (as far as I know – they *are* multi-talented!) I added an additional judge to this round as well… Aaron of Near and Far webcomic (also one of our fabulous sponsors!).

PS: Voting is open til tuesday for the People’s Choice Award — spread the word and go vote for up to 3 favorites.

So, the hand picked art finalists —

Caged Heart
Not a Valentine
Cat-pid
Cupid Missed
Impasse
Vacuum Card
Barry White

—winners announced tomorrow! (Because I like to torture you–it IS anti-valentines and the terms of the contract clearly state that I can torture you.)
– 2/20/09 : Go HERE for Winners

First off, a special thanks to our lovely judges:
The lovely and ingenious Diane, of Craftypod , the clever and delightful Alice, of Futuregirl and the charming and talented Rachel, of Average Jane Crafter. These ladies did a fabulous job picking our winners and finalists — and with so many good entries, that was hard!

Secondly, another special thanks to our sponsors:
Some Art Fabric, Crafting with Cat Hair, Near and Far Comic, and The Booty Bag ™. These are the cool people who donated prizes for you guys to win!* Go visit them and tell ’em thanks!

So, first place goes to Samwise’s Melting Heart

As a judge said “I love not only the creative use of wire, but also how elegantly this piece represents the idea of a heart coming apart.” If you have a website, I’d love to link to it.

Second place goes to Crafting With Cat Hair‘s Kiss Me Deadly Poison Lipstick

“Not only does it make really precision use of craft techniques, it’s so subtly funny.”

Winners, Please email me at holiday -[at]- dabbled.org. And go look at our prizes!

And soooo close — some of these were just a point away! Our Honorable Mentions, in no particular order:

a: Pompom Serial Killers
b: Skeleton Bleeding Heart
c: I heart Maggots!
d: Lili Doll

And you can see all the finalists in the Poll for the People’s Choice Award. Do you know better than our judges? Go vote for YOUR favorite(s).

Note, these are the finalists, but do NOT include the judges’ First Place pick. Also, we judged Art/Illustration separately, so those are not included in the finalists.
You may vote for up to 3 finalists for the peoples choice winner!

(Links are listed below the poll)

http://kleiosbelly.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/the-anti-valentine/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackstarjewelry/3235830543/
http://realitysuckspeanutbutter.blogspot.com/2009/02/broken-heart.html
http://wildwoodsartstudio.blogspot.com/2009/02/anti-valentines-day-contest-v-20.html
http://picasaweb.google.com/alisonamaurer
http://pterodactylpants.com/?p=604
http://paperclipsandplaypens.com/?p=114
http://www.flickr.com/photos/craftycarolinagirl/3245126161/
http://peachstreet.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-anti-valentines-day-contest-entry.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pepperstitches/3273423235/in/photostream/

And hey, don’t forget our sponsors who are bringing you the cool prizes — show ’em some love and go visiting!

So, some inspiration… I’ve picked a couple of our entries thus far to showcase here… But go check out all the entries in the comments over Here.

<– A lovely Anti-Valentine from kleio’s belly
&
A delightful Valentine’s Maggot from Pterodactyl Pants –>

Be a Dabbled emissary, and go visit them and check out their other cool stuff!

*The lovely and ingenious Diane, of Craftypod (We interviewed Diane a while back)

*The clever and delightful Alice, of Futuregirl (She has the best sea creatures!)

*And the charming and talented Rachel, of Average Jane Crafter (and Craft contributing writer)

If you’re not familiar with these talented ladies, go check them out. They’ve all been huge inspirations to me over the past few years!

And also don’t forget to ENTER THE CONTEST and CHECK OUT THE PRIZES!

Wanna see your stuff here? Get your entries in early and I’ll be featuring a random sampling!

Oh, coming Monday I’ll be announcing 3 fabulous blogresses (is that a word?) that you probably know (and if you don’t, you should!) who will be judging the Anti Valentine’s Day Contest. They aren’t sworn to secrecy or anything, so you may find out somewhere else first. But if you don’t.. tune in Monday for the announcement!

OK, now for something different…
Some other inspiration links for you:

It’s time! The second annual Dabbled Black Heart Anti-Valentines Day Contest is here!
If you remember last years, it was a ton of fun. (Check out last year’s entries here, and winners, here!)

The Rules:
Quite Simple: The theme is anti-valentines. Something a bit darker/creepier than you average valentine project–or however you interpret “Anti-Valentine”. Illustrations or any sort of food or craft project welcome. Tutorials and How-to’s are encouraged! Simply create your offering, and either post the link to it as a comment on this post (if you don’t mind others seeing it), or email it to me at holiday[at]Dabbled[dot]org (if you prefer secrecy!)- please put “Black Heart Contest” in the header of your email. And show off your stuff on flickr by adding it to the dabbled group pool.

You can enter more than once, but only 1 of your entries can win (i.e. the same person can’t win 1st and 2nd place)

The Time Frame:
Entries must be received by 11:oo PM Eastern US time on Feb 12.

The Prizes:
The coolest stuff will be featured on Dabbled.org, linking back to all your other equally cool stuff if you provide a website. And the *top* winners will receive other prizes (Go See the Prizes HERE!) which have been donated by our Sponsors. And of course “I’m a Winner” buttons for your blogs/websites.

How will the winners be chosen? Well, we have 3 lovely and talented judges who’ll be weighing in!

Spread the word! Last year’s was a blast, and we had so much cool stuff, so let’s get even more creative people involved this time :) If you’ve got a blog or participate in a message board, add a button (below) or post a link back to this post.