After a wild few months in which I won or was gifted an embarrassing amount of cool things from my fellow bloggers, I decided in February 2014 to give back and created The Contest of Whatever. Anyone with a blog could play along, and all that was required was to come up with something creative that could be shown off in a blog post that followed the minimal set of conditions I set for the competition. I would choose one winner on merit and another from a random drawing who would each get to pick an item from my Cafepress shop valued at $20 USD or less.
The CoW has become an annual tradition at The Nest every February, and what follows is a summary of the first nine contests:
2014
Theme: Must contain a squirrel, a possum and a unicorn
The Field (13 entries)
Winner: YoungAtFifty, for her crocheted Buster that turns inside out into Evil Squirrel and accompanying Rainbow Donkey head.
Random Winner: Goldfish
Badges:
2015
Theme: Must contain at least two animal characters participating in some form of a game or competition.
The Field (9 entries)
Winner: Draliman, for his ill-fated Possum Olympics
Random Winner: Merby
(There used to be an image of animals playing poker here, but it seems to have disappeared….)
Badges:
2016
Theme: Must include Buster and he must die!
The Field (8 entries, Jenn’s late entry can be found in the “Winner” link)
Winner: Gentlestitches, for her cute ami play featuring Buster, Rainbow Donkey, Hottie and MBRS
Random Winner: Jade Phillips
Badges:
2017
Theme: Anthropomorphize objects around the house and tell a story a la Shelf Critter Theatre
The Field (9 entries)
Winner: Juliette, for her party attended by Vlad and Randolfo.
Random Winner: Jenn’s Midlife Crisis
Badges:
2018
Theme: Create something that ties in at least one element from each of the following three randomly selected images:
The Field (8 entries)
Winner: Trisha, for her story of evil Luigi torturing his captive brother Mario
Random Winner: Pam Kimmell (Onespoiledcat)
Badges:
2019
Theme: “A squirrel walks into a bar…”
The Field (11 entries)
Winner: Melanie, for Squirrellena introducing us to a bunch of her weird friends.
Random Winner: Juliette
Badges:
2020
Theme: Murphy’s Law
The Field (9 entries)
Winner: Mandy, for Murphy’s Paw, which led to The Shittening
Random Winner: Pam
Badges:
2021
Theme: X
The Field (8 entries)
Winner: Merby for her poem on Generation X
Random Winner: Phenny
Badges:
2022
Theme: Create an identity/personality/history for this unused critter.
The Field (7 entries)
Winner: Mandy for Moofoo, the pet you can eat!
Random Winner: Phenny
Badges:
Coming in February 2023…. the Tenth Annual Contest of Whatever!