The Upcoming Pinstrosiversary

Our 1st Blogiversary is coming up...or as we like to say, our 1st Pinstrosiversary. Okay, we haven't really said that out loud (other than just now when I had to sound it out to type it). But I like that term. We can't believe how much the blog has grown and changed since then. The response we have had from everyone has been so fun and exciting. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your submissions, your comments, your suggestions, your laughs, and your awesomeness.  You've made this such a great year here on Pinstrosity. 

We've been putting our heads together to try and figure out just what we wanted to do in celebration of the "big day". We're always encouraging you to get out there and to actually do what you have pinned...so we thought we'd give you extra incentive. How about this...you actually do something you have pinned and that enters you in a drawing for a cool prize? I like that idea. Don't you? 

Here's how this is going to work:

1. Go to your Pinterest and pick any project you have pinned (or find a new project to pin).
2. Do it! Cook up that recipe. Mod Podge that frame. Sew that bag. Paint those rocks. Curl that head of hair. Decorate that room. As Nike says, "Just do it!". 
3. Whether it turned out as a Pin Win, or a Pinstrosity, take a picture! Stories are fun, but pictures make them phenomenal and memorable. 
4. Type up the story. Blog about it. If you don't have a blog, type it up in a Word document and save it. BE SURE to include the link to the original pin. Any entries without the link to the original pin will be discarded. Give credit where credit is due. 
5. Either link your blog up at the end of this post with the Simply Linked widget, or email your Word document over to us and we'll link it up on a side blog. 
1. If you email your submission to us, we will post it up on the side blog so it will still be visible to everyone. 
6. On February 20th we will draw out a project at random, and that will be our winner. I should say random.org will pick a number for us and that will be the winner. 

Now...here are the rules and fine print:

1. The projects must be completed between January 19th and February 19th. No submissions of projects you completed before these dates will be accepted. The point of this is to get out there and to finally do what you have pinned. You can have started the project before Jan. 19th (because some projects are big and just take time and we realize that), but you have to complete it between the two dates.
1. The opening date is now (12:01 am MST). 
2. The deadline is 11:59 pm (MST) on February 19th. 
2. You can enter in as many projects as you want. This ups your chance of your name/project being drawn as the winner. 
3. READ THIS: If you are emailing us your submission, please put it in a word processing document and attach the document in your email to us. If it is not in a word processing document we will assume you are just submitting your project as a normal blog submission and it will not be entered into the challenge. 
4. If you link up your submission and we find it contains vulgarity, nudity, hateful language, or anything of that sort, we reserve the right to delete the link and exclude it from the drawing. We will monitor every link posted to make sure there is no spam or inappropriate links posted. Please remember that we have readers of every age, ethnicity, religion, etc. Keep your submissions clean. 
5. Where you live doesn't matter...this is open to the whole globe. And Jupiter. But not Neptune. 
6. You can submit Pinstrosities or Pin Wins. Obviously we hope you all have smashing success and everything turns out as a Pin Win...but we have to be honest with ourselves...Pinstrosities happen to everyone. Try your best though and let us know how it goes. Just remember to keep it fun and safe...we want everyone to come out of this with all their fingers and toes...and eyebrows. 

I'm sure you're wondering what the lucky winner will win...

• We'll do a full post on the winning project, including an interview with the winner. 
• We'll send the winner something awesome. Or two awesome things in fact. We'll have a list of 10 items and the winner will get to choose 2 items of the list. Items on the list of prizes will be a $15 dollar gift certificate to Amazon, an apron (a manly one for a dude, a pretty/cute one for a gal), a cute bib necklace, a hand-carved wooden crochet hook, and other fun prizes. Other than the Amazon card, the prizes on the list will be handmade by either of us, or someone in our family. 

I'm a firm believer in "Don't ask someone to do something you yourself aren't willing to do", so we will be linking up our Pinterest projects that we do as well. But...if one of our projects is drawn as the winning project in the end we'll redraw and make sure someone else wins (because that wouldn't be cool of us to run a competition and give ourselves the prize...lame-o!). This is motivating us to actually do the pins we have pinned as well. It'll just be a big Pinterest party!

So get going through your boards, find something to try out, and give it a whirl. We're excited to see what you all end up doing. And, if you need ideas on how to organize your Pinterest boards to help you actually get things done, check out Em's awesome post about that very subject.