If there's one thing guaranteed to make my blood boil, it's going into a supermarket in early September to find everything's moved around to make way for the Christmas goods! So, it's with some trepidation that I introduce the theme of October's design contest – Christmas.

If you are going to make things for Christmas – gifts, decorations, clothes – you need to start in good time. And if we're going to have a Christmas-based contest, then I'm afraid we have to start now (maybe even sooner!) or it's too late.  The efficient amongst you have probably started already! 

So – what does Christmas mean to you? Trees, snowflakes, robins? A particular colour scheme? A new dress, hand-made gifts and decorations? This year, we'll make the theme very general, so you can design to your own taste and needs.

Designs should be uploaded to our web site by midnight on Tuesday, October 14^th, voting will open on Facebook on Thursday, October 16th and close on October 21st.  The winner will be announced on October 23rd.

FULL COMPETITION RULES AND DETAILS:

Please upload your competition designs to your account on our website.  If you haven’t already got an account, it’s simple to set up.  You just need an email address, password and name, which can be your own name, a nickname or a business name.  (You will be prompted to log in or create an account when you try to save your design.)  Then email me at admin@printmepretty.co.uk, to tell me the name of your design.  (So I can find the right one!)  I will then put them onto Facebook for voting.  The winning design (and possibly one or two others) will be put into our competition winners slot.  In case you're wondering about the order in which designs are listed on Facebook, the first to arrive in my inbox goes at the top, with the rest listed in the order in which they are sent in.

So, the competition is:

Create a design suitable for printing on fabric based on 'Christmas'.

Technical matters:

Your design should be at a resolution of at least 150 dpi, but not more than 300, using RGB colour space.

When it comes to printing, the repeat options are:  Straight, Centre, Half-drop, Half-brick and Mirror.  Once you’ve uploaded your design to our website, you can play around with the repeats to see which one will look best.  For pictures of what the different repeats look like, check this blog post.

To enter:

Upload your design onto our website by Tuesday, October 14th, giving it a title.  Email me at admin@printmepretty.co.uk, telling me the title of your design and the name of your account.

The closing date for receiving designs is midnight on Tuesday, October 14th, after which designs will be displayed (at the fat quarter size) on Facebook for voting .  Voting will close at midnight on October 21st.  The design with the most votes will win 3 metres of 100% cotton fabric (150cm wide), printed with your design.  The winning design will also be available for sale on our web site for at least 1 week after the close of voting.  

The official bit:

By entering, you agree to our competition terms and conditions.

You may only submit one entry, which must be your own work and based on the theme of Christmas.  Your design should not have been entered in one of our previous competitions.

All entries will be displayed for public voting, unless we feel that the subject matter is inappropriate.  Copyright will remain with you, but by entering the competition, you give us the right to use your design in any way we wish on our web site and social media, for advertising purposes.

The winning design will feature on our web site and will be available for sale for a week after we announce the winner.  After that time, the designer may leave the design for sale, or remove it from public view.  The designer will be paid £2 per metre commission on any sales of the design.

Happy designing!

 

Images from An old-fashioned Christmas and  Flickr.  There are more images for inspiration and sewing/fabric craft ideas on my Pinterest board Christmas.