We’re pleased to share the ‘winners’ from our 2012 version of “Pimp That Preserve!” “Winners’ is in quotes because I think anyone who submitted or was inspired by the ideas this awesome community came up with were all winners.
Just like last year (and as we announced in advance), we name a honorary winner based on who gets the most votes. Because we don’t want to make this a competition on who has the most friends on Facebook, we give away prizes at random (each ‘like’ a photo got counts as a vote so the people who did get more votes have more ballots). We’ve decided to furnish a prize for the honorary winner as well as 3 others.
Dana is working on an original design/ print or piece of art for each of our 4 winners. We’ll send an email to each this week and will ship your piece when it’s complete sometime in the next month (as any preserver knows, a little extra patience is well worth the wait)!
Without further adieu, here’s our winners from 2012!
The People’s Choice with the most votes is this amazing Christmas scene created by Alex (of Plaid Raspberries) – it even lights up!
We have just finished posting and labeling more than 60 pictures of entries for this years contest (if yours is somehow missing, which it shouldn’t be, send us an email – wearewellpreserved@elevenideas.ca and we’ll look into it as soon as we can)!
Last one! (I’d love to do more and will post if I do). Now it’s up to you! One more week to come up with some ways to doll up your preserves. The Deadline has been extended to Friday December 14. Send me your photos (640 pixels wide if you can please) to contests at wellpreserved dot ca. For more detailed information see the link at the bottom of this post, along with a link to previous years for more inpspiration!
This is one of my (esthetically) favourite preserves we did this year. I can’t stop looking at them, they’re so beautiful. The last thing I want to do is cover them up…so I thought a little gold leaf was in order. You’ll be surprised at how easy this is. You can buy a gold leafing kit at a lot of art or craft stores. This was Speedball simple leaf (fyi, neither Speedball or Sharpie sponsored these posts, I just use a lot of their stuff…maybe next year..haha!). You paint a liquid adhesive on the jar with a brush..paint words or a pattern or whatever…because this was my first time using the stuff, i wanted a loose look so it would be okay if it didn’t turn out perfectly. I hand painted ‘happy holidays’ on the jar with the adhesive and let it dry then stuck the gold leaf on as per the instructions on the package…a little messy, but super pretty. Green and Red and Gold … pretty festive I’d say!
Can’t wait to see more of your ideas! send them along to contests@wellpreserved.ca
Lucky you! There’s still plenty of time to dress up your preserves and send us a photo! We’ve extended the deadline for ‘Pimp that Preserve’ to Friday December 14! Full details in the link at the bottom of this post. Here’s another photo that will hopefully inspire you to do a few of your own and gift some preserves! I keep hearing how busy everybody is this year…I hear ya! We’re writing our final exam for the Food Security course this weekend, Holiday preparations are in full swing, joel has been traveling for work, I’ve been freelancing away from my home office and Shaeffer’s in another dog training class….etc. etc. yikes! It’s been nice to take a bit of a break and play with the preserves. I wanted to show you guys how quick and easy it can be…this one…was like therapy! A little break to doodle with a paint pen, right on the jar (I painted the lid with some paint leftover from our living room, oh…did I mention I painted the living room too?).
Sharpie makes these awesome paint pens, if you use the oil based one’s on your jars they’re much harder to get off…but the poster paint ones are great for temporarily marking windows or doodling on jars. It will come off with soapy water and a little scrubbing and be ready for next years batch. Tomato sauce is like a blank canvas in so many ways…today, it makes a nice background for some doodles!
Can’t wait to see more of your ideas! send them along to contests@wellpreserved.ca
You’ve been working hard at preserving all spring/summer/fall, you’ve got loads of full jars stashed away in your pantry (closet, underthebed, behindthecouch, alloftheabove). You’re thinking…will i really be able to EAT all of this? The answer is probably yes, but if you’re like us and you’re feeling the generosity of the season (and might want to get other people hooked on preserving) you’ll be compelled to share some of your hard work.
Preserves make AWESOME GIFTS! (Just ask most of our friends/family). While nudity is welcome when it comes to preserves (what?! did I just say that?), it ads to the fun to dress them up a bit…add a little mystery to the giving, or just make them feel even more special.
So, we are embarking on our annual contest:
Where everyone can share their ideas, and get inspired to share their preserves…whether it’s gifting or swapping. (Do you know how hard it is to write an ‘appropriate’ post with words pimping and swapping in it? i’m already worried about the pingbacks..agh! What have we done in the name of fun!). We’ll be sharing some ideas of our own throughout the weeks leading up.
Here’s what to do:
Embellish, package or otherwise ‘dress up’ your favourite jar of preserves with anything you like as long as it doesn’t damage the contents or break the seal.
Send us a JPG of your creation to contests at wellpreserved dot ca subject line: Pimp my Preserve 2012.
All entries must be received by 10pm EST December 9 2011.
We will post the entries on FaceBook and give you a week to vote (and get your friends and family etc. to vote too!).
We’ll announce winners on the 17th!
*We’ll keep you posted on prizes…haven’t figured out that part yet, but it might involves some limited edition print of some sort!
Details on how this will work:
Send your photos by December 9, 10 PM EST
We’ll share all the photos on our FaceBook Group in an album (and share the link).
We’ll open up to the public for votes (*Like* the image is a vote)
*Like* as many images as you want, get your friends to *Like* yours too
You are welcome to enter multiples but be selective – the more you have up, the more you will compete with yourself!
The person with the most ‘likes’ will be named the honorary winner and win bragging rights.
We’ll share our designs but we’re not competing.
Every like on a photo will count as a ballot (so the person with the most likes has the greatest chance of winning) for a prize, there will be at least 3! Prizes won’t arrive until the New Year.
We’re using the hashtag #PimpThatPreserve on Twitter and Instagram so feel free to share.
We are about a month away from our third annual Pimp That Preserve contest!
For those who are new to it, Pimp That preserve will start sometime in November. Participants (who are mostly ‘competing’ for fun and to share/ get ideas for decorating jars with many different holidays approaching) decorate jars and share photos of their entires. There’s no cost to enter and people can enter multiple times. Dana will post some of her ideas to help promote/ inspire ideas. We often have a few small prizes but the main intent is to share and have fun together.
If you want to see some of the entries from previous years (or some of the jars Dana decorates to help inspire/ conspire), check out our archive of jar decorating ideas!
There were more than 100 entries last year and we hope to make this one the biggest one yet! Start combing thrift stores, old cabinets and ‘mystery boxes’ for ideas – soon enough it will be time to share your pimped up jars for the world to see!
We had so much fun with it last year so we’re bringing back “Pimp that Preserve”. If you’re anything like us you like sharing your preserves as much as you like making them and eating them yourself. A Jar of jam (or pickleschutneybeetpowderinfusedvinegarwhatever!) is like a blank canvas…make the preserves you give a little bit more special by treating them like a work of art.
I’ve been collecting up a bunch of stuff to use for ‘pimpin’ over the last little while…this year I’d like to challenge you to use as much vintage or second-hand or even stuff that would otherwise wind up in the garbage to give your preserves a little character. Get creative and have fun. We’re looking forward to seeing and sharing all of your creations.
As multiple Holiday seasons approach for many of us, we’re sending out a quick reminder about the return of “Pimp That Preserves.” For those who weren’t around last year (you can find the complete series of posts here), this is a tongue-in-cheek competition that is as much about participating as much as it is about sharing ideas on how to present your homemade goodies to share with those you love during whatever occasion you wish to share.
We don’t have the exact details and prizes figured out yet – but you may want to start keeping your eyes out for great ideas (last year we received word from Sean at Punk Domestics that the contest was partially blamed for drying out the supply of novelty spoons at Thrift shops because of Dana’s inspiration photo below:
Go check them out and make sure you get aaaaallllllll the way to the bottom to cast your vote. We’ll close off voting by 10am tomorrow morning and get the winner announced by lunch time! This has been a lot of fun, you’ve already got us thinking of the next big throwdown (sorry bobby flay). Read more
