Photo Comp Round-up: January 2012

Photo competitions are my favourite type of creative comp - they're a great excuse to get out of the house and have some fun with the family, or to try out new recipes or hairstyles!

Lately they seem to be gaining popularity on Facebook, and thankfully more of the winners are being judged or chosen at random rather than by public vote. Here's the latest ones I've found for you... don't forget, lots of these will be judged on creativity and composition rather than technical ability! 

There are a few Olympic-inspired comps appearing now - why not invest in one of those party bags of toy medals from the supermarket so you can use them in your photos?

Bimuno have ten pairs of tickets to the Destinations Show, plus a month's supply of Bimuno Travelaid up for grabs on their Facebook page. To enter, upload a photo of your most treasured travel memory by 1 February 2012 (although it says 27 Jan on the App, they state it has been extended to 1st Feb on the wall) - winners are chosen at random.

Windows Phone UK have 4 Nokia Lumia 710s up for grabs for a photo of you in your most colourful clothes - enter vis the 'Into' App on Facebook before noon on 2 February 2012. Here's my entry... mmm, nice outfit!

Bonusprint are asking for your favourite baby photos - twenty winning photos will be enlarged onto acrylic for the Baby Show, and the winners will get to keep their print, worth £150. Upload your photo via their Facebook App before midnight on 3 February 2012.

Win a Pro Flying Fish jacket - upload your favourite sports photo to the Facebook App to enter. Entries close on 5 February 2012 and the photo with the most votes on 25 February wins.

NEW! Photobox have launched a comp to celebrate National Storytelling Week - upload a real-time photo to their Facebook wall that represents a book title or famous scene, and you could win a theatre experience for 2 plus £20 Photobox credit. Enter before 5 February at midnight.

NEW! Thomson Al Fresco are inviting us to upload our happy photo plus a caption to the Grump Gallery - there's a daily prize for their favourite and the best at the end of the week (I presume this means 5 February) wins a break in France! Enter on their Facebook App.

And now...a competition for bloggers with messy kids! Appliances Online are giving a £75 Amazon voucher to the messiest kid photo - blog with your photo, then leave your link as a comment on the Mother's Always Right blog post before 6 February 2012. If you need inspiration, check out my messy cooking post which won me a £100 Amazon voucher in the Baby Budgeting comp last week!

Win a trip to Italy by uploading a photo on the theme 'It's all about Italy' to the Sardatur Facebook page - the photos will be judged and the winner should be 'creative and different'. Closes 10 February 2012.

Jamie magazine are giving away an iPod Touch - to enter, email through up to three photos of food (which must have been taken since 15 December) to  photocomp@jamiemagazine.com - check out more details at www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/competitions.php and enter by 15 February 2012.

Babycentre are giving away £500 of Mothercare vouchers in their bubble-tastic competition - upload a photo of baby's bath time here to enter! The winner is picked at random after the closing date of 19 February 2012. I can certainly say that Ryland enjoyed this particular photoshoot...

Internet Explorer UK are giving away two Samsung laptops and 23 runners up prizes in their 'Cut the Rope' photo competition. To enter, download and print out Om Nom and take him on the road - upload your photo to the Facebook App. Entries will be judged for the prizes, enter before 24 February 2012.

Aunt Bessie's Kitchen Amnesty Facebook App wants photos of your most unsightly kitchenware - a winning photo will be chosen at random to receive £150 of Le Creuset cookware on 24 February 2012.

Cottages 4 U have a £750 voucher plus a digital camera on offer for the best entry in their Magical Memory photo competition. Two runners up will get £50 Jessops vouchers. Entries are judged on visual appeal, composition and the written description of the memory. Enter on their Facebook App before 29 February 2012.

Sandisk have a prize of £1000 cash up for grabs - to enter, upload a precious photo to their Memory Vault Facebook App before 29 February 2012. The winner will be chosen at random.

Organic Surge are giving away a tub of their Super Rich Body Butter worth £22. Upload a photo to their Facebook App showing how you 'live life better' - the photo with the most votes will win (hopefully as this is a low value prize, not too many votes will be required to win!). Ends 4 March 2012

Win a Victoria Pendleton bike worth £299 on the Halfords Facebook page - to enter, upload a photo of you 'celebrating becoming a world champion in a discipline of your choice' to the Facebook App by 23 March 2012. 

And leaving the best till last, the Camping and Caravanning Club have launched a great Olympics-inspired 'alternative decathlon' photo comp with loads of prizes in ten different categories, including Weightlifting and Relay. You can also enter a simple question to enter a prize draw to win a caravan while you're there! Enter at www.2012clubgames.co.uk before 15 July 2012. 

Sheila's SuperLucky Story

In November I put out a request for my blog readers to tell me their 'Superlucky Stories' – comping tales that have been inspired by my blog or comps that I've posted on the SuperLucky Facebook page! Everyone who emailed a story is in a draw for a tin of yummy Biscuiteers treats, which will be announced when I've published all the entries. Today's story is from one of my older blog readers Sheila, who's been comping for years but has recently ventured into the world of 'creative' comps. Thanks so much for emailing your story Sheila – and good luck for 2012!


And now, over to Sheila..

I’ve been comping for many years and over the time I have won some super prizes - in the days of the tiebreaker, I would usually win something every week, be it small or a biggie! I love writing slogans and miss the opportunity to do so these days, with most comps being a prize draw which takes minimal effort – although the prizes can be lovely.

It's only recently that my comping habits have changed, since I started reading Di’s blog and Facebook posts, as well as her articles in Compers News. Since then I haven’t looked back as it has opened a new field for my comping. As I am interested in creativity, Di’s info on all these comps is invaluable to me and I have over the last few months won some fab prizes ...just like the old days!

I have recently won a Flip camcorder and now enter any comps that require a small video, and I’m having so much fun! Recipe comps are another of my favourites - recently I have won two prizes with the same recipe...smoked salmon parcels. I won a Christmas stocking of cheese goodies in one competition, and a £50 Tesco voucher in the other!

I love taking photos too and since I was given a super camera for my birthday, I am now entering any photo comps I see on the Super Lucky Facebook page. Having scooped a £250 voucher with my first effort, this is one area I am going to pursue.

Give creative comps a try, you may find your wins will start coming through again and you’ll enjoy the challenge they give! 

Sheila x

If it wasn't for comping...

Today's blog post was inspired by this post over at the Compers Grapevine blog. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to relive some great comping memories Jane! 

If it wasn't for comping I wouldn't have:

• started a blog
• a silly nickname
• answered my front door to a Gold Radio presenter with £500 vouchers - and a cool bag full of bacon!

• met Michael Caine at the BAFTAs after-show party
• done the Supermarket Sweep trolley dash
• been interviewed for Radio 1
• camped in the backstage area at Glastonbury Festival (four times!)
• cheered on Lewis Hamilton at the Brazilian Grand Prix

• flown in a helicopter over Las Vegas
• danced in a Reykjavik nightclub with Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch
• Sent my parents to watch the Champions League final
• Spent 3 weeks on a Lord of the Rings tour of New Zealand
• Raised over £10,000 for Rainbows Children's Hospice at our charity events

• Learnt how to make sushi
• Stayed overnight at the Ritz
• Started my own YouTube channel
• Owned my dream car - a VW Beetle!

• Spent a day in Paris with a fashion blogger
• Set an alarm clock for 3.30am to win £500 in a text comp
• met the most amazing friends on the Compers News forum, Twitter, Facebook and - of course! - in real life

What would YOU never have done if it wasn't for comping?!

Messy muffins: my Appliances Online comp entry!

This is my entry to the Appliances Online Messy Kids Cooking competition!

Read all about the competition over at Baby Budgeting - to enter, you need to post a photo of your kids messy cooking experiences on your blog then pop back to Becky's blog and leave a link before 24th January 2012. You could win £100 Amazon vouchers, which I would immediately use to buy these fabulous Pac-Man cookie cutters!

I originally dug out some snaps from last summer to use, but then decided they simply weren't messy enough, so I used it as an excuse to get busy making these chocolate muffins! How disappointing that Ry doesn't fit into his chef outfit any more - but the Mummy's Little Helper apron seemed to do the job...

Much to my surprise, the muffins were delicious – I probably shouldn't admit that I ate 3 in one sitting though should I? Check out Libbie's recipe at the Good to Know website!

As well as the Baby Budgeting competition, Appliances Online are also giving £100 Amazon vouchers to creative families via the Red Ted Art and A Boy with Asperger's blogs - check them out!

NEWS FLASH - Becky's son chose Ryland as the winner of this competition, and we won £100 Amazon vouchers - thank you so much Frankie!

Rachael's SuperLucky Story

In November I put out a request for my blog readers to tell me their 'Superlucky Stories' – comping tales that have been inspired by my blog or comps that I've posted on the SuperLucky Facebook page! It's fair enough me banging on about my comping shenanigans and wacky wins, but it's much better to share stories from those of you that have been motivated to take up 'creative' comping yourselves – with great success. It goes to prove with a little bit of effort ANYONE can have a laugh and win prizes at the same time – comping can be a fun hobby for all the family, and Rachael's story today is a prime example!


Everyone who emailed a story is in a draw for a tin of yummy Biscuiteers treats, which will be announced when I've published all the entries. Thanks go to Rachael for today's tale and her kind words about me – I hope you and the family have some wonderful wins this year!


And now, over to Rachael...

Hello Di,

There are a lot of stories I could tell, and I owe you a endless amount of "Thankyous", for hints and tips you have posted, the linky blog competitions I have entered, your tireless crusade for fairness of competition rules for both promoters and compers, as well as the wonderful updates on your own competition entries, prize adventures and the crafty comps to inspire us.

Since reading your blog (and with your help) I have joined Kempsey Compers – a local competition club in the West Midlands and have attended one meeting so far – which I was buzzing from for weeks!

My children have also participated in many competitions, with my daughter scooping £200 worth of toys last year, as well as taking the spotlight in two newspapers for winning the title of "NFU’s regional young countryside reporter" writing about her brother Peter as a pig who was in need of an ASBO due to his late night slumber parties, resulting from global warming and environmental changes. She even had a certificate at school for her efforts and a lot of praise from her teachers – we were all very proud!

Peter (3) and Hannah (1) between them have won some lovely bits. Hannah has had £10 from Iceland for simply eating one of their sausage rolls and smiling for the camera, Peter won some Scooby Doo DVD's and activity books for colouring in, and in the Galt Toys Fireworks colouring competition you posted, he scooped some squidgy paints!

Even Daddy has joined in, scooping £50 from Argos for the use of a catalogue – he bought a new kettle and doesn't mind making the tea now!

We have participated in spooky pumpkin-making, lots of colouring in and we make our own postcards now after reading your tips to enter contests. I even made a furry tash to enter one contest too! We don't win all the time, but have fantastic fun trying!

Wishing you continued luck for all your competition entries ...and Ryland's!

Rachael

Facebook wall competitions - problems & solutions

Despite there being strict guidelines on how you should run your promotion on Facebook, the majority of companies still ignore these, and persist with running competitions on their Facebook walls rather than using an App. Although it might seem like a lot of trouble to set up initially, in the long term it's much easier to use an App or a simple entry form for promotions – see this blog post for more advice. The simplest solution of all, which IS within Facebook guidelines, is to ask your fans to enter via email with their address details (and the answer to a question if you like) – you then have every entrant's contact details, and even if you don't hear back from your winner, you already have an address to post the prize to! If you go down this route, opening a Gmail account specifically for your Facebook competition entries is a good idea. The downside of email entry comps is that non-fans can enter – it would be easy for entry details to be shared on a competition forum, so entrants don't even need to visit your Facebook page. 


If promoters are insistent on violating Facebook policy and running competitions on their Facebook wall, here are some warnings about what could go wrong, and advice on how to avoid the common problems.

First of all, you should be aware that there are many people on Facebook who have a second account set up for the sole purpose of entering competitions. This is against Facebook rules and gives the entrant a massive advantage – with this second account, where their only friends (if they even have any!) are compers, they can Share competitions time and time again without worrying about spamming people. Once you've chosen your winner, take a look at their Facebook wall – if it's nothing but the same comps posted or shared multiple times perhaps you should think again – or at least dig deeper to see if they have two accounts! It's not good practice to reward someone who violates Facebook policies with a prize, when so many honest people just use a single account. Unbelievably, some cheats will set up a hundred or more fake accounts, in particular those that enter voting competitions - so be on your guard! If you think an account may be fake, use a reverse image search to check their profile photo.

And another bit of advice: NEVER run a competition where the comment/photo/video with the most 'Likes' wins. It breaks Facebook rules, is unfair and will result in you getting very bad publicity – it won't get you any more fans on your page either, as they don't need to Like your page in order to Like a post or photo! Read my blog on voting comps for more information and examples.


Types of Facebook wall competitions – and their associated problems


LIKE A FACEBOOK PAGE TO ENTER
 

The Problem: When your page reaches X thousand fans you choose a fan at random to win a prize – a simple way to get new fans, yes? BUT when you click on your list of Likers, you can only scroll (very slowly) through a list of the most recent 500 names – and there's no way to extract them as a list so you can choose one at random.
The Solution: There WAS a script here to extract a list of fans but Facebook changes have resulted in it being unusable – so there is NO solution to this problem. You will have to choose a winner from the most recent fans simply by looking at the onscreen list – which of course is hugely unfair! Still, you've learnt your lesson and won't do this again, right?

SHARING A PHOTO OR STATUS
 

The Problem: You ask your fans to SHARE a photo or status to enter a competition, but are you aware that you can ONLY see the names of fans who have shared with the 'Public' setting – therefore you're excluding entrants who have shared with limited friends. Most 'normal' people won't want to Share with their grumpy relatives or ex-boss, but if they restrict the Share to a certain Friends list then their name WON'T appear on your Shares list. Promoters, you can check this by looking at the number of Shares your competition post has; then counting the names listed. You'll usually be a few short of the total. Another problem with Share comps is that people will Share multiple times to ensure they appear regularly in the list of names – this is likely to be compers using a second account.
The Solution: When you announce the competition, state that entrants must Share with the setting on 'Public'. You could also ask entrants to Share AND leave a comment, then choose your winner from the list of comments rather than Shares, ensuring everyone has an equal chance regardless of how many times they shared. With this method, you should also be able to tag your winner's name in a reply to the competition post, congratulating them and asking them to check their 'Other' inbox – page admins can only tag names of people who've commented so this will only work with a 'Comment to Enter' competition.

UPLOADING PHOTOS TO A FACEBOOK WALL

The Problem: This should be a straightforward way of running a competition, but it's not. If someone uploads a photo to your Fanpage from a phone, sometimes it's not visible to you. The entrant can see it on your wall, as can their Facebook friends, but the photo has no 'globe' icon underneath it so it's not visible to the Public, and therefore the promoter can't see it. I have lost out on two prizes because of this and seen many others confused by it too! It's particularly frustrating if you need to be 'the first' to go to a shop and upload a photo, as if it doesn't work you have to come home and re-upload from your computer...
The Solution: You should ask entrants to email their entries – you can then add these photos to a Facebook album, and ask the entrants to tag themselves if they wish. Doing this also means your competition is sticking to Facebook rules AND you have an email address to contact your winner on! You can see an example competition album at The PrizeFinder Facebook page.

INFORMING A WINNER VIA FACEBOOK MESSAGE 

The Problem: There are several problems here – the first is that some people have altered their privacy settings so they can ONLY receive messages from friends. So you won't be able to send them a message! The other problem is that you can't send messages as your company page. Facebook are trialling a system where you CAN message fans as your Facebook page, but it will be limited to certain fans. As it stands, a Facebook message has to be sent from a Page Administrator's personal Facebook account, so you'll need to mention the Facebook page you're working for. Another problem is the pesky 'Other' inbox, where Facebook files away any messages that aren't from friends – ALL winning notifications will be sent here. And it's not easy to find – users need to click 'Messages' on the left of their Home page before the 'Other' inbox pops up underneath. The majority of Facebook users don't even know this inbox exists – unlike normal messages, Facebook WON'T send you an email notification if you receive a message in your 'Other' inbox.
The Solution: When you announce the competition, clearly state that the winner will be notified by Facebook message – perhaps also mention that their Privacy Settings must allow messages from 'Everyone' and that they will need to check their 'Other' inbox to see if they've won.

INFORMING A WINNER VIA WALL POST 

The Problem: Promoters can't get in touch with a winner easily – because they've entered a competition on your wall rather than an App, you don't have a contact email address. So you might announce the winner's name in a wall post, asking them to 'email address details to sillypromoter@naive.com'. BAD idea. It's against Facebook rules for starters, and secondly there are dishonest people out there who will see the status update, then immediately clone the rightful winner's profile and photo, respond to the wall post with a quick 'Thanks - have emailed!' and then whizz off their own address details to the promoter, hoping that the rightful winner never sees that wall post! Sadly, this happens regularly – pages like Secret Sales, Watches 2U and Weleda are recent victims of fraudulent claims. A second problem here is if your winner has a common name – you announce Jo Smith as your lucky winner, and two Jo Smiths leave a response on your post... which one's the winner? You'll probably have to give both of them a prize!

The Solution: Announce the winner in a wall post, but also send them a Facebook message (see above). In your wall post say something like 'Congratulations to our winner, Maisie McLucky – check your 'Other' Message folder for details of how to claim your prize!'. BUT you still need to hope that Maisie sees your wall post – and the likelihood is that, unless she has hundreds of friends who might 'tag' her name, she won't see it at all – only a small percentage of your status updates appear on your fans' NewsFeed!

HAVING A WINNER THAT DOESN'T RESPOND
The Problem: You've announced it on your wall, sent a Facebook message and have heard nothing from your lucky winner. Remember that this is YOUR problem - it's YOU who broke the Facebook rules by not getting email addresses, and you should do everything you can to get that prize to the winner.
The Solution: When you send your Facebook message, add in a line that says 'Please email us at sillypromoter@naive.com with your address details within 7 days or we will choose another winner' - then you can choose a new winner without worrying about the original winner demanding their prize in 6 months time! After 7 days, you should try again to contact your winner by checking their Facebook page for an email or web address – or by sending them a friend request (as you're unable to add a message to a friend request, they're not likely to accept!). When all these contact attempts failed for a friend of mine recently, he ended up phoning the winner's workplace (which was posted on his Facebook page) to let him know he'd won £100!

AND FINALLY...

Many competitions on Facebook are tainted by accusations of cheating. If you run your competition using an App, follow Facebook Promotional Guidelines and collect email addresses from all entrants, that's the best way to avoid these problems. If you do gather email addresses, you also have the advantage of adding prospective customers to your database (remember to give them an 'opt out' checkbox on the entry form though!).

Even the simplest of Facebook wall competitions should have Terms & Conditions including a closing date and entry restrictions (usually 'open to UK residents aged 18 or over'), full details of the prize and how the winner will be contacted (this is where you can include the extra information on checking the 'Other' messages inbox). Save these T&Cs as a Note on your Facebook page and you can just update them for each competition you run.

The IPM are working with Facebook this year to improve the Promotional Policy and make it clearer. This is likely to result in Facebook enforcing it more strictly - so as a promoter, you might as well get to grips with it now, and start running well organised, fair and fun competitions that DON'T BREAK THE RULES!

Further reading: How to run a Facebook promotion - without breaking the rules!
Making Voting Competitions Fairer

Weekend shenanigans!

So, for the first time in ages we spent a whole weekend at home on our own in Nottingham, enjoying our new cookbooks, building train tracks and listening to S.C.U.M. But of course, I had to squeeze in a little bit of comping...

On Saturday morning I checked my emails to find a newsletter from Comet – "Win a treadmill!" Not my cup of tea AT ALL, but I know that lots of PrizeFinder members had gym equipment on their wishlists, so I though I'd share it on Facebook. Whilst on the Comet page I noticed a cheeky comp with Ecozone - be one of the first three people to upload a photo of your Comet receipt for their dishwasher tablets, and you win 12 boxes (worth almost £100)! Well you know me... I live round the corner from Comet, so I left the boys with their Duplo and popped off to get my photo (thanks to Brett the cashier for taking this snap!) - it's not too late to enter this one, the next ten entrants get a free box too - check out their Facebook page.

Then our friends Cath & Matt came round for lunch and babysat Ry for us whilst Rob and I headed off on a rare date... to the football!

Just before Christmas on the nPower League Facebook page I spotted a photo comp where the first 50 entries won tickets to a Home fixture in January – as there were only three entries it was a guaranteed prize. I decided to ask for Nottingham Forest tickets - I support Birmingham and Rob's a Gooner so it's a compromise to go and support the local boys!  We knew it was likely to end badly - Forest are in the bottom three, while Southampton are top of the League. The 3-0 defeat was no surprise after Forest went down to ten men - at least Birmingham managed a hilarious 6-0 thrashing of Millwall though!

Still, on the way to the City Ground I stopped for a photo for the new McDonalds coffee comp - upload a photo of you with your 'Full bean' coffee cup to their Facebook App and you could win one of their daily prizes. You can enter daily, so I seem to constantly have the empty cup in my handbag at the moment!

The Kleenex 'Soothing Tips' competition has been running for months, but despite having my idea planned AGES ago I just hadn't had the time to film it. But today was so cold, and Ry's nose so snotty, I decided we should get to work... so here's our suggestion for how to soothe away colds this Winter - by making your own Tissue Fun Box! This is the first film I've made for ages and I'd forgotten how much fun it is... mind you, it does help to have willing co-stars.

As well as offering a £100 John Lewis voucher for the top Soothing tip photo and video entries, Kleenex are also asking for family memories this month - so they've got four £100 prizes up for grabs in total. Check out the details here.

So, that was my trio of comps for this weekend - as for this week, I've got some serious messy cooking to do with Ry for the Red Ted Art and Baby Budgeting bloggers comps!

Claire's SuperLucky Story

In November I put out a request for my blog readers to tell me their 'Superlucky Stories' - any comping tales that have been inspired by my blog or comps that I've posted on the SuperLucky Facebook page! Everyone who emailed is in a draw for a tin of yummy Biscuiteers treats, which will be announced when I've published all the entries. I've already posted up Gill and Katie's stories, and today it's Claire's turn. I can relate to Claire's story as she's a stay at home mum and it's true that creative comping really does liven up the boring daily routine! I was absolutely gutted that her amazing Air Wick entry didn't get a look in for their Christmas competition - but that's what happens when it all comes down to a public vote unfortunately...

And now, over to Claire...

I don’t think I am a “lucky person” but I have won quite a few competitions.

The first was over seven years ago. I was in my local library browsing the Internet when I came across a competition run by Garnier Fructis, I didn’t enter competitions as a rule but I KNEW I had to enter this one. The prize was a one-week, V.I.P. trip to Cornwall with surf coaching and there was nothing in the world that I loved more. I submitted my 50 word reason why I should win and thought nothing more of it. Six weeks later I was in Manchester visiting a friend when my boyfriend called to tell me that a package had arrived for me from Garnier Fructis. I explained that I had entered a competition with them and it was probably some products they had sent as a runner up prize. The following week I arrived home and opened the parcel. It contained a letter letting me know that I was a finalist, a Polaroid camera and two sheets of A4 covered in questions with spaces for photos – and it had to be posted back the following day! I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening frantically filling it in and taking photos. Two weeks later I received my first ever winning phone call. I was SCREAMING.

Surprisingly, after winning such an amazing prize, it took me until this time last year to enter another competition. Mothercare were giving away a stroller. You had to write a letter to Santa, and take a photo of it for them. I was pregnant and needed a new stroller, so I decided to enter. Writing a little poem, cutting up photos of my family, me and my 2 year old stuck them all to a massive piece of paper along with enough glitter to build a sandcastle. Two weeks after Christmas they announced the good news, and I was ecstatic. 

In the summer I saw that Appliances Online were running a competition to win a £240 dishwasher, I had never had a dishwasher in my life, and I desperately wanted to win, I worked really hard on my 3 photo entries but I was still in utter shock to find out that I had won! 

It was around this time that I discovered SuperLucky, I couldn’t quite believe it, what a goldmine of information and creative competitions. As my partner works away from home I have found these competitions to be invaluable to my sanity. Completing a video or photo entry makes me feel like I have achieved something. They break up the nappy, feed, nappy, nap, feed, nappy, feed cycle quite nicely. I have since won £100  shopping voucher with Mecca Bingo for a video, and some of my photo wins have included a High Chair and £50 of baby food from Plum, a Nintendo Wii from Blue Dragon, a £50 Amazon voucher from Playpennies and £100 restaurant voucher from Nivea.

A lot of my friends now say that I am “lucky” but I would disagree. Most of my wins have been for competitions that require a bit of effort on my part, they are not random draws and some of my favourite entries haven’t won me prizes – North Face Zipper Act and Air Wick to name just a couple. When I win I feel like I am contributing something to our household income and that helps me to feel slightly less like I have lost my independence being a stay at home mum. 

Although I haven’t won what some people may consider to be fabulous, or expensive prizes I am very happy with my lot.

I still have my fingers crossed that one day I may win a kitchen or at least an oven (as we have been without one since moving house last February) I just need to keep my eye out for the right competition!

Well Claire, have you entered the amazing Telegraph tiebreaker competition to win a £20,000 Wickes kitchen? They're already given three away (one to a PrizeFinder member!) but there are still two left to be won on 19th January and 13th February. Good luck!

Creative comp round up: Jan 2012

Here are a selection of comps that need a little bit of love and attention – don't forget I'm always busy adding creative comps to the SuperLucky Facebook page and the PrizeFinder's skill-based category, so check those out too!

Organix are awarding their fan of the week with a Treasure Tin - upload your photo of your child enjoying their food to the Facebook App, a winner is chosen every Wednesday.

Win tickets to the FA Cup Final by uploading a photo of you supporting your team at the FA website, or by tweeting it. There are five pairs to give away, each one goes to the photo with the most votes in each round of the cup - read more details here.

McDonald's Coffee Time App offers loads of daily prizes including Kindles, book tokens, magazine subscriptions and iTunes vouchers. To enter, upload a photo of your McDonald's FullBEAN coffee moment. Winners are judged, but I can't find any terms and conditions to say when the comp ends or how many prizes are given away each day! Enter here.

At Life in a Breakdown you can win £60 to spend at Amazon by creating a Pinspire collection of pet images - get your entries in by 18 January 2012.

Skyscanner are giving away 5 copies of the 'Unusual Hotels Europe' book - to enter, email news@skyscanner.net with 'Unusual Hotels' in the subject line, telling them in 150 words or less about the most unusual place you've stayed. Read more details here and enter by 20 January 2012.

Photobox are giving away three photo acrylic blocks to their 3 favourite photos of 2011 - read details on their blog and upload your photos to the Facebook page by 20 January 2012.

Lynn emailed me to let me know about the brilliant Best Western wish list competition - make a list of 12 experiences you'd like to try this year in the UK, and they will choose one of the lists and help you fulfil the list (to the value of £6000) - the winner will be required to blog about their experiences. I'm so excited about making a list for this one! Enter here by 23 January 2012.

SheepskinLife are running a recipe competition - submit your recipe by email or by posting on your blog. Prizes are a 12 bottle case of wine and a selection of tapas. Unfortunately the competition involves voting (although I can't see how!) - read the details here and get your entries in by 31 January 2012.

At  Avon Connects you can win £150 of make up and accessories by leaving your funny baby or pregnancy story - the five finalists will go to a public vote to decide the winner unfortunately.  Closes 31 January 2012.

TopFruit are giving away 3 prizes of £1000 or €1000 to their three favourite 'abandoned gym' stories - submit yours at the Facebook App by 31 January 2012.

ZAGG are giving away a Sony camera to their favourite picture on the theme of New Year - you can enter up to 5 photos by posting them on the ZAGG Facebook page by 31 January 2012 (open worldwide).

Carling are giving away loads of tickets to the Carling Cup Final (ah, I DID enjoy last year's!!) - to enter, upload a photo or video of your 'brilliant' moment. Each fortnight the two entries with the most votes will win 24 cans of Carling, and a pair of tickets to the final. Five entrants will also be drawn at random to win a pair of tickets! From the ten most popular moments, one grand prize winner will be chosen who will get their moment displayed on screen and in the Cup FInal programme, as well as receiving a trophy on Cup Final day. Enter on Facebook - there are just two rounds left, closing on 20 January and 3 February 2012.

Yorkshire Tea are giving away 50 Morphy Richards kettles plus a year's supply of Yorkshire Tea - and 100 runners up will win a year's supply of tea and a pack of limescale-removing Oust. To enter, just upload a photo of you and your kettle to their Facebook App before 8 February 2012.

Win one of two personalised iPhone or Blackberry cases - to enter, design your own case at www.mooskins.com and then email a screen grab through to info@buystudentart.co.uk - read more details at www.buystudentart.co.uk and enter before 18 February 2012.

Tell myjobsplace where you would like to work and why, and their three favourite answers will win a £50 voucher of their choice. Post your entries on their Facebook wall by 28 February 2012. 

Design a poster by uploading a photo and text to the Kuoni Facebook App and you could win a £2000 Kuoni gift card. Enter here by 29 February 2012. 

Tesco Magazine Kids Book Club are running a story competition for kids to win a family zookeeper day and overnight hotel stay at the Cheshunt Marriott - there are three separate age categories, the story must be 200-300 words and about health, and entries must be in by 15 April 2012.

Martin Gerrard London Estate Agents have an advert on the back of the 263 bus, which goes from Holloway to Barnet. Take a photo of you or your partner with the bus, upload it to Facebook and if it gets the most LIKEs you win a European city break for two. Enter by 30 April 2012.

Blog Comp Linky: February 2012

Welcome to my blog comp linky for competitions that are closing in FEBRUARY 2012. If you're hosting a giveaway please add it to the list, including the prize and the closing date - and your blog name if you can fit it in! You can access this post and the MARCH linky via the links on the right hand side bar.

Please note, competitions MUST be hosted on a blog and they should be open to UK entries. For advice on running blog comps and more info about Rafflecopter check out this blog post.
If you want to enter these competitions but aren't sure how, check out my post on How to Enter a Blog Competition for advice!

Don't forget to add your blog giveaway to www.theprizefinder.com too!

My 2012 wishlist

Have you written a prize wish list for 2012? I always enjoy collating one and try and mix up the prizes: big ones, little ones, obscure ones, gifts for the family... so at the end of the year I've got a good chance of ticking at least a couple off! 

This year I've got a good feeling about winning a car; it's been ten years since I won my Beetle and though I've come close to winning a Renault Windster and VW Tiguan in recent years, my entries haven't quite made the grade. I'm looking forward to doing a few entries for the ASP Hair photo comp to win a Fiat and have also upgraded my camcorder to enter the JVC Fiat 500 comp too!

When I won my Beetle in 2003 I sold my Ford Fiesta and spent the money on a Mac PowerBook. I still use it now, but Ry has broken off a couple of the keys, the battery lasts about 30 minutes and it doesn't close any more, so a replacement would be fab - I'll have to get organised and enter the Bupa video competition to try and win myself a MacBook Air!

Anyway, back to my 2012 prize wishlist...

• A car
• Lake District holiday
• Cottage holiday or National Trust vouchers
• MacBook
• Trip to Peppa Pig World
• Trip to the new Legoland Hotel (opening in March!)
• Year's supply of shoes... for Ryland!
• Reiss vouchers
• Food mixer (for mum in law)
• Spa day
• Cutlery (for mum in law)
• Garden vouchers (for my parents)
• Michelin starred meal (London would be nice, Copenhagen or Spain even nicer!)
• Supermarket vouchers
• Musical instruments for Ry
• Veg box deliveries (I've won these 2 years running & they're fab)

Wishing you all LOADS of luck with your comping this year... I'll keep you updated on my wish list progress!

2011: ...you lose some!

I blogged yesterday about some of the fabulous wins I had from creative competitions in 2011, but of course I don't win EVERY competition I enter – that would be boring! Here I'm looking back at some of my favourite losing entries from the last twelve months... 

One of my favourites comps last year was the Cadbury Spots v Stripes Double Challenge - you had to make a video of yourself doing two things at once, one of which had to be a sport. I did Karate/Chopping:

I also filmed and edited another daft entry for my friend Lisa, 'Wash Cycle'. We had to finish in the top ten to get judged and unfortunately didn't get enough votes, but 'Karate Chopping' is still a favourite of Ryland's so it was definitely worth doing. I was delighted when a friend of mine Evelyn bagged the £5000 top prize though!

Other losing entries were my frightening 'Snout Pout' for the Wicked Pig competition - it was nice to see SuperLucky reader Viv win the top prize of a holiday in this comp!

...and though my day spent in a banana suit for the TopFruit comp didn't win me £500, another of my blog fans Jen won the cash (all Jen's winnings go towards her charity work so a very worthy winner!):

I loved the Maris Wine 'Green Dinner Party' competition, and we made a broad bean risotto especially for the photo. We didn't win - but another SuperLucky reader Lucy won the wine-tasting trip to France!

There were a whole host of comps to celebrate the Royal Wedding, so I donned my wedding dress and posed for random photos at our local street party. I didn't win a thing with my photos, but we had a right good laugh.

In Summer Pink Lady launched a weekly photo comp to win lovely prizes, and with a bit of Facebook badgering we managed to convince them that the voting element was a bad idea after the first week. Winners were picked at random and I didn't win, but I still love this photo and I'm sure I'll be able to recycle it for a future Pink Lady comp.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup ran their 'secret ingredient' recipe competition with a different meal to cook every month - my friend Emily bagged a trip to Sorrento with her lovely lasagne; I entered this one for the spaghetti bolognese comp, Ryland thought it was hilarious.

We made a video for the Frank's Red Hot competition too - this competition had some seriously good entries! When Ryland is grumpy this film of Daddy is guaranteed to put a smile on his face...

Ryland, Nana and I had fun making and decorating our Olympic diving team gingerbread men for the Co-op's bake off, although dunking them in green jelly didn't prove as successful as I'd hoped! Fingers crossed I can recycle this for a few Olympic-themed comps this year...

Argos ran a great comp on Facebook where you could upload a photo every day featuring the new Argos catalogue and their favourite won vouchers. I made a few losing entries, but this helter skelter one was my favourite.

To end the year I dressed up a an elf to sing the new Toys R Us ad - the winner of a £500 shopping spree was drawn at random, but there were very few entries for such a great prize!

With creative competitions like this, I never feel too disappointed if I don't win because I've still got a great photo or video to entertain the family with - and it's a bonus if one of my comping friends or blog fans picks up the prize. 

I'm looking forward to seeing more of you embarrassing yourself in photos and video comps this year - so get out your fancy dress costumes and I'll see you on Facebook!

2011: You win some...

At the end of each year I like to have a look back at my competition successes, but for 2011 I also want to mention a few of my favourite failures, which you can read about here! I put more work than ever into my competition entries last year and with my husband and son as my enthusiastic sidekicks my YouTube channel certainly makes interesting viewing...

So, 2011 brought me a total of 165 prizes worth over £23,000 - I was amazed when I totalled this up yesterday! Many of these prizes were from blog comps (via my monthly Blog Comp Linkys) but most were from creative competitions promoted on Facebook.

My first big win of 2011 was a day's shopping trip to Paris with £500 to spend with Ford Ka. This was my first visit to Paris and although I only spent a few hours there I was itching to go back - as luck would have it I bagged a weekend trip with Lending Stream in a voting competition a week later!

As well as all my new French clothes, I also grabbed an Alexander McQueen scarf in the Müllerlight Treasure Hunt (LOADS of you got fabulous prizes in this one thanks to my Facebook posts - it was a race to the finish line for many though!), some £170 Carvela boots, £175 to spend at the North Face and £250 to spend at Sweaty Betty.

I got back into the radio comps in Spring and won tickets to the Carling Cup Final (to see my beloved Birmingham City beat my husband's beloved Arsenal!) on TalkSport, a Nokia E7 on Absolute (for being the fastest texter!) and an amazing Live like a Princess prize on Gem106.

Whilst at Wembley I took a photo for the Fairtrade Fortnight week of Facebook competitions - you had to 'show off your label' to enter. METRO liked my entry so much they printed it in the paper, although I couldn't get enough votes to win the challenge! Some of the daily photo challenges unbelievably had more prizes than entrants, so it was no surprise when my comping friends and I picked up dozens of fabulous runner-up hampers between us for our daft photos.

In 2011 I also discovered the benefits of blogging for compers - understandably, bloggers' competitions get very few entries. I picked up two iPhones from Priceminister's generous promotion, and a £20 voucher for being one of the first entrants in the Blog an Avo comp.

There have been other comps this year where I bagged a prize for being an early entrant - the first 50 videos in the Fearless Fred comp got £50 cash, and the first 10 in the Cafe Collection Queen of Chat video comp won a case of wine. It's worth keeping an eye out for these type of comps as if you're able to rustle up a photo or video quickly you're guaranteed a prize. I will always post links to comps like these on the SuperLucky Facebook page as soon as I find them, so make sure you're a fan!

2011 was the year of silly comps, which are definitely my forte as since becoming a Mum I have no qualms at all about embarrassing myself. Singing karaoke with a wig on, wearing a tissue box on my head, changing t-shirts as fast as I can, singing the Toys R Us ad... if it's daft, count me in!

I roped in Ryland to help me out with my video comps this year with huge success. Our recipe for purple swamp pasta won us a £3500 trip to Sorrento, we won £500 vouchers when Annabel Karmel judged us the best video in the 'Baby Gaga' competition and WOW Toys chose our video as their £1000 cash winner too.

I also managed to get hubby to help out with our Father's Day video, where you had to show how Dad helped out round the house with a Toblerone bar. This took an absolute age to make, but it won us an amazing trip to Switzerland!

I did well in the daft photo comps too; my 'Hoxton Fin' won me £1000 of hairdressing at Toni and Guy and my Lidl 'Spot the Bus' photo won me a 40 inch TV and Blu-Ray player.

And who can forget my favourite photo of the year, for the Asda 'show us something that needs a good clean' comp, where I won £300 of cleaning products:

Of course 2011 wasn't just about MY prizes. I know that lots of you have been entering these creative comps too and it's been brilliant to see your amazing wins - in particular I'm looking forward to seeing Ian Graham in the Autoglass TV ad this week!

As for my 2011 prize wish list, I managed to win 4 things off it - a Smart Trike, trip to Paris, £500 supermarket vouchers and nine handbags! I'll be compiling a 2012 wish list this week...

Finally, I must thank everyone who has taken the time to vote for me in comps over the last year. As you know I work really hard at getting promoters to make voting comps fairer and judge them, but if I can't change their minds I really appreciate your help with votes. 

Wishing you all the best of luck with your 2012 creative comping!