Postcard Theme Challenge: the Winter Celebration You Observe

[ibclare]

12/29: I am updating this post to state that we will indeed have a winner as judged by Mark theKeeper, and esteemed PSG Guru of many years. The winner will design the next Holiday Challenge, which in the U.S. is Valentine's Day, February 14th. If your culture/country has a different one before that, it's your choice to make it for that or Valentine's. So ignore the next sentence.

This Challenge will not be numbered and will have no winner as we take time out to celebrate our observation and enjoyment of the season's holidays. The Winter Solstice Festivals and Holy Days are many.

Celebrate your own culture and share with us!

Thanks to Jessicayla, Inkz, and others who have given their feedback on the idea . . .

The challenge is: Using interesting typography effects and any background/foreground/manipulation/scenery/etc. create a Postcard and share your Spirit of the Season. Any theme related to the Seasonal Celebrations is welcome. The postcard can be old-fashioned themed, modern, anime, fantasy, cos, sci-fi, or whatever gets your creative juices flowing.

This Challenge will last through December 31st and your theme can expand to include New Year's or other holidays which might take you past December 25th.

Have fun. We're all looking forward to great contributions!


Here's a list from Wikipedia:

• Advent: four weeks prior to Christmas (Western Christianity).
• Saint Nicholas' Day: 6 December
• Bodhi Day: 8 December - Day of Enlightenment, celebrating the day that the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni or Siddhartha Guatama) experienced enlightenment (also known as Bodhi).
• Saint Lucy's Day: 13 December - Church Feast Day. Saint Lucy comes as a young woman with lights and sweets.
• Winter Solstice: 21 December-22 December - midwinter
• Dongzhi Festival - a celebration of Winter
• Soyal: 21 December - Zuni and Hopi
• Yalda: 21 December - The turning point, Winter Solstice. As the longest night of the year and the beginning of the lengthening of days, Shabe Yaldā or Shabe Chelle is an Iranian festival celebrating the victory of light and goodness over darkness and evil. Shabe yalda means 'birthday eve.' According to Persian mythology, Mithra was born at dawn on the 22nd of December to avirgin mother. He symbolizes light, truth, goodness, strength, and friendship. Herodotus reports that this was the most important holiday of the year for contemporary Persians. In modern times Persians celebrate Yalda by staying up late or all night, a practice known as Shab Chera meaning 'night gazing'. Fruits and nuts are eaten, especially pomegranates and watermelons, whose red color invokes the crimson hues of dawn and symbolize Mithra.
• Mōdraniht: or Mothers' Night, the Saxon winter solstice festival.
• Saturnalia: the Roman winter solstice festival
• Pancha Ganapati: Five-day festival in honor of Lord Ganesha. December 21–25.
• Christmas Eve: 24 December
• Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Day of the birth of the Unconquered Sun): late Roman Empire - 25 December
• Christmas: 25 December
• Twelve Days of Christmas: 25 December through 6 January
• Yule: Pagan winter festival that was celebrated by the historical Germanic people from late December to early January.
• Anastasia of Sirmium Feast Day: 25 December
• Malkh: 25 December
• Boxing Day: 26 December - Gift-giving day after Christmas.
• Kwanzaa: 26 December - 1 January - Pan-African festival celebrated in North America
• Saint Stephen's Day: 26 December
• Saint John the Evangelist's Day: 27 December
• Holy Innocents' Day: 28 December
• Saint Sylvester's Day: 31 December
• Watch Night: 31 December
• New Year's Eve: 31 December - Last day of the Gregorian year

[Remote-Medic]

Nice Clareby, count me in on this one

[Inkz]

(Cracks Knuckles)

Count me in.

[IamSam]

Clare, is a greeting card style OK?

[ibclare]

Why not Sam!

All kinda fits the same format. Just have fun!




Here's my first one. Another more elaborate (maybe) or more simple (maybe) card in the making.

[IamSam]

Ok, just finished this one,

[chrisix]

Mod edit: chrisix, you are welcome to express yourself but no flaming, subtle or otherwise -- as yours was not apparently made in the spirit of the season.

The children are our future.
and sadly enough, i dont think the average chirstmas card reaches the yough of today anymore.
we need something they can relate to. something fun and exciting
telling them what christmas is realy about, while still provoking their interest.
so I present to you: the christmas card for the young ones!~


yes, those are a laser cat and shark (awesome)

[MotherSpider]

Is it cheating that I had already made my card for the year?

I must say IamSam's is awesome. I am going to have to start trying these out of bounds (what do you call them) designs. Cool

[Remote-Medic]

One from me:

[ibclare]

Sam & Beast. You are setting the bar high!

Here is mine, conceived of before seeing yours, but quality probably enhanced by the competition, lol.



The blue border was not part of the original design, but the white outside border disappeared into the white forum page (which would be fine for the PSG dark folk but not us fluidics, :}).The tree scene googled is "Happy Holidays from NYC 2006" marked MIHAY.DR, but I couldn't find any other info on the photographer.The girl is from deviant art "subterranea_ii_by_blade_of_mako and the model is the artist herself; http://blade-of-mako.deviantart.com/