The Hottie Challenge

The mystery envelope arrived yesterday morning and now I can finally reveal what I've been waiting for....

I really believe that sometimes things just happen for a reason..... so when Nic from Yardage Design put a little link to Open Drawer - Art Textiles and Learning Centre over on her Facebook Page, I was meant to click on that link.

Now normally I would have had a quick peruse of the front page of a website, and then be off on my merry way. But, on the front page of the Open Drawer website, on the bottom right side, I noticed that it stated:

Open Drawer supports The Margaret Pratt Foundation.

So you've probably never heard of The Margaret Pratt Foundation, but I certainly have.

From their website:

The Margaret Pratt Foundation Heart Lung Transplant Trust is a registered charity whose aim is to encourage, develop and maintain Australia’s world class expertise in the field of organ transplantation by supporting research that addresses the problems faced by children and adults after heart and lung transplant.

The aim of the research must be to improve the outcomes for heart and lung transplant recipients. 

The Margaret Pratt Foundation has donated $700,000 to date in 2011 to promote research into the causes and prevention of chronic lung rejection.

The foundation donates to provide funds for the researchers working at the Alfred Hospital, right here in Melbourne.

So if you've read this far, then I'm sure you want to know about the challenge, right???

The challenge is to create a Hottie Cover using any art or textile technique that takes your fancy.

It doesn't need to be a functional cover!

The rules and regulations taken from here :

Join the Hottie Challenge – it is a way that you can donate your time and a little money to a very worthy cause while having fun using your creative skills however great or small they may be.

The Hottie Challenge is Opendrawer’s first project to help raise money for the Margaret Pratt Foundation (Research for heart and Lung Transplants) our chosen charity.
www.mprattfoundation.com.au

• Entry fee: $5.00 – Opendrawer will not keep any monies raised from the Entry Fee, any surplus will go to MPF.
• The photocopied template should be used as a guide for size. We will not be measuring so close enough will be good enough.
• Group entries will be accepted and encouraged.
• Age is no barrier.
• The Only Rule: The cardboard cutout must be used, it can be covered and/or coloured but should be within your cover, the neck hole must be kept open as this is how your cover is to be displayed.
• The finished entry is to be donated to the MPF for sale.
• All entries will be displayed in Opendrawer’s Gallery from Friday July 1 to Sunday July 24, 2011
• Finished entries must be with Opendrawer by ***Friday June 24^th 2011. Please make sure your entry is clearly marked with your name and a short description of your masterpiece.
• There will be a public vote for the best Cover and the winner will receive an awesome trophy and much adulation.
• We will have a gala opening on Friday July 1st between 6 – 8pm

*** I will need to receive the Hotties by Thursday June 23rd, so that I can deliver them in person on the 24th.

I'm going to co-ordinate a group entry via the blog so we can all raise some funds together.

I've already donated $100 to cover the entry fee for the first twenty people who would like to play along (the $100 goes straight to the foundation), and have 20 kits ready to send out. After twenty, you can just paypal or direct deposit the $5 and I will pay for more kits to be sent out.

*Please note: the first 20 places have been filled now, so when you join and email me your address, I will send you the details on the $5 donation for your entry fee.

I've created a Flickr Group for everyone to add their pics, and will feature all of our lovely Hottie creations on the blog!

Of course, please take the button and pop it on your blog too (feel free to save the image above), or use this html code:

<a href="http://curlypops.blogspot.com/2011/05/hottie-challenge.html"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2650/5712038721_f886d4765d_m.jpg" />

If you would like to play along, all you need to do is add your name to this linky list, and then email me your snail mail address mscurlypops (at) gmail (dot) com and I will pop a kit in the mail for you.