Hurray A Contest!

Snailbird is proud to host its second contest! This time the contest is being sponsored by our lovely friends over at UPrinting. They will be giving 1 lucky winner 100 (ONE HUNDRED!) custom-made postcards for free! How awesome is that? Here’s what you need to do to enter the giveaway:

The Rules

01. Comment on this post, making sure that I have both your name and email address (we won’t share your email, no worries), and tell me what you would use these 100 custom postcards for. Be creative! Christmas/New Year/Holiday/Birthday cards? Letters to long lost relatives? Paper your wall with them? Let us know!

The Goods

The winner will receive 100 custom postcards from UPrinting.com. The postcards are 4″ by 6″ (standard postcard size), full color both sides, and printed on 14pt Cardstock Gloss. They can be used as notecards, invitations, thank you cards, or whatever you could possibly think of.

On January 1, 2010, I will choose a winner using the ever-useful Random.org generator. Only those with answers to the above question will be put in the drawing so don’t forget that part! One comment is allowed per person and don’t forget to tell your friends to join. Who wouldn’t love to get 100 custom-made postcards? It’s the perfect gift for a new year.

Don’t forget to tweet about the giveaway to your friends!

Come back on January 1, 2010 to find out who the winner is!

“Two girls, a bar, and a talking cactus.”

With a tagline like that, how could you not want to read the webcomic Girls with Slingshots? I know I was hooked. I started reading GWS about a year and a half ago and I’m pretty sure I read the first 500 comics in one night. The rest of it was done the next morning. The author, Danielle Corsetto, has a flair for pushing boundaries, but all with a sense of dignity – okay, maybe not so much dignity per se, but you have to admit, each strip is like a shot of vodka. You can’t stop yourself from taking another one just to see how far you can go. Or something like that.

Really, there’s just a lot of booze and sex, so dignity is probably not at all the word I’m looking for. Regardless, it’s an awesome comic drawn by an awesome artist. I got to meet Danielle for a very brief five minutes this weekend at Dragon’s Lair Comics for their webcomic weekend, and when I sadly lamented the fact that there was no McPedro button in the button pack I bought, she actually took the one off of her bag and gave it to me (and warned me not to smell it since her bag always comes into the bathroom with her – true GWS humor). So not only is she a great comic artist, but she’s a pretty freakin’ awesome person in general.

Want more of Danielle Corsetto? You can find her here:

Website: DanielleCorsetto.com
Comic: Girls with Slingshots
Twitter: @dcorsetto
MySpace: GirlswithSlingshots
Etsy Shop: DCorsetto
GWS Store: GWS Store

Previous Artist Showcases:
Lois van Baarle
Erika Moen
Anne Julie Aubry
Jason Chan

I realized I haven’t done an artist showcase in awhile, and I have a huge list of artists I want to feature. Maybe I should just make this an on-going Monday thing. Yeah, I’ve said that before… Ah well. Today’s artist showcase is the incredibly multi-talented Lois van Baarle of Loish.net!

One of the things that drew me to Lois’s artwork is her attention to detail and the use of colors that is constantly exemplified in her digital paintings. While her primary subject appears to be cute girls (which I’m not complaining about in the slightest), it is her architectural illustrations – those that focus on tall buildings and different depths of perspective – that really blow me away.

Of course, my favorite image is still focused on a cute girl:

What can I say? I like cute girls. The fish are cute too.

Lois is a world-traveler. She’s lived in the US, Indonesia, France, Belgium, and was born in the Netherlands. She currently resides in Utrecht and went to school there for her Masters of Arts. She not only draws images, she also creates some beautiful animations as well (my favorite being a short film called Trichrome Blue). She says about herself: “I’m unemployed and my life has no structure whatsoever, but I’m as happy as I’ve ever been!” Not only is she a phenomenal artist, but she’s got a great outlook on life as well.

You can find more about Lois by clicking on the following links:

Website: Loish.net
Twitter: @loishh
Tumblr: Loish Blog
Blog: Loish Sketchblog
Deviantart: Loish (best place for Lois Art!)
Vimeo: Loish
And just for fun: Disney Fanart

Check out Lois’s galleries and drop her a comment. Her artwork is amazing and I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.

Previous Artist Showcases:
Erika Moen
Anne Julie Aubry
Jason Chan

Wow, a post on the weekend you say? She must be mad! Yes, yes, I’m mad. I’m also bored out of my mind and sick of looking at duplexes online (with the amount of houses I spent snooping around today in the unbearably sweltering heat of the Texan sun, I am completely surprised I wasn’t either 1: arrested as a potential serial cat burglar, or 2: shoveled off the pavement in the form of a melted pile of sizzling egg-goop (what a great description, huh?) – either of those were open options). Anyway, have a blog post.

As some of you may have noticed, I am a blogger. Therefore, I love to read blogs too (crazy, huh?). So because I enjoy sharing the happy little nuggets of good reads (and I haven’t done it in quite awhile), I thought I’d throw another blog at you to add to your feed reader.

Run Jen Run

Not only is Jenny a witty writer, but she’s a fantastic photographer, and a wonderful client to work with. She was one of my first (and still one of my favorite) blog clients to work with professionally and her feedback was fantastic as well. Anyway, as a blogger, she is charming, intelligent, and downright hilarious at times. I love her Photobooth Chronicles the best – who knew you could say so much in just four small pictures.

Jenny is also the founder of the ever-growing TequilaCon, which is something I hope to attend next year depending on where they decide to hold it (hey, idea! Austin? Seriously, I’m totally throwing it in the ring here, guys). Tattoos, tequila, and bloggers? There really is nothing better.

Anyway, check out Jenny and all of her awesome photos, blogs, and tequila love over at her snazzy blog Run Jen Run. You won’t be sorry you did (but you will be sorry if you don’t – just saying).