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Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

Extra Giveaway Entry Opportunities For My Readers! Help Me Win the Watermelon Contest!

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You may recall that last month Tim and I created a watermelon hedgehog in celebration of national watermelon month.

Well….

Our little hedgehog made it to the finals for the watermelon carving contest sponsored by the National Watermelon promotion board! Woah!

There will be a $500 Amazon gift card prize for the fan favorite, and that’s where you come in! I’d love for you go to this site: http://www.whataboutwatermelon.com/index.php/watermelon-carving-contest/. You will see the voting options on the right sidebar. Please click on the hedgehog!

I want to thank you for your vote in two ways!

1. From now until August 15th, all of my current giveaways will offer 2 bonus entries for people who voted for the hedgehog. So that means you increase your odds of winning some cool stuff. I’ll be adding this entry option to the rafflecopter forms this morning, so just go back to the forms and find that entry option. You can only vote one time per IP address in the watermelon contest, but you can get bonus entries for all my giveaways for that one vote. Pretty sweet, right?

2. If I win the grand prize, I will be giving back to my readers by holding a giveaway for a $50 Amazon card. I bet you can think of lots of things you could buy with that, right?!

So please, click here and then click on the hedgehog button on the right. Thank you SO MUCH for your help! And if you are ever in a voting contest, let me know so that I can return the favor, ok?

 

 

 

 

How to Turn a Watermelon Into a Hedgehog: Carving Contest Announcement!

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Did you know that July is National Watermelon Month? It certainly is at our home…this is the month when we buy a watermelon at the grocery store almost every week!

The National Watermelon Promotion Board wants to help celebrate the season of this fruit (which is my second favorite fruit in the world…the first being mango). They are hosting a watermelon carving contest, and the grand prize winner is going to get $600! Woo hoo!

There are five different categories for entries, and one of those categories is Watermelon.org carvings. This site has dozens of different carvings with step-by-step instructions on how to make them! We decided to go this route since we’ve never carved a watermelon before and needed some direction.

We decided to make this cute little hedgehog (though I think he looks more like a porcupine, personally). Here’s the inspiration photo:

You can find the complete tutorial for this design here. Tim was the head carver for this project, and it took about 40 minutes from start to finish. I think that’s not bad, at all, considering that he had absolutely no previous experience with carving a watermelon! Even our pumpkin carvings every fall are nowhere close to this elaborate!

Here are some pictures from our carving adventure to show you how our hedgehog came to be.

First, slice just enough off the bottom so that it will sit flat and not roll.
Next,carve the watermelon so that it looks a bit like a convertible!
Now its time to add some flair. This is probably the most time-consuming step. You are adding prickly “hair” all around the edges.
Time to make the nose and ears! They get carved out from the top of the watermelon that was previously removed.
Blueberries are used for the tip of the nose and the eyes.
Now cut up all the watermelon chunks and add toothpicks to each piece. This makes it easy for folks to grab, and also gives the look of a hedgehog (I still think it’s a porcupine!).
We took the finished product to Darah’s school so that the 2 and 3 year olds there could enjoy it. It certainly gave them a lot of giggles!

I think our hedgehog looks absolutely adorable. I don’t think we are going to walk away with that grand prize, but we sure did have fun in the attempt. Maybe you will be the big winner! But to have a shot at it, you’ve got to enter! Check out all the details about the watermelon carving contest and get to work on a fun design!

Disclosure: I was sent a complimentary watermelon in the mail (what a crazy thing to get via FedEx!), cookie cutters, a carving tool and a watermelon cutting board to help facilitate our carving fun. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.