Need some fun-spiration?

For those of you still noodling on what to submit to the yourBloopers contest, might we interest you in some inspiration that'll have your brain rattling from all the laughter? Well, we just happen to have some friends in the funny biz who work just around the way from us (Really, we can see some of their desks from ours - hey, guys!).

Ever heard of a little card line called Shoebox? Yeah, that's them. Not only do they write outrageously funny cards. They've also got a blog. And it's hilarious (you didn't see that coming, did you?). Go get your daily dose of funny. Get ideas. Get inspired. Soak it up.

And the YourFunny*ness Grand Prize Winner Is . . .

. . . Stephanie Kelton!  Her card, "Pondering the Future" received the most votes of any card in the history of YourFunny*ness.  Be impressed.  Be very impressed.

Three cheers and lots of laughs for Stephanie!  Join us in congratulating our Grand Prize Winner.  She deserves it, dang it.

The Polls are Open! Hip Hip Hooray!

After a snafu or two (or twelve), we've got the site back under control and ready for your voting pleasure.  So don't waste another minute.  Go vote!  

You've got until the end of this month to vote for your favorite Funny*ness finalist.  Time's a-tickin'.  Spread the word and vote every day (once a day) to make sure your finalist comes out on top as the funniest of the funny.

Tick, tick tick . . . 

Funny*ness Shameless Self-Promotion #5: Sharon

Some might say I'm funny, others might say I'm funny looking--either way, I'm good.

Please, pleeeaaassee, pah-leez (I'm on my knees now and given my age, that's not an easy place to get up from) vote for me!  My illustrated card deserves to win because it can be used in more ways than one: you can send a chuckle to your weight loss buddies who "get" how hard it is to lose those pounds or you can send this to a friend who you haven't seen in a while.  I would love your vote, so please vote for me!!

Funny*ness Shameless Self-Promotion #4: Mike

Funny*ness Shameless Self-Promotion #3: Sandy

Hi, my name is Sandy Groth,

Shahsam, my horse is named

That word is what I shouted out,

when I saw him his first day.

I'd like for you to vote for us,

In this contest we've tried hard,

to get more people interested,

to vote for all these cards!

I try to bring a little smile,

to all on Hallmark's site,

and share a little of my heart,

to make your days so bright.

Vote for us and I can say,

you really won't regret it,

I'll thank you with a little poem,

that's fun and filled with wit!

Funny*ness Shameless Self-Promotion #2: Yashira

Hello Fellow Voters!

This is Yashira with an important message: Put those mice to good use and vote for me!

Make sure to click on the card titled "My Crayon Friend."  It's not only funny-it's nostalgic too

(unless you currently draw like that).  So direct that pointer to the funniest card around . . . mine!

And if you are using real mice for the task, remember to pay them in quality Wisconsin cheese

and keep them away from the cords.

Happy voting!

Funny*ness Shameless Self-Promotion #1: Kristi

Hi, I'm Kristi.  Thanks for taking the time to read a little about me! :)  I believe that I've been truly blessed with a  zany and child-like sense of humor that allows me to laugh at myself and find "funny" in the otherwise mundane!  Unflattering self-photos, silly faces, and, ahem . . . noises associated with "bodily functions" always precipitate a good belly laugh!  As you can see, my card design reflects the very foolishness that I find laughable . . . I hope it gives you a smile, too! :)

yourFunny*ness Shameless Self-Promotions

It's not just yourPets finalists that enjoy a little time in the blog spotlight.  Everyone deserves some time to shine.  So next week we'll be featuring yourFunny*ness finalists in all their glory/hilarity.  What can we say; we love shameless self-promotions.  And we've got a hunch we're not the only ones.  (Are we the only ones?)

Survey says...

The winner of this week's
"Funny, But No Thank You" voting is:
DIANE BOGARDUS

Liverpool, NY

Humor is subjective. You know it. We know it. What makes Polly pee in her pants laughing may do nothing for Penelope.

Shoebox has its own humor thing going and even the Shoebox writers and illustrators have stacks (drawers) of not-so-quites and no-ways. And apparently our pastime of laughing at ourselves is shared by others out there -- others who enjoy laughing at what we made that never made it into a card.

Actually, only about 20% of what gets turned in gets accepted and becomes a Shoebox card. On the Shoebox blog, they feature the other 80%.

Go check out some of the funny going on over there. You might get a chuckle. Or two.

Oh and they've even made a couple of videos celebrating that other 80%. Check it: Funny, But No #1,  Valentine's Day, St. Pat's, and even Christmas.

Runners-Up Gallery

Didja see the brand spankin' new gallery of Funny*ness runners-up? Didja? Didja?

http://www.hallmarkcontests.com/funnyvote/index.cfm?step=runnerup

Funny, huh? Boy, oh boy, what a tough job those judges had!

Which runner-up tickles your funny bone??

One Dedicated Finalist

Thought you all might find this as charming as we did: In order to solidify their spot as a finalist, one of our finalists-to-be needed to get a release for a picture they took. No big deal, right? Wrong.

They took said picture a few YEARS ago, on vacation, at random, about three hours away from their house.

So, when our contest administrator called them and told them they needed the release signed within three days to qualify, this scrappy finalist found a way to hop in their car, drive the 3 hours and hunt down the person from whom they needed the release. True story. But it's not over yet.

The person from whom they needed a release could only be reached through a non-English speaker, by the English speaking finalist. So confusion (and a little mayhem) ensued until the (English speaking) release signer could be located.

Whew. And located they were. And a finalist they are.

That, my friends, is dedication. Right on, I say. Right on.

Best of luck to ALL the finalists - in both competitions. Looking forward to seeing all your smiling faces in our Hallmark stores all summer!! :)

Something Funny?

Okay, friends. Judgy is back in the house. And the house smells a little funny. Let's talk.

Remember the "hanging chads"? Or the zillion other voting dilemmas we have seen in politics and pop culture over the years? I sure do. And now I get how difficult it is to make sure everyone plays nice more than I ever did before.

Here's the thing, we are a small team within Hallmark (small but mighty, we like to think) working on these competitions. We are crazy passionate about them and about enabling all of you to get your creative voices heard and seen on greeting cards. Seriously. It's true: We love making cards and we absolutely love that YOU love to make them, too.

No one wants the bad kind of funniness going on in our voting. And believe me, it is taking some time, but we are ferreting out any bad funny to make sure only the solid, legit, we-love-to-play-nice votes stay in the running. It is our belief that this will be solved in the next few days and that you will see some changes in the current rankings of the finalists as a result.

Please be patient and give us some time on this. We're working hard (really really hard) to make sure everything is right. But it does take time and like I say, we are a small (but mighty) team.

Oh and just so you know, part of the judging process has always been (and will continue to be) that the judges do not see the names of any of the contestants until their card ideas are chosen as finalists. This means that if anyone was chosen twice, it was because their idea(s) were solid, "sendable," theme-appropriate greetings that all the judges agreed was tops. ("Sendable" is tricky. There were ones that had us peeing in our pants, they were so funny. But not necessarily something more than a few people would send, which in Shoebox parlance is called "funny, but no.") (See their blog for examples.)

Lastly, we also like the idea of showing the alternates and runner-ups. We're looking into the best way we might do it. We'll get back to you on that. Soon.

Okay. Go vote with confidence: Look for your kind of funny (and your favorite pet card). And make that funny (and that pet) win.

The new finalists are here! The new finalists are here!

Photos, illustrations, collages, lettering…and (oh my sides) really great jokes. These people did it all. And they did it all funny-like.

To paraphrase a certain reality show judge, "Check it out, check it out, dawg. These cards are hot." Check it, y’all. Pick your favorites. Get to know these folks and their fantastic work. And start voting!

In the days/weeks ahead, you'll be seeing guest blogs written by the finalists in our contests - we'll give it a go with Pets first. YOU'LL get a peek into their creative processes (please knock first) and THEY'LL get a chance to beg for votes, um, I mean introduce themselves a bit and promote their work!

Check back every day to vote and look around. We keep getting new ideas (many inspired by you and the rockin' feeback you're providing right here on this here blog) and so far nobody's telling us we can't do them so keep 'em comin'! We've got something special up our sleeves for the alternates so be sure to come back and check that out.

Congratulations to the finalists and alternates and to every one of you who had the spunk to bring the funny!

Blogden Nash

Judging the Funny

Okay, dear funny-makers. I am happy to report that the 18 finalists have...been...chosen.

Here is the wall of the top 50 and the open spots for the 18 finalists. We are very fancy.

On the final finalist judging day, we - funny experts of funniness at Hallmark + our celebrity judges - reviewed the top 50 and each created our own personal dream 18.

None of our groups matched. We all had different ideas of what is funny. Only ONE card idea was picked by everybody. Funny is like that...funny.

So, to fill those 18 spots, we had to duke it out. Convince each other. Trick each other. Bribe each other. (Kidding. There was no funny business.) (I mean, of course there was funny business, but only in the most literal sense.)

If you are one of the finalists, or one of the alternates, we congratulate you. And salute you. And want to give you props for bringing the funny.

If you were not selected this time around, do not dismay. There will be other competitions. And other chances to be funny. (You could be funny right now!)

All will be revealed on Monday. So, hang tight, keep rhyming and goofing around here or wherever you like to do that sort of thing. You all are cracking us up.

Ranking the Funny

One "Bowling Alley". Three Judges. Lots and lots of funny card ideas.
The mission? Pick 50 ideas and rank them in order of funny.
It's a tough job, but hey...you're worth it.

Have you shared your Funny yet? Hmmmmm???

Lately we're thinking a lot about "funny" and about how we know there are more of you out there who have a just-for-the-heck-uv-it hilarious card ideas out there.

(Did you funny people know that our deadline is THIS Sunday? Get cracking, procrastinators. The clock is ticking.) (Hear it?)

Go. Now. Inject some of your own brand of funniness into this world.

You know it'd be fun to share your funny. Think about it.

Judgy

Funny or No?

So, we judges have started digging in to your submissions and are *usually* laughing when we should. The humor nut is a tough one to crack, that's for sure (ask any of our veteran Shoebox writers or artists who have their own personal, very large collections of "no's"). (Actually, they did a whole chapter on that in their book last year and go on and on about it on their blog.)

And serious about humor though we may be, there was at least once when we couldn't help but lose it because of your funnyness. Hilarious. Thank you.

If you have been waiting until the last minute to submit your funny, just remember to restrict that funny to "just for fun" card ideas -- that means no birthdays and no holidays, just a joke ready to send in a card for a laugh.

You've just got until the end of this week, until SUNDAY night 11:59 CST to be exact, to submit YourFunny*ness to us.

Enjoy the funny. Be the funny. Live the funny.

(Good luck! We hope you win.)

Flats & Funny

How does a finalist card idea become a real card in the store? Anyone curious?

Before we even think of sending anything to print, everything we create must go through rounds of proofreading and be put into a fancy computer design program that makes sure it'll all look good once the ink hits the paper at our factory.

What you see over there on the right is a "flat"... all of the YourPets finalist designs should be through this process by the end of the day today, ready to be shipped off to print!

Speaking of printing, if YOU want an idea of yours to be printed (with your face and story on the back) (and sold in stores all around the country), join in the YourFunny*ness competition. (Funny Cards sent for no reason - just to make someone laugh.)

There are only nine days left! Have a funny photo? A funny drawing? A funny joke you can make into a card? (My mom was on one years ago and I can tell you that it was a big deal for her, for me and for everyone we know.)

Hurry up and GET FUNNY. (It's fun to be funny.) (And good for you, too.)