Calling all creative kids in the Shenandoah Valley!

I happen to think that all children are creative. It’s a gift from our creator God.

This is mostly for local readers in the Shenandoah Valley who have children or grandchildren or students or friends ages 4-12 who enjoy coloring or other creative artwork.

The magazine for which I’ve served as editor for many years, Valley Living, is sponsoring an art contest with some great prizes—especially the grand prize donated by the wonderful folks at Take Them a Meal. Many folks use the Take Them a Meal great website to coordinate meals for folks when someone is in special need of TLC—like after a new baby, or when serious illness strikes, or the new pastor’s family has just moved to town! Only recently did I learn that it was started up right here in the Shenandoah Valley by two creative young people that went to the same church, Adina Bailey and Scott Rodgers, and you can read all about that here!

But our Valley Living art contest—the idea for that is to involve more young families and readers in this magazine dedicated to improving family living. The winning artwork will be published in the magazine! Hurry fast–the deadline is March 18, midnight!

We have two awesome judges standing by ready to judge the artwork:

• Ashley Sauder Miller
• Brandy Somers

Here’s all the info and the contest rules!

Art Contest For Kids

Celebrating 25 years publishing Valley Living!

Theme: “What I Like About Living in The Shenandoah Valley”
Who: Children ages 4-12 who love to draw, color, paint, make collages and more!
Contest to be judged in three different age categories (4-6, 7-9 and 10-12), and winners announced with the winner’s artwork published in the Summer issue of Valley Living.

Prizes!

One overall Grand prize Winner: An engaging Kids Activity Set (above) donated byTakeThemAMeal.com, an online meal scheduling tool and service.

First prize for each age category: A supply of decorative paper, artfoam, thick cardboard and special markers—all sure to help keep a budding artist busy for days.

Second prize for each age category: Box of age-appropriate markers.

Rules:
1. Entry should be created on either 8 ½ x 11 or 9 x 12 paper and submitted by March 18.
2. Winners will be announced on valleyliving.org by March 28, and on the Valley Living Facebook page. Like the page so you’ll see announcements of our winners! Decisions of judges are final.
3. All submissions will be available for pick-up after April 1 at Red Front Supermarket.
4. All entries not picked up by Apr. 11 will be discarded.

How to enter:
By mail: Send artwork and entry form (download below) to Art Contest, Valley Living, 1251 Virginia Avenue, Harrisonburg, VA 22802. Entry must be postmarked by March 18.
By email: Artwork can be photographed/scanned, saved as a high resolution (300 dpi) JPEG, and emailed as an attachment to info@valleyliving.org. Entry form (download below and photograph/scan) should be included. Entry must be received by midnight March 18.
In person: Artwork and entry form (download here) can be dropped off at Red Front Supermarket in Harrisonburg by March 18.

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When your kids or grandkids ask for something to do today, tell them to draw a picture illustrating what they like about living in the Shenandoah Valley and they might win a prize, or have their art published in Valley Living! And they just might have fun doing it. We can’t wait to see what they come up with!