Skull Appreciation Day ~ Contests & a SALE!

June 4th,  y’all! Mark your calendars for Skull Appreciation Day! We’re gonna have a blow out here at …of empty men… with a couple of contests with PRIZES and a huge sale in our Etsy shoppe. If you’ve been waiting for the opportune moment to buy something skullie for yourself or a loved one, trust me, THIS WILL BE IT. Because we are giving you a whopping 25% off your order if you use the code SKULLLOVE2012 on June 4th ONLY! It’s one day, don’t miss it!  The store is here. We’ll be adding additional product between now & then too!

Contest #1 – Skull art contest! Send us a photograph! We want pictures of skulls and the rules are pretty simple: just take a picture of a skull and send it to us. It can be a skull you drew, made out of your morning toast, or your cat snuggled up to one you picked up at a department store 3 Halloweens ago. We don’t care, just take a pic and send it to us either on Twitter @HexenCootie or email discordiariffic@gmail.com OR post it on our Facebook page here! If you tweet me, use the hashtag #ILOVESKULLS.

Contest #2 – The June edition Skullku contest! Put on your thinking (skull)cap and hammer out three lines in the five – seven – five syllable format. The theme this month is “Fire in the Head”. Interpret that how you want to! Just like the pictures you can send it to us either on Twitter @HexenCootie or email discordiariffic@gmail.com OR post it on our Facebook page here! If you tweet me, use the hashtag #skullku.

The Rules – don’t rip off someone else. If your skull is original artwork, make sure you did it. Taking a picture of a mass produced resin skull that is sold all over the world is ok but taking a picture of a skull painting hanging in a gallery downtown is NOT cool. Same goes for the skullku poetry, write it yourself! By submitting either poetry, art, or a photograph you agree to allow …of empty men… to publish it on this site, in social media networking, and/or future publications without further compensation beyond the prizes awarded in this contest.

The Prizes – check this out, you’ve got 2 contests to enter for the chance at 3 prizes for each contest! That’s 6 prizes total! FIRST PLACE PRIZE: the first place winner will receive one of Cootie’s large skull wall-hangings, hand-painted & signed, of course. SECOND PLACE PRIZE: the second place winner will receive a small 3D skull, also hand-painted & signed.  THIRD PLACE PRIZE: third place will receive a 4×6 skullie sketch card, also drawn, signed & dated by Cootie.

Both of these contests start NOW!  You have until 9 pm EST on Sunday June 3rd to get your entries in AND THERE IS NO LIMIT ON THE NUMBER OF ENTRIES YOU CAN MAKE! So, get to drawing/painting/sculpting (whatever!) and photographing & get to writing!  All winner’s will be announced & published here on June 4th.

Winners ~ 4/11/12 Skullku Contest

Y’all are awesome, you really are. The Twitter Skullku (skull haiku) contest that we ran Tues-Wed this week was so much fun. We had several great entries and it was hard to pick just one! So, we picked two. First place wins a mini-skull and second place will get a bone magnet.

First place goes to @BroMan_XIII for his “Skully skully skull” haiku. Which makes me giggle snort every time I read it.

“Cranium brain safe,

mandible complete the face,

skully skully skull. “

And second place goes to @Morgana268 for her “Where are my damn teeth?” haiku.

“Stories left untold

Staring eyeless into dark

 Where are my damn teeth?”

The other contenders were:

Random Tuesday = a give away!

If you have a Twitter account & don’t follow me, you should.  At least for a couple of days. I am very close to my 11111th tweet & with it I am going to have a contest, the winner of which will receive a custom mini-skull!

I’m @HexenCootie.

The blank skull – a clean slate

This is how all my skulls begin. White. Void. Empty. Blank. Like a hillside of untouched snow. Just waiting for someone to come along and have some fun and change its face forever.

"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more." Shakespeare, MacBeth

 

This morning I found a blog from an artist who draws mazes. Beautiful. Amazingly intricate work. I found it to be very inspirational. You can look at his work, and read about his journey at http://mazeaday.wordpress.com/.

The Hollow Men ~ T. S. Eliot

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.