Families Create! Call for February Submissions

Please join us for a new monthly blog carnival focusing on families and creativity. Read below for details, both for the February carnival and for upcoming themes – we have a whole year planned!

Your co-hosts are Dionna at Code Name: Mama and Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children.

So what is the “Families, Create!” Monthly Make and Play Carnival?

Families, Create! is a blog carnival with a purpose: we want your family to get creative and have fun! Each month we will have a theme, things like “Heroes and Heroines,” “Fantasy,” and “Weird and Wonderful” (see below for a complete list of 2011’s monthly themes). You will craft a post (or 2 or 3) around one of those themes.

What will your post consist of? You are only limited by your imagination! You can create a handmade craft that embodies the qualities of the post (publish pictures and/or a tutorial!). You can write a story using the theme as inspiration. Your family can act out a story (we will have a handy list of on-topic books for you each month that you can use or ignore, as you desire).

All we ask is that 1) you and your family create something that goes along with the theme; and 2) you post about it sometime during the month.

superhero by david Ingram — Photo by David Ingram

Each month you will publish one or more posts on the theme no later than the last day of the month. You will submit your post’s details on our webform. And after we have compiled the links and sent you an email with a little html blurb, you will edit your carnival post(s) to add that blurb. For extra blogger love and good karma, you will comment on a few of your fellow bloggers’ posts and tell them how creative they are.

Sound easy? It is!

Here are the submission details for February 2011:

Theme: Heroes and Heroines: Heroes and heroines come in all shapes and sizes. They are the people who stand up for others, do what they think is the right thing, or make a difference in other people’s lives. They are brave in the face of their own fears. They push on through adversity. What can your family create this month to celebrate the heroes and heroines in your lives?

Here are some books to inspire projects about heroes and heroines, but feel free to select your own book if you want to base your creation off of a literary cuddler:

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Smoky Night by Eve Bunting and David Diaz
Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Ellen Coerr
Nobody Gonna Turn Me ‘Round by Doreen Rappaport
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

If you do use a book for inspiration, please mention it in your post so that we can read it too!

Deadline: Monday, February 28. Your post(s) must be published on or before Monday, February 28th. Fill out the webform (at the link or at the bottom) for each post you publish for inclusion in February’s carnival. (If you publish three different posts for the carnival, you will fill out the webform three different times, each will include different carnival URLs and titles.)

Link-up date: Saturday, March 5. After we have compiled all of your links, we will send you an email with an html blurb to paste into your (previously published) submission(s) that will include all carnival links. Please edit your posts to include the links no later than Saturday, March 5. You’ll get lots of link love for your site and post(s), and you can check out all of the other creative ideas generated by this month’s theme! Please also help us spread the word about the carnival on your Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Please submit your details into our web form: This will help us as we compile the links list. Please enter your information on the form embedded at the end of this post, or click here to enter it on a separate page: Families, Create! February’s Make & Play Carnival

Please do: Write well. Write on topic. Write a brand new post for the carnival. Post great pictures and/or video. Please feel free to be creative within the gentle confines of the carnival theme. If your family is feeling so inspired, you could write a poem or children’s story, put on a one act play, craft a photo essay, or create a handmade craft tutorial instead of a regular blog post (though those are welcomed, too!), as long as what you write is respectful of the carnival’s intent. If you want help determining that ahead of time, please talk with us.

Please don’t: Please don’t use profanity of the sort that might be offensive to more sensitive readers or their children. Please don’t submit irrelevant posts or posts that are purely marketing for products you sell.

Editors’ rights: We reserve the right to edit your piece or suggest edits to you. We reserve the right to courteously reject any submissions that are inappropriate for the carnival. Please also note that since there are two co-hosts on different schedules and conferring over email, our personal response to your submission might seem delayed. Don’t be alarmed. We also reserve the right to impose consequences if the responsibilities of the carnival are not fulfilled by the participants.

If you don’t have a blog: Contact us (CodeNameMama {at} gmail.com and LivingPeacefullyWithChildren {at} gmail.com) about potentially finding you a host blog to guest post. Please write your piece well in advance of the deadline in that case, so we can match you up with someone suitable. But if you really have something amazing to write — why not start your own blog? If you want advice, we find Scribbit’s free Blogging in Pink ebook to be a very helpful and down-to-earth guide, for beginners on up.

If you have questions: Please leave a comment or contact us: CodeNameMama {at} gmail.com and LivingPeacefullyWithChildren {at} gmail.com

2011 Monthly Themes :
January: Cuddle Up
February: Heroes and Heroines
March: Animals
April: Fantasy
May: Characters
June: Adventure
July: Swashbucklers
August: Weird and Wonderful
September: Friends and Family
October: Phizzwizzers
November: Rhymes and Verse
December: Favorite Books

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Show off: If you are a participant or supporter and want our button to put in your sidebar, grab this code and proclaim to the blogosphere that your family creates!