200K Bento Contest

Attention all bentists, Adventures in Bentomaking is quickly approaching 200k hits. To celebrate this occasion, I will be hosting another 100k Bento Contest. This time around the rules will differ slightly and I will offer three prizes.

Rules:

1. The bento must be made by you.
2. Unfortunately, kyaraben (charaben) will not be allowed this time around. Your bento can have cute shapes, faces, and animals but no familiar, established characters such as Hello Kitty, Sesame Street, anime, etc. This is to ensure fair voting.
3. Your bento must be submitted to me via email by midnight Hawaii Standard Time on January 31, 2009.
4. Only one entry per person will be allowed.

Depending on how many entries are received, I will choose anywhere from 5-10 finalists. With these finalists, I will then create a poll in which people can vote for their favorite bento. At the end of the voting period on February 15, 2009, the poll will close and the first, second, and third place winners will be determined.

First prize is a red, three-tier jubako bento box:

The box was only taken out of the box once to take the photo and sold for $24.99 at Shirokiya Ala Moana here in Honolulu. The box is made out of lacquer and has two beautiful fan designs on the cover. When all three tiers are placed on top of each other, the fan design is also displayed on the side. This box holds a LOT of food and is typically used to feed several people at a picnic lunch.

One of the first bento sites I went to when I first got into bento was at airandangels.com. Her site has a good description of the use of this type of bento box. The entry with the most votes can either claim this first place prize or choose one of the other place prizes instead.

The second place prize is a pink, two-tier Hello Kitty bento box:

The box pictured above is my box. The actual prize is new and unopened. The entry with the second most amount of votes will win this prize.

The third place prize is a set of quail egg molds:

This set of egg molds comes with 6 different designs that can be seen in the photo above. There are three face designs and three animal designs. The entry with the third most amount of votes will win this prize.

To enter the contest, send the following to pikkopots [at] gmail.com with the subject line “200k Bento Contest Entry” and the following information:

First Name
Country
Picture of bento at least 500 pixels in width or height (must be made by you)
Description of bento components
Bento blog link (if any)

I reserve the right to disqualify any entry for any reason.