Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ 4th Virtual Edition
2025 Schedule and Theme
Hello, cookiers! This post marks the first of my announcements about my 2025 cookie art competition! Woo hoo! I am so very excited to kick off this year’s competition season, and I hope you are too! As always, the aim of my competition, above all else, is to provide unprecedented learning and growth. Record-breaking prizes are an added plus! 😀 (More on the latter in a bit!)
Like last year, the competition will be online so that entrants from all over the world can participate. The more, the merrier – so please spread the word to any cookiers who might be interested. The official 2025 Competition Overview with the complete set of rules will post at the end of February, but to jumpstart the excitement (and your planning!), I'm announcing the schedule and theme today!
But first . . . If you're not familiar with my competition, the key thing to know is that Cookie Connection is its home base. All news related to the competition will post under the "Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™" blog category, including the rules when they go live (circa February 28). Entries will also get uploaded in video and photo form to secure Cookie Connection databases before entries are due (circa May 30). For a flavor of past competitions, just scroll through the competition blog category (pink link above). Please note, however, that the 2025 Competition Overview will NOT be the same as in past years. Theme (of course), some judging practices, and a few other things will change.
Competition Prizes
Another thing to know about my competition is that the cash and other prizes have typically been off the charts, totaling in the tens of thousands of dollars each year. Sponsor outreach will begin on February 11, so I don't have any numbers to report just yet, but I hope to bring similarly impressive prizes (over $25,000 in 2024!) to the competition this year. (Psst! If you're a prospective sponsor who's interested in getting involved, you needn't wait for the release of the 2025 Sponsor Offering in two weeks. You can also email me at any time to discuss participation. I thank you in advance!)
2025 Schedule
So when is everything happening this year? Check out the graphic below for all of the competition's key milestones. I've compressed the timetable a touch this year, mostly to minimize unpaid volunteer time spent by my judging and admin teams. However, entrants will still have three solid months to prep their creations between the opening of registration on February 28 and its close on May 31. Please note that the dates below are subject to change, depending on the number of entries received - and what life might throw at me and my judging team along the way. However, we will try to follow this schedule as closely as possible.
As noted above, the next big milestone for entrants will be the release of the 2025 Competition Overview (February 28), which will contain a description of competition categories, skill level classifications, judging criteria, and all of the detailed rules. This overview will ultimately be your reference point for everything competition-related.
2025 Competition Theme
For those of you who have never entered my competition, entries must always be designed afresh (no recycled work is permitted!) and guided by the theme that the judges have selected for the competition. This year, that theme is . . .
Nature's Symphony: With the dawn of each day and the turn of every season, Mother Nature astounds us with endless diversity; uncommon beauty; changing "rhythms" and "codas"; and the "harmonies" (and tensions) she ultimately orchestrates amongst the "players" in her "symphony". Your interpretation of "nature's symphony" may be as literal/realistic or as figurative/abstract as you like, but no matter the approach you take, your entry should be a celebration of nature's awe-inspiring grandeur. Your entry should convey not only the diversity and beauty of nature, but also the interconnectedness of its various elements - whether in or out of tune with one another.
As noted above, the competition's complete set of rules - including minimum/maximum cookie counts and entry sizes - will come in about a month, so for now, this theme announcement is just intended to get your creative juices flowing - and to pump you up! That said, it's best not to get too ahead of yourself with entry-planning until all of this information is at your fingertips.
Competition Updates
To be assured that you're always on top of competition news, the best thing to do is to join Cookie Connection and follow the "Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™" blog category on this site. You can join the site for free on the home page (upper right in laptop/landscape mode) and follow the blog by clicking on the pink link above. You'll also see the photo below on the far right of the site (again, in laptop/landscape mode). Whenever you click on it, it will shortcut you to the top of the competition blog category, where you'll see the latest competition blog post.
And that's a wrap for now! I'll be back with more news in a couple of weeks. If in the meantime you have any questions, please leave them in the comments under this post so that all entrants can benefit from my answers. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway . . . I am super excited to see what you create for this fourth virtual edition of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™!
P.S. Don't forget to spread the word! Please share this post on social media via the links below. I'm also aiming for a record turnout this year! 😀
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