And the winners are...

CONGRATULATIONS to

CHLOE who won the 1st Grand Prize with the most votes on her photo "BB", pictured here again! You can see more of this super cute sport princess at her mom's blog here.

and ANA won the random drawing for the 2nd Grand Prize! You can see more of Ana at her mom's blog here!

From what I can see, these two girls are real Sport Princesses, with posts about the fun girl stuff they do (ballet, dance, girl-ness) but sports too! (soccer, baseball, fun outdoors!)

Both girls win $250 and all sorts of fun Sport Princess gear including a custom Soccer Princess dress!

Thank you to all the participants in the photo contest - you will all get a free Soccer Princess book when it is published. It is being illustrated again right now, and lots more fun news coming out about it soon! We will be kicking out a new format on the blog in the next week with each day dedicated to a different aspect of sport... fun... education... photos, stories, book news, and more:)

Thank you!

The voting for the Sport Princess photo contest closed as 12 noon earlier today - and we are busy tallying up the votes! The remaining names will be entered into a www.random.org drawing for the 2nd prize! Both winners will be announced on here (and contacted by email) by 12 NOON PST on Friday, June 11th... almost there:)

So many cute photos, and comments in the emails we received! Your daughters are beautiful.

Hang in there just a bit longer!

Vote on your favorite Sport Princess photo

Are you ready for some DARLING sport chicks? I LOVE all of these. The fun news is ... your chances are high to win, too. We decided to still follow through on the photo contest even though the publication date is being pushed back while the first Soccer Princess book is being re-illustrated:)

So on with the next step! Below are all of the pictures entered for the contest.

Starting today, June 1st, through Thursday June 10th, the VOTING period opens. You - your family - your friends - are allowed ONE VOTE on ONE PHOTO per day! One vote per household per day - so rally up the troops to vote for your Sport Princess!

The first winner will be the princess with the most votes by Thursday June 10th 12pm PST.

All remaining names will be drawn from on random.org (equal chances all around) for the second winner!

Both winners will be notified and announced on the blog on June 11th.

To vote, simply send an email to sportprincesses@gmail.com with the subject title "Photo Contest" with the Alpha Letter of the photo you're voting for in the body of the email!

Thank you for those who took pictures to send in! Yay best of luck!

p.s. special note to check out the last three listed here late. We received the entries at the very beginning of the contest and missed them!

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B.

C.

D.
E.

F.
G.

H.

I.

J.

K.

L.

M.

N.


O.

P.

Q.

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T.
U.

V.
W.
X.
Y.

Z.

AA.

BB.

THE new illustration style =)

Real quick, I just received this tonight... *much anticipated*... I saw the model sheets of the sport princess characters from this illustrator, Kristin Abbott, earlier this week, and loved them right away. You can see more of her portfolio at http://www.abbottillustration.com/. I wanted to post this full illustration so you can see the new style we are most likely going with for the Sport Princess series! We will have an official decision by Leo Publishing Works next week, and then after some minor tweaks to the characters themselves, new BIO pictures and style on here, soon.

More details to be continued...

UPDATE: it's official, Kristin Abbott is the new illustrator! We will have new character bios and images up as soon as they are completed... finalizing now!

3 days left for the Sport Princess photo contest!

In good faith, we are still doing the Sport Princess photo contest even though the publication date of the first book has been pushed out while it is being illustrated again! Click on the Sport Princess Photo Contest link at the top of the page for full details... You have until May 31st midnight to email a photo!! There aren't many entries so far, so that's good for you... Your chances to win are very high! We have received some super cute sporty pictures that will be posted On June 1st. There are two grand prizes... And two ways to win. One is completely random, we will use random.org to pick the winner! Everyone has an even chance. The second way to win will be by voting all next week during the contest period! Could be an easy way to pick up some quick cash and some fun sporty princess gear:) Send a cute sport picture you already have, or pull out your cameras this Memorial Weekend! Spread the word if you have a friend that has a little girl and could use the money rift now! Cheers:)

The many faces of The Soccer Princess "Jo"

I don't know why I've put this off... because from what I've heard so far, this news I'm about to share has been received enthusiastically. And now that I'm looking through older illustration examples again, I'm getting a kick out of this thing called starting over. Since getting signed with my lovely Irish Literary Agents... and in talking to several overseas publishers and marketing companies at the London Book Fair, I heard a consistent message:

"LOVE the idea. Illustrations look a little old or off for the younger target audience though. Change that and you have something that could go international, too"

And then it hits me, too, as so apparently obvious that I don't know why we didn't see it sooner. So with the big picture in mind, and what's best to get all our little girls to love sport princesses and spread the idea... we all agreed to push off the first publication date of The Soccer Princess, (still in 2010!) while we start over on the illustrations! It was perfect - blessed - timing at the Book Fair, because my publisher had just received the proof sample from the printer in Minnesota, and we were at that point to either plow forward with the printing, or make any revisions.

I'm waiting for a new sample illustration from a fantastic agented illustrator right now that we've been in negotiations with, and my publisher will be able to make that decision by the end of next week. In the meantime though, I want to show you several of the faces of Josephina that I've received since the beginning from different freelance illustrators!! The first two (uper-amatear) drawings are my own... how I initially pictured Jo. The rest are several different styles and mediums based on different artist perspectives!

Have fun looking through all these examples!! I would LOVE your feedback and opinion. Several of these are obviously not her exactly, but some are closer than I originally considered... is there a style here that you love for little girls? Is there one that you think is close? Or right on? Have your daughters look through it with you too!

Stay tuned as we continue the search for the right match......

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B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

J.

K.

L.

M.

Sporty surf-style clothing line... ATHLETA!

Have you seen this new magazine for women's clothing yet? I have fallen in love with it! I receive nothing from ATHLETA for making this pitch... I genuinely highly recommend ATHLETA! Here is their motto from the Design Director:

"Everything that makes its way into the Athleta assortment comes from our own personal love for both fashion and sport ... Our design team is made up of women athletes and we have pretty much every sport you can imagine represented by a member of our staff"

The have loads of beautiful sun dresses... knee length shorts, skirts, beach cover ups, swimsuits. And as far as online shopping goes, it's the same shipping as with Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic etc:) You can shop by sport categories:

Yoga/Studio
Run/Walk
Hike/Explore
Gym/Training
Adventure Travel
Swim/Surf/Paddle
Golf
Tennis
Cycling
Triathlon

Check it out! http://www.athleta.com/
And lots of sporty tips and stories on their blog at http://www.athleta.net/chi/