Channel Your Inner Bob Ross for This $10K Greeting Card Scholarship Contest

Are you the creative and crafty type? Maybe Bob Ross is your hero?

Then I’ve got good news.

This is your chance to put those happy little trees to good use and enter The Gallery Collection’s 12th Annual Create-A-Greeting-Card $10,000 Scholarship Contest.

That’s right, your artistic endeavors could earn you $10,000, plus $1,000 for your school.

Who’s Eligible to Enter the Gallery Collection Scholarship?

Current high school, homeschool, college and university students ages 14 and older are eligible to enter the greeting card contest.

You must be a legal resident of the United States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico to submit an entry.

How to Enter the Create-a-Greeting-Card Contest

Creating your card is the hard part, but entering is easy.

Once you illustrate an original Christmas, holiday, birthday or all-occasion greeting card, fill out the Create-A-Greeting-Card submission form and attach your design.

Your submission must be your original work: photo, illustration or computer graphics.

No doubt, you have a lot of ideas, but there’s only one entry per person; anything more and you risk being disqualified.

The deadline to enter your masterpiece is 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on March 1, 2019.

How to Win the Create-A-Greeting-Card Scholarship

There’s only one $10,000 prize, but there are nine months’ worth of entries.

Every month, a panel of judges will select the top 100 designs and post them to The Gallery Collection’s Facebook page, where members of the public can vote for their favorite design. Only one vote per person per day is allowed.

Only 10 designs make it to the final round. The judges will choose five of the designs, while the voters will determine the other five.

The judges will score and choose a winner based on the following criteria:

  1. Overall aesthetic appeal.
  2. Quality of execution.
  3. Creativity and originality.
  4. Successful incorporation of design elements.
  5. Appropriateness for use as a greeting card.
  6. Attractiveness to The Gallery Collection’s corporate and consumer customers.
  7. Suitability as a design in The Gallery Collection greeting card line.

Scope out the official scholarship rules yourself for all the nitty-gritty detail, and check out past greeting card winners and finalists while you’re at it.

Remember: We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

If you’re not artistically inclined, don’t worry. Just like our College page on Facebook to discover other scholarship opportunities.

And if you’re looking for even more scholarships to apply for, be sure to check out our list of 100 scholarships that will help you pay for college.

Stephanie Bolling is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She makes friends with trees.