It’s that time of year again – time for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday Badge Contest! A year ago this month we voted on this beautiful badge:

to represent us every week. I made the difficult decision to have an annual contest two years ago, when the great Doobster left us. Here is his badge:

And now, it seems we’ve lost another badge-maker. Yes, our lovely friend at Hope Floats has made her website private. But fear not! She’s alive and well. I texted her a few days ago to make sure. Hopefully we’ll get together soon for coffee and I’ll find out if she’s planning to return to blogland.

So we move forward once again. Last year’s badge is going to be a tough one to beat, but I have confidence in all of you to come up with something spectacular! Here we go:

I’ll be taking entries for the next seven days (today included) for Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge designs. Here are the guidelines:

1. The design can be anything you want it to be but it must include either “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” or “SoCS” and your name and/or the name of your website.

2. Any pictures (art or photo) must be your own.

3. All entries will be posted here on my blog on Thursday August 11th, 2016, along with a poll that will close the next day, on Friday the 12th. I would ask that each of the entrants make a blog post on their own website with their artwork so that I can post links for voters to check them out, and that they link their post back HERE in the comment section no later than Wednesday August 10th, midnight EDT (GMT -5 hours). All links included here will be added to the voting list.

4. The winner’s badge will be available for anyone who participates in Stream of Consciousness Saturday to post permanently on their website as a widget and/or to embed in each weekly SoCS post.

5. One entry per person. The contest is open to anyone with a blog, WordPress or otherwise (see #3 for entry requirements).

6. Poll results will not be available while the poll is open. If there is a tie, I will choose the winner myself.

7. This year I am restricting the entries to the first ten linked below (just in case we’re bombarded), so get yours in early.

8. If I’ve missed anything, or if you have any questions, please ask in the comment section below.

9. Have fun!

Note: The posting of the winning badge with a SoCS post/on a participant’s website will not be a requirement. It’s purely for entertainment/recognition purposes.