The Great Pants Challenge

Inspired by the general madness that is Comic Relief, and encouraged by the various quirky obsessions of the UK Chat thread in the Etsy forums... the Great UK Pants Challenge was born.

Any UK Etsy seller could enter, donating a 50p ($1) entry fee to Comic Relief. The challenge was simple: create a pair of pants/knickers/panties/underoos in any medium, the results to be posted by 1pm GMT on Friday 16th March 2007. Voting was open to all the peoples of Etsy via the forums, and the votes were to be totted up and the winners announced at 9pm that evening.
The list of entries was pretty huge! A strong desire to raise money for the cause? Or something deep rooted in the British psyche that makes us totally delighted by the word PANTS? Who knows?

The winners were...

1st Place: Bunny with a drawing of The Annual Pants Day Festivities in Knickerville:
2nd Place: Seaurchin with His 'n' Hers ceramic pants pins:

3rd Place: Kezzaroo with felt Mr T pants:

The other entrants were...

Alicub with a Plenty of Pants ACEO

AmandaWilliamsDesign with a knitted and bejewelled thong
Askey with The Pants of Etsy
TheDevilsWallpaper with a Pants Monkey Card featuring a paper doll monkey & his pants
Gillyflower with a Pretty Pink Pants Necklace
GreyGoat with a real pair of pants!
HoneyBeedz with mini beaded pants
KnitClicking with a Knitted thong & pair of Y-Fronts
KnitHappens with The Big One knitted pants
LittleMissRiver with Felt Sock-Monkey Pants
Lupin with a Lucky Pants ACEO and also some Pants Badges
MeMake with "Have You Felt My Pants?" pants
MemoryIsArt with a Vintage Stockings and Suspenders greeting card
Nonsuch with Knitted Johnny Pocket pants
Reform with Tin Knickers
WildCatDesigns with Knitted Frilly Knickers

Many of these items have been sold to raise further funds for Comic Relief, and some are still on sale. More photos are available at the UK Pants Challenge flickr group.

Red Nose Day Fundraising...

Every 2 years here in the UK we have "Red Nose Day" when we all go a bit mad to raise money for a great charity called Comic Relief whose vision is "a just world free from poverty". To raise money for this great cause lots of the UK Etsy sellers made special red items to sell in their shops, or donated all or part of the sales from some of their red items to the cause.

Gillyflower offered sparkling red bracelet & earring sets:


Kezzaroo did a roaring trade in Red Ninjas:
Seaurchin made ceramic red nose day beads:

And Reform made a RND slate:

Other sellers getting in on the charitable act: AmandaWilliamsDesign with a red sparkly shrug and felted handbag, WildcatDesigns with a red corsage, TinyIsland with red-nosed cheeky monkey cards, Alicub with clown cards, Kalicat offering a % of sales, Nonsuch with a red "doodle" corsage, Bebopgirl with 20% of cards & red jewellery sold, DichroicDazzle with 50% of several items being donated, TheDevilsWallpaper with faux Tibetan beads, Askey with retro circus-themed cards, KoolKookyKreatures with Dermot the Robot, and EclecticB with a whole selection of jewellery including this newly-listed bracelet:

The lovely Amanda of AmandaWilliamsDesign put lots of these lovely items into a treasury list on Etsy. The treasury is a great way for users to show off their favourite items... and it's also the way that Etsy Admin chooses items to put on the Etsy.com front page. Much to our great delight, Amanda's list got picked and our fundraising items were front page news for over 24 hours! We don't seem to have saved a screenshot of the treasury on the front page of Etsy, but here's a shot of it in the treasury section (taken by the lovely alicub):