Can you say crazy?!

That pretty much describes week one of ADSR4!

Challenge One, brought to us by Hummies World, was a nice easy warm-up to the race, with only two real requirements. Tear a photo into three pieces, and include some journaling. Sounds simple enough, right? Who knew that everyone has their own idea of what journaling is?! Isn't it amazing how seemingly simple things aren't so simple once they are looked at a little more closely?

And then came Challenge Two! (Thank you Elemental Scraps!)

Challenge Two was certainly an exercise in interpretation! While a photo and journaling is one thing, the definition of an element is in the eye of the beholder! LOL

Which brings me to my next point. Please remember that Natural Designs is hosting the race, but we are not the creators of the challenges. Why is this information important? Because we don't necessarily know what the challenge creator had in mind when the challenge was written. So when you have a challenge specific question, please ask it at the challenge host site. While we can certainly help with guidance and assistance in completing the challenge, and we will do everything we can to help you, any question regarding interpretation of a challenge guideline will be referred back to the challenge host. I understand that we did answer questions on Challenge Two, but in the future, please refer questions to the challenge host. Also, we are reviewing future challenges to try to clear up any possibly confusing interpretations before the challenge is posted. While this will certainly not resolve every question, we hope to reduce some of the avalanche!

Finally, we are drawn, once again, to the countdown clock link. As late posted layouts were always a concern in previous races, and the question always came down to not knowing if a racer was converting time properly we took three steps to resolve this as an issue. The countdown clock link exists so that all racers know exactly how much time is left until the deadline. Also, right above the link is the time in New York. In addition, we have set the time of the gallery to properly reflect when a layout is uploaded, based on Eastern Standard Time. If a layout was uploaded by the deadline for week one, underneath the layout in the gallery it will say Sunday, January 11, 2009. If it was uploaded after the deadline it will say Monday, January 12, 2009. Certain layouts may have been uploaded prior to the deadline, but may have not met the challenge requirements. We do understand that the world does not revolve around ADSR (although we're not really sure why not...), so in that instance, they were given a chance to correct the layout and re-upload the corrected layout. If they were not notified by our staff until Sunday that a correction was required, the deadline was extended to Monday for that layout only. We are keeping track on our spreadsheet of all of this information.

Also, it appears that at least one of our racers has already lost her partner! If any of you find yourselves in this situation by Sunday, you can join her and both continue on and still be eligible for the Grand Prize.

Good luck!