Coolest Crystal Competition Winners!

The response to our inaugural Coolest Crystals Competition has been breathtaking. 

Thank you so much, all of you, for taking the time to grow such stunningly beautiful crystals!  I sincerely hope the whole activity has been as enjoyable for you as it has been for us.  We currently have every entry on display, and they are well worth a visit!

The competition was judged on Thursday evening over a Drooley's pizza.  We devised a scoring system that was as fair as we could possibly manage.  The entries were numbered and arranged on a table, and four separate judges independently scored every entry against three criteria... so each of us had nearly 140 scores to appraise, record, tabulate, and cross-check.  Thank you Miranda, Janelle, and Merrilyn for being such troopers!

Before I announce the winners, I want to emphasise that every entry was spectacular.  Choosing winners was hard.  Lots of entries were submitted by kids, and while we did not distinguish age levels for this competition, we want every single contributor, young and not-so-young, to feel very proud.  So, we've decided that every non-winning entrant will still receive a small prize!  I'll explain that in a moment.

But first, the winners are:

FIRST PRIZE ($200 Brain Spice Gift Voucher): with a score of 103 out of 120, congratulations MEGAN GAUNT for winning first prize!  We love the sheer variety of crystals in your cluster, and the fantastic shapes and points - but the cluster as a whole, with its splashes of apricot tones, is strikingly beautiful too.  A very worthy winner!

SECOND PRIZE ($50 Brain Spice Gift Voucher): with a score of 99 out of 120, congratulations LEVI SPENCER for winning second prize!  Your chunky, charming lime-striped crystals are a real head-turner!  The zebra stripes have me intrigued - how did you do that? 

THIRD PRIZE ($20 Brain Spice Gift Voucher): with a score of 98 out of 120, congratulations EVIE WOODS for winning third prize!  Crystals don't have to be perfect to be beautiful: the raw conglomerates in Evie's cluster actually seem to highlight her perfect spray of sharp, icy blue needles.  Lovely work Evie!

Honorable mentions go to Harrison Anderson, Nicole Ratcliffe, and Layla Spencer for their standout entries, and a very special mention goes to Paul Putley for crystals that actually glow in the dark!!

As a small consolation prize, every non-winning entrant will receive a trichroic cubic prism as our way of saying thank you, and well done.  There is no rush to collect your entries, though.  Your crystals are safe, and we love having them on display!

Oh, and in case you are wondering: yes, we will most definitely be running the Coolest Crystals Competition again in 2023!

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Our winner, Megan, with her amazing crystals!