Lovely design Allie - was watching the contest and liked it from the start :-)

I do have to agree with the others though, $250 is the bare minimum, recommended is $400 which is much closer to market prices, but as you say, it is up to the individual whether they participate. When I first started here it was $150 and thankfully after a long time of lobbying by designers to admin staff, it was increased. I strongly believe that it should go up again - too many contests ask for way too much in their brief to make the min. worthwhile - contest holders also need to be educated that a decent design is worth paying for... :-) If you go through the contest list, you'll see that a lot of $250 contests have minimum participation, especially by the designers who have been here a while - there has to be a reason for that :-)