Howdy guys, I just wanted to give people another update. We appreciate everyone's patience.

I've been working the last week to evaluate potential opportunities that could keep LuckyOliver kicking or create value for Carnies and Olivers. The response from the community has been overwhelming, but this process takes time and presents more unknowns.

For those Carnies that are concerned about your images- we are appreciative of all your hard work and value the opportunity to showcase your work. For the few people that have requested images to be removed, please allow us the full 30 days as stated in the supplier agreement. We have no malicious intent and intend to honor those requests. Please understand that we are dealing with a limited staff and are working on all aspects of the business.

I'll give people an update next week with more information. Thanks for hanging in there.

I wanted to give everyone an update on the closure of LuckyOliver.

I'd like Olivers and Carnies to know that we have received your emails and have read your comments. We're still here and trying to sort through all the responses. Part of the reason for taking a month to close things down is to make sure we're doing the right things. The complexity of a community marketplace is not an easy thing to just shutdown. We're sorting through all the issues involved with a limited staff. Please give us sometime to get back to you. We've had an overwhelming response and I personally appreciate everyone's feedback.

Thanks for your patience.

It's with great disappointment that we have decided to shut down LuckyOliver on May 15th. All Olivers who purchased tokens must use them to license images before May 15th, 2008. Please note that the user agreement will continue to be valid. Any Carny images that are waiting in the queue for Bouncers will not be reviewed. Carnies who have reached the minimum payout must request payout by May 15th. Carnies who have not reached the minimum payout can convert their earnings to tokens by contacting support.

Working with the creative minds that make up LuckyOliver has been a rewarding experience- two years went by fast. I want to thank our talented staff for working through long nights, our investors for giving us a shot at growing a business, our legal and business advisers for lending an ear, our customers for their positive encouragement, and our contributors who provided us with a wealth of knowledge and tough criticisms. We really appreciate all the hard work Carnies put into making LuckyOliver a special place for people to find great imagery. On a personal note, I would also like to thank my family for letting me pursue a passion that often went beyond reason.

As a leader and entrepreneur, it's tough to see something you have put so much time into not materialize into a successful business. We spent the last year looking for the funds to grow LuckyOliver because, without the addition of significant capital, the return on investment for LuckyOliver and its contributors would not be satisfactory. After reviewing the options, the investment team decided that it was in the best interest of all stakeholders to shut the company down.

Please email me if you have any comments (..and give me some time to respond). Thanks again for giving LuckyOliver a shot.

These simple, hand-made mini cards in their little origami envelopes are super fun and fast to put together. They're a terrific craft for kids, and they're perfect for little notes or themed treasure hunts. They also make brilliant gift tags you can pull out of your hat at the last minute when you're re-gifting that bottle of wine from the back of the fridge!

Best of all, you don't need anything more than 10 minutes, a printer and some paper to finish this project.

Time and Materials: 10 Minutes

• A standard printer, preferably color
• Paper - standard photocopy paper and heavier paper
• Scissors (or a paper cutter, if you're a control freak)

Step 1: Select and Make Your Envelope
The origami envelope is made from patterned paper. You do not need to use traditional origami or craft paper, though - you can print your very own origami paper. I printed this pretty and fresh pattern onto standard photocopy paper (it's easier to fold) on my color printer, and simply trimmed the edges to the square shape required.

To make your envelope, follow the directions here. Your finished envelope should look something like this:

Step 2: Select and Make Your Cards
You can use any kind of photo or illustration that takes your fancy for your card requirements. Today is Easter, so I used these funky retro Easter eggs to match my envelope.

Whatever image you select, you need to paste it into Word or a similar program along the right-hand side of the page. Print it out on the heaviest paper you have to hand - it will stand up better. Then fold the paper along the image's left border. This should give you the folded-over card effect; simply trim it to the shape you want, making sure you leave enough paper on the left margin to act as your card's hinge.

And that's really it - simple, fun and fast home made mini cards in under 10 minutes!

These adorable Easter door hangers are a quick and fun craft that will give the kids (or the husband!) a cute treat on Easter Morning. You can very likely complete this project with no pre-planning and just what you have laying about the house, too - it's a great way to reuse leftovers from your recycling piles and Christmas stash.

Time and Materials: 10 minutes.

• A standard printer, preferably colour.
• A photo or illustration large enough to fill an 8.5 x 11 or A4 piece of paper.
• A glue gun, stapler or tape.
• An empty container you can re-purpose, like a milk carton or tissue box.
• Easter grass, tissue paper, or shredded paper of any kind.
• Some ribbon, scissors and a hole punch if you have one.

Step 1: Select an Illustration
Select an Easter illustration for your door hanger. I used a cute, traditional bunny, but you can use virtually anything. You will need to download a size large enough to fill a regular piece of paper. (The Small version worked perfectly for me.)

Step 2: Print and Trim Your Image
I print on heavier, 120gsm paper from card making, but you can use standard photocopy weight paper if that's all you have. Carefully cut out your picture, and for added support, put some tape on the back where you'll be punching or cutting holes - in this case, I taped the back of the ears and then trimmed off the extra from around the ears.

Step 3: String It Up
Cut or punch holes in two support points good for hanging - they need to be reasonably far apart or your paper will buckle. Thread fabric ribbon or curling ribbon through the ears from back to front in a good hanging length - about 8" in total - and tie the ribbon ends behind the ears. You may need to tape the ends down to secure the ribbon.

Step 4: Attach and Stuff Your Basket!
The basket for this door hanger can be virtually anything - I used the bottom of a milk container, but anything lightweight , like tissue boxes or business card boxes, will work. You need to trim the height of your container to about 3 inches.

Staple, tape or glue gun the bottom of your bunny to the container. Stuff it with tissue paper (I knew keeping all that green paper from Christmas would pay off!) or Easter grass or even the clippings from your paper shredder - as long as it's overflowing and nest-like, it will work beautifully.

Finally, pop in some Easter treats - anything lightweight so you don't buckle the hanger. M&Ms, hollow chocolate eggs, blown dyed eggs and Peeps are all perfect choices to start your Easter Sunday with a quick-crafted sugar rush.

After more than 1500 entries and hours of very difficult deliberations, we're pleased to announce the winners of the LuckyOliver and COLOURlovers Color Inspiration Contest. Congratulations to our three winners, and to our 20 Honourable Mentions!

1st Prize: 8GB iPod Touch or $300 | 50 Lucky Oliver Tokens

2nd Prize: iPod Shuffle or $79 | 50 LuckyOliver Tokens

3rd Prize: iTunes Gift Card or $25 | 25 LuckyOliver Tokens

While an iPod Touch or $300 is quite a tasty 1st prize, we were honestly blown away by both the number and quality of the entries for this contest. (In fact, there were so many entries, I think we broke COLOURlovers - twice!)

Personally, I was amazed not only by the truly gorgeous palettes created, but the extraordinary images selected for inspiration. Contestants picked, in my opinion, some of the most vivid and breathtaking LuckyOliver images as sources for creating some truly inspirational colour paths.

Judging was an enormously difficult shared task. There were just so many great entries, and we went through hours and hours of paring down the selections to just three. Here are 20 more Honourable Mention entries that stayed with us through all of the discussions:

Prizes will be handed out in the next 10 days - please check your messages at COLOURlovers if you're a lucky winner for details on what we need to know to send you your swag. And finally, a big thanks to everyone who entered and to our friends at COLOURlovers who made this contest so much fun, and, well, inspiring!

Looking for cheap fish eye thrills? Check out the Lomographic Fisheye Camera, the world's first fisheye compact camera. It uses standard 35mm for lab processing, but at $35 (on Amazon) you can take some really fun snaps like the ones in the Loma gallery.

And for a serious splash of colour, $75 gets you the brilliant LOMO Colorsplash Fun - see you what you can do in this really neat mini-gallery. With thirteen coloured filters and flashes plus long exposures, it throws out some really groovy looking shots.

I am still desperate to find a Harry Potter Kaleidescope Camera, though. Apparently, it exists, but is nowhere to be found - rather like Horcrux, in fact.

We're tickled pink (or possibly blush, candy floss or scampi) to announce the Color Inspiration Contest in conjunction with colour trend website COLOURlovers. Pick your favourite images from Lucky Oliver, create stunning palettes from them on COLOURlovers, and be in with a chance to win an iPod Touch or $300 for your inspired artistry.

Take your inspiration from whatever tickles your colour fancy: photos or illustrations, food or fashion, travel or interior design. Browse stock imagery at LuckyOliver for the images that inspire your sense of color, then create a colour palette from your image on fabulous colour trend site COLOURlovers.

COLOURlovers delivers a daily dose of color trends, inspiration and information, and the COLOURlovers community is a growing source of color palettes, patterns and colors. Find some color inspiration or share your own!

How to Play:

1/ Grab any image URL off of LuckyOliver (right click and copy image location)
2/ Create a palette at COLOURlover with it
3/ Upload a copy of the image to show off your inspiration image
4/ Tag it with LuckyOliverLove (one word!) so we can find all of the entries
5/ Sit back, relax, and win cool prizes

There are detailed, step-by-step directions at COLOURlovers, too.

Prizes, You Say?

First Prize: 8GB iPod Touch (or $300 via US check or PayPal) and 50 LuckyOliver tokens.
Second Prize: An iPod Shuffle (or $79 via US check or PayPal) and 50 LuckyOliver tokens.
Third Prize - iTunes Gift Card (or $25 via US check) or PayPal and 25 LuckyOliver token.

This contest closes at midnight PST on Monday, the 17th of March and winners will be announced on Wednesday the 19th on both COLOURlovers and LuckyOliver.com. Winners will be selected for the best palettes that capture the spirit and mood of the inspiration photo, so enter early and enter often!

Thanks for the inspiration Carnies! These wallpapers use images from intoit, GeoPappas, Lagui and ricardo. All wallpapers are for personal use.

One of the frustrating things about being an internet start-up is that sometimes the amazing, magical technology that enables your business to exist can also hamper its growth. It's no secret that when the number of visitors at LuckyOliver hits the high-water mark, performance on the site suffers. Hopefully most Olivers have noticed a big difference over the last couple weeks. We're still solving a few more Carny issues related to the http image submission- please hang in there as we rework parts of our code.

Keep reading the blog over the next couple weeks, we'll have more announcements. We're working hard to roll out some features. I'll be heading to SXSW at the end of the week to head up a panel, so if you're in Austin shoot me a note.