"You've Just Been Spotted" OC Blog Award Party & Winners

Last night, C & I hosted the first-ever, but definitely soon-to-be annual, 2009 "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog Awards Party... just like the Oscars, only "oranger." Okay, so maybe it wasn't just like the Oscars - it was better.

All of our "You've Just Been Spotted" nominees were invited to join C & I, to mix, mingle & have an interactive party experience at Wowzville. For our guests, the party experience began in the parking lot where they were greeted by none other than our very own, very orange, very old school photo booth thanks to Capital Photo Booths.

After posing for the camera, guests entered Wowzville via our "orange carpet." Once inside, our nominees were encouraged to meet & greet the best & brightest of OC Bloggers & explore the fantastic & fabulous virtual reality world of Wowzville. Tables of sweets & treats lined the hall... as you can imagine the hand-scooped Dippin' Dots definitely went fast! My favorite flavor was Cookies 'n Cream, yum! Everyone loved the Baby Cakes cupcakes, have you tasted their red velvet? Simply divine! & The popcorn... who doesn't like kettle korn? There were so many yummy treats on hand, luckily there was oodles of colorful soda on hand to wash it all down with!

& While everyone was busy mixing & mingling we "tweeted" the results of the 2009 "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog awards. For those of you who missed the tweets, we would like to publicly announce (& congratulate) the following winners (although, in our book, all of our nominees are winners - everything & everyone is fabulous in Orange County!)

Can I get a drumroll please? The 2009 "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog Awards Reader's Choice goes to...
Most Creative Site: Made
Best Food or Cooking Site: Fast Food Maven
Fabulous Lifestyle & Design Site: Sadie Olive
Great Shopping & Style Site: Boutiquing.com
Site with most Beautiful "Eye Candy": Kamee June
Best "Kid & Family Friendly" Site: Tiny Oranges
Favorite Local Blog: Alive in Wonderland
Top "Local News": Seal Beach Daily
Favorite Local Micro-Blogger: AngryJulie

The Runner's Up (otherwise known as Editor's Choice) are...
Most Creative Site: This Mama Makes Stuff
Best Food or Cooking Site: Picky Palate
Fabulous Lifestyle & Design Site: Peace, Love and Momminess
Great Shopping & Style Site: Popshopology
Site with most Beautiful "Eye Candy": Tara Whitney
Best "Kid & Family Friendly" Site: Double the Adventure
Favorite Local Blog: Twenty Four at Heart
Top "Local News": Daily Pilot
Favorite Local Micro-Blogger: YelpOC

Congratulations to everyone! Thank you for playing our fun little game, & making the first annual "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog Awards such a huge success. (Be sure to visit & check out all of the winners' sites & spread the Orange County Blog love!) We can't wait for next year! & A very special thanks (& shout out) to all of our wonderful & incredible sponsors who helped make all of this happen: Wowzville, Capital Photo Booths, Dippin' Dots, Baby Cakes, Daddy Cakes, Smart Girls Who Surf, Wild Rivers, Muzeo Museum, Wahoo's, Hyatt Regency Irvine, Eli's Lids, This is Me Journals, Hilton Anaheim, All a Twitter, and k&c Designs.

xoxo, C & K

p.s. Be sure to let us know if you posted about the part-tay! We've got prizes for anyone willing to post their photo booth pictures!

The Polls Are Now Closed.

Thanks everyone, for indulging us & playing our little game. We loved hearing from everyone! It was such a treat to see that some of our favorite blogs & sites were favorites of yours, as well. & It was wonderful being introduced to sooo many new & fascinating OC Blogs. As you may, or may not realize, at 12 am, Friday, August 14th, the polls officially closed. Again, thank you to the thousands of you who voted (& We mean that quite literally. At our last check, well over 4,000 votes had been cast!). You can be sure that your voices were heard. Now please be patient with us, as we do some tally-ing... in the next few days we will be introducing you to each one of our winners - the best & brightest that the OC has to offer. We can't wait to meet them, how about you?

xoxo, C & K

p.s. As you're perusing the blog-o-sphere, make sure to make special note of those fabulous OC blogs you come across... because this was definitely the first Annual "You've Just Been Spotted" OC Blog Awards. We'd love to have an even BIGGER list of nominees next year! Again, thanks for playing!

image via flickr.

'You've Just Been Spotted" OC Blog Award Nominees

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! We've had such an incredible response to our first annual "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog Awards. We received so many comments, emails, & tweets - it was amazing! We loved seeing some of our favorite sites nominated, but we were thrilled to be introduced to so many amazing, new-to-us sites. So, without further ado.... here is the GIANT list of nominees. Now that we've compiled all the nominees, the REAL fun is about to begin. Take a moment to the peruse the list. & While we realize that in the end you'll be voting for YOUR favorite in each category, be sure to check out some of the other sites - you never know, you just might stumble onto something new & fabulous, that will become your new "daily read." Oh! & Don't forget to vote (over there on the left-hand side of our site), if you don't vote for your favorite, they might not win! & We definitely to know, no! we NEED to know who truly is the best of the best. (Be sure to vote before Thursday, August 13th at 11:59 pm, because after that, the "polls" will be closed.)

Most "Creative" Site
Bonnin Designs
Circles Are Forever
If not now, when?
I Think I'm an Artist
A Joy Unspeakable
LAMIA
Living my Dream
Made
Mark Beam Studio
Modern Crush
NDG
Respect the Stache
Stix on the Beach
The Blah Blah Blahger
This Mama Makes Stuff
Wright Creativity

Best Food or Cooking Site
Cupcake Activist
Elmo Monster
Fast Food Maven
Food Frenzy
Furey and the Feast
HmmFoodGood
Local Hipster
Meringue Bake Shop
My Absent Blog
Orange County Food Blogs
Orange County Mexican Restaurants
Picky Palate
Stick a Fork In It

Fabulous Lifestyle & Design Site
Blondie 'n SC
Fifi Flowers
Luxe Life Events
Mod Incorporated
My Sparrow Blog
Peace, Love and Momminess
Sadie Olive
Tales From an OC Cottage
Tammy Mitchell

Great Shopping & Style Site
Boutiquing.com
Clothing Vault
Hip Moms Who Work
Greer's OC
OC Deals
OC Retail
OC Street
Popshopology
Rascals to Rebels
Wiley Valentine

Site with most Beautiful "Eye Candy"
Ana Brandt
Anytime Art
Drew B Photography
James Carson Photography
Jenner Rose
Kamee June
Life Via Pictures
Little Miss Mya
Michelle Photography
Mom*tog
Mother May I, Tracey Clark
Navy Sou Photography
OC Daily Photo
Palos Studio
Sipper Photography
Tara Whitney
The Quackenbush Photo Perspective
Tiffany Portraits

Best "Kid & Family Friendly" Site
Babes in Disneyland
Baby Blue Collar
Car and Caboodle
Daytripping Mom
Double the Adventure
Fun Orange County Parks
Jumping on Beds
Linny's Vault
Mom Crush
OC Family
OC Mama
OC Mom Activities
Orange County Parent
Parenting OC
Single Mom Sanctuary
The Mom Blog
This Life Worth Living
Tiny Oranges
Told U So
Top Mom Blog

Favorite Local Blog
Alive in Wonderland
Burgin Construction
Calif Lorna
Dunn & Done
Land of Gracious Living
Nada Guides
OC Arts and Culture
OC Beach Blog
OCEZINE
OC Met Blogs
OC Music Awards
ORANGECOUNTY.COM
Portola Coffee
Science Dude
Sugar Mama
The Glamorous Life Association
The Liberal OC
The Weekly Yelp
Twenty Four at Heart
Vitamin OC

Top "Local News"
Aliso Laguna News
Balboa Beacon
Coastline Pilot
Corona Del Mar Today
Daily Pilot
Garden Grove Journal
Huntington Beach Independent
Ladera Ranch News
Laguna Beach Independent
San Clemente Times
Seal Beach Daily
The Capitstrano Dispatch
The Coto de Caza News

Favorite Local Micro-Blogger
AngryJulie
FastFoodMaven
HandmadeBrigade
Hazel Q
HiltonAnaheim
Holly W.
JonLan
Momfluential
Mia Chambers
McKaysLife
Monica D
OCfamilymom
OCMarisa

OCRealtress
RockdaMullet
Tawny Press
QueerInMySoup
SealBeachDaily
VitaminOC
Yelp OC

xoxo, C & K

"You've Just Been Spotted" OC Blog Awards

Drumroll please, we are happy, thrilled, absolutely ecstatic to announce the 2009 "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blog Awards. Can I get a "Woot! Woot!"? There are so many fantastic & incredible websites written by our very own Orange County locals, we thought it was high-time we did a little celebrating & recognized all of these wonderfully talented people. So here's the deal...

We are looking for the "best of the best," websites & blogs that Orange County has to offer. Sure, we could hand out awards to all of our favorites, but really, where's the fun in that? So, we are asking that you nominate YOUR absolute favorites. There are plenty of ways to make sure YOUR favorite blogs & websites make our list: email us (justspotted@gmail.com), send us a message via twitter (@justspottedOC, @xoxoC, or @according2kelly), leave a comment on our Facebook page HERE, or simply leave a comment on THIS very post. All we want & need to know is the blog or website's web address & which category you'd like to nominate them for. What?! We haven't told you the categories yet? Silly us! Well here they are... we are looking for most fantastic, fun-to-read, inspiring, eye-catching & humorous sites in the following categories: Be Creative (you know, the best crafty-ish & creative inspired site), Food & Cooking (yum! my mouth is watering just thinking about these sites), Lifestyle & Design (amazing people, with impeccable taste), Shopping & Style (my hubby hates it when I browse these sites, because he knows I'll be spending $ soon!), Eye Candy (pretty, pretty pictures), Kid & Family, and then, your all-time Favorite Local Blog (which site do you absolutely have to read every day?) & Local Micro-Blogger (this one's for all our twitter & yelp! friends).

So, your probably asking yourself, "How exactly is this going to work?" Well, let us explain...

Step 1: YOU nominate your favorite blogs & websites (preferably written by an Orange County local, although we might me willing to make an exception or two), via any of the previously mentioned ways. Simply tell us which site, & the category you are nominating it for. Feel free to nominate as many sites as you wish (heck! You could even nominate your own site!) & tell your friends to do the same (you know what they say, "the more the merrier"), although each site will only be allowed placement in one category. Not only will this be a fantastic way to "reward" the best sites in the OC, but we're hoping to be introduced to some new ones we might not have otherwise found. All we ask, is that you get your nominations in by Tuesday, August 4th at 11:59 pm. That way we have plenty of time for step number 2.

Step 2: We will gather up all the nominees & compile them into one big list, which we will then "open up to the public" (that means you!) for voting.

Step 3: The sites that receive the most votes, as well as an "editor's choice" winner (chosen by Coleen & Kelly of course!) for each category, will then be announced & honored at a super fabulous, fun-filled evening. An evening totally dedicated to celebrating our winners & how wonderful they (& their sites) are. (Think paparazzi everywhere, flowing drinks, delectable treats & a plush orange carpet. Okay, okay, that might just be what we imagine in our heads, but trust us, this is one party you don't want to miss!)

So here we go... start sending us links to your favorite OC websites. If you want your submission to make "the list," be sure to contact us before Tuesday, August 4th at 11:59 pm. Oh! & Don't forget to pick your category: Be Creative, Food & Cooking, Lifestyle & Design, Shopping & Style, Eye Candy, Kid & Family, Favorite Local Blog, Favorite Local Micro-Blogger.

After we announce our BIG list of nominees, we'll be sharing more information about our "not to be missed" awards & ceremony, & how you can get invited!

Want to spread the word (& the love) about the 2009 "You've Just Been Spotted" Orange County Blogs Awards? Button up!






To add our button to your site, simply cut & paste the following code:

<a border="0" href="http://www.just-spotted.com/2009/07/youve-just-been-spotted-oc-blog-awards.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2577/3764975403_74695df083_o.jpg" /></a>

Let's get this contest started! Now it's up to you! Have you nominated your favorite OC sites yet?

xoxo, C & K