Congratulations to Stephanie, winner of the “Idinafy Yourself” costume contest! Check out her awesome Elphaba ensemble:

This rounds out the 2009 season of Idina-Here contests. All winners have been notified and will receive a personalized, autographed lithograph. If you’re a previous winner and waiting for your lithograph, please be patient. Idina waited until all the contests were over so she had all our winners’ names before signing and sending them out. You should receive them within a few weeks, I anticipate!

In other news – “Defying Gravity” is going to be performed on FOX’s Glee tonight. Who’s excited? Come back tonight after the show and let me know what you think of their performance by leaving a comment here! (You will need to re-register with the site if you haven’t done so in the last two weeks as we erased the old database.)

I finally found time to get our awesome contest entries uploaded for voting! Sorry for the delay, everyone – between trying to keep the site clean from infections (and not always succeeding) and life, I didn’t have time. But here we go!

I received 11 great entries for our October “Idinafy Yourself” costume contest. Now, everyone can head over to the photo album in the gallery by clicking here to review the photos. Choose your ONE favorite and send me an email at contest[*at]idina-here.com with the number of your choice as the subject. Please enter only the actual number (ex 1, 2, 3) in the subject, as extra characters or numbers will slow down my tally of the votes. You do not need to send me any other information in the body of the email. Yes, you may vote for yourself, but no one may vote more than once – I’ll know if you voted multiple times from different email addresses, so please don’t waste your (or my) time trying.

Voting ends November 10 at 11:59 pm ET and winner will be notified on November 11. The winner will receive a personalized & autographed Idina lithograph. Good luck to the entrants – your costumes are great!

Up-and-coming singer/songwriter Lindsay Rush has likely hit the radar of most of you visiting this website in the last couple weeks. Lindsay posted a video on her YouTube channel of herself recording a song that producer Eric Bazilian had written with Idina, titled “Kinda Special.” Lindsay was kind enough to sit down “with” me for a few minutes to discuss this song and how it came to be.

How did you come to record “Kinda Special”?
I had been writing and recording a lot with songwriter/musician, Eric Bazilian. He wrote “One of Us” for Joan Osborne. One day he mentioned a song that he had written with Idina, called “Kinda Special.” He played it for me, and said that they never felt like it reached its full potential. He gave me the track to take home to see if I could come up with a way to take it where they thought it should be. After listening to it a lot, I thought it would be a more powerful and unique song if it were about Idin’as new baby, instead of it being a love song. So I wrote mostly new lyrics, and the next day, Eric and I went back into the studio to record the new version. You can see a video of the recording session on YouTube.

Read on to see what else she had to say!

(more…)

Thanks to everyone for participating in September’s metaphorical photography contest! The photos that were submitted were all AMAZING. I’ve reviewed everyone’s guesses, and here are the winners:

AnLi’s photograph received the most correct guesses and will receive a personalized lithograph!
Zoe submitted the most correct guesses and will receive an autographed limited edition copy of I Stand!
Claire’s subtly poignant photo representing “Hope” was my personal favorite in light of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and will receive an autographed photo of Idina!

The answers will be revealed in the contest album in the coming days. I’ll announce on Twitter when the song titles are available. Comments on the photos are now allowed, so feel free to discuss and debate in the meantime!

Speaking of Twitter and Breast Cancer Awareness Month, each time you include “#beatcancer” in your tweets, 1 cent is donated to breast cancer research, so tweet away, and make sure you include #beatcancer.

Reminder that you have just two more weeks to work on October’s Idina-fy Yourself costume contest!

I forgot I had promised to post more detailed information for the costume contest back on October 1. My apologies! The good news is that the info I’m about to post won’t have any effect on what you’ve done or are planning to do.

RULES:

- Dress up like Idina, whether it’s a costume from her shows or something else.
- Take a picture of yourself wearing your costume. You may take more than one photo if necessary to better showcase your creation (I will combine your photos into one large photo for gallery addition purposes). You can team up with friends, use props, etc., but regardless of how many people are in your image, there is only ONE prize. Sorry!
- Rename your images as your name, i.e. JaneD.jpg, and email the picture(s) to me at contest[AT]idina-here.com with “OCTOBER CONTEST” as your subject. Please tell me what your costume is, even if it’s obvious. You have until 11:59 pm ET on November 1 to submit your entries.
- ONE entry per person/team.
- Open to everyone, all ages, worldwide.
- All photos will be added to the Gallery and visitors to the site will be allowed to view and vote on their favorite costume (how-to will be posted once images are added). The biggest vote-getter will receive a personalized and autographed Idina lithograph!
- HAVE FUN & BE CREATIVE!

I wanted to bring the following auction to everyone’s attention. “The Elephant Project” is a fundraising effort benefiting the Alzheimer’s Association. Idina contributed her signature and a snapshot to them to be auctioned off, with proceeds going to the Association. If you feel inclined to contribute, please click the image below to bid.

Today’s fun gallery update reveals several previously unseen photos from Idina’s 2003 photoshoot for Here. Aren’t they prettiful?

Additional photo galleries that have been updated include:

RENT Film Premiere x16
Karina Taira Outtakes x13 MQ replacements
Enchanted Premiere x11
Sex & the City Premiere x10
Kennedy Center Honors x10 HQ replacements
Barbados x9
Tony Awards 2005 x9
Tony Awards 2007 x5
Nicholas Samartis Outtakes x4 MQ replacements
2005 Summer Tour Stage Door x4
Filming RENT x4

All updates courtesy of LeaMicheleWeb.org.

We received nearly 100 awesome photos for our September photography contest! Now it’s time for Part II, so here we go:

Part II – Rules

I’ve decided to extend our September photography contest, since we only have 15 different entrants thus far! I know everyone’s busy with school, work, life, etc this time of year, so I’ll give you all one more week. Get your photos submitted to me by September 30th at 11:59 pm ET!

Read all about the photography contest’s rules by clicking here to read the original post.

While the September Shutterbug contest is fully in swing (get those awesome song-inspired photos in by the 23rd!), I wanted to give everyone some extra time to start working on the October contest.

Halloween is right around the corner. Over the years, many fans have assembled awesome Idina-inspired costumes. This is your chance to try it yourself. October’s contest is going to be an Idina costume contest! Detailed rules will be posted on October 1, but the most basic rule you need to know to get started is this: dress up as Idina, whether it’s an iconic look of her own or a costume from her career.

I’m not going to place any limitations on what you can or can’t wear, the allowance of props, scenery, animals, or teams (though you’d have to fight over the 1 prize!). You can be as crazy and creative as you want! Photos will be made public just like the Shutterbug photos, so please take that into consideration for appropriateness. The fans will vote to pick the winner (personalized, signed lithograph), so you better impress ‘em! You have until November 1 to send your photo(s) to contest[at]idina-here.com with “October Contest” as your subject!