And the Winner Is...

On December 19th, Lara Ferroni posted a contest on her blog to win a spot in her upcoming Food Photography and Styling for Bloggers class. Lara is teaching the four week course alongside Ron Goldman, which will be conducted completely online. Her photography is beautifully crisp and has the ability to pull her audience into her stories. As soon as she announced the contest, I knew I wanted that spot.

The rules were simple, participants were entered into the contest by commenting on her post with, "I want to take this course". Plus, participants qualified for additional entries by telling others about the course through their personal blogs, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook (one per media outlet). Easy enough, right?

I entered the contest through each of the ways, with the exception of posting on my personal blog. I was hopeful with each entry, but didn't truly believe that I could win. It was that seed of doubt that took me by complete surprise when Lara announced the winner in a post on December 26th. I read through her post and this is what I saw:

And the Winner is…

 DECEMBER 26, 2011

I hope you all had a very merry holiday and a great week leading up to the New Year! Just stopping in briefly to announce the winner of the giveaway of our Food Photography & Styling for Bloggers class. Via random number generator, our winner is Stacy Ernst! 

I could not believe my eyes! I was the winner! I won a seat in a great class with two amazing instructors. I am so excited about our lessons and assignments, I'll be sure to keep you all updated on my progress, as well as share some of my photos.

Have you ever won a contest? What did the prize include?
(All photos from LaraFerroni.com)