Hello, I'm new to entering official contests, I entered the official gene, mutation, and avatar costume contests that ended on the 5th. I know that Krin and Fae have many submissions to go threw to pick the winners, but my question is will the winners be announced this month(February) around the time of the Week of Love, or will the winners be announced next month(March) around the time of the Spring Festival?

I'm very anxious for the contest winners to be announced.

The winners should be announced during the spring festival. :)

Ah, ok....was hoping for sooner, but it does make sense for them to be announced during or just before the Spring festival...but that then leads to the question of why hold the contest for it so early? They could have held the contest last week for all three things, and still had plenty of time to pick winners before the festival. But they must have a good reason for holding the contest when they did, and they will share who the winners are as soon as they deem to reveal that info.

Another question: participation prizes where mentioned...any one have examples of participation prizes from the past?

The reason they hold the contests so far in advance is to give the official artists time to create the items and genes/mutations.
And unfortunately I can't recall the exact participation prizes that were given last time, but they were most likely essences for the pet design contests and an avatar item for the outfit design contest.

Ah, see I knew I was forgetting something. *major blonde moment* Now, that makes total sense!

Sounds like it's a nice prize just for entering. :)