Lawrence mother Stephanie Kelton is pictured with son Bradley, 2, and a card she designed featuring Bradley at 3 months old. Kelton's card is being featured as a finalist in a nationwide Hallmark card competition.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but one Lawrence mother is hoping a picture she snapped of her son is worth a thousand dollars instead.

“I just knew that the picture was kind of something special,” said Stephanie Kelton, referring to a photograph she took when her son Bradley was just a few months old. “The picture just seems to strike a chord with people.”

The photograph, portraying the wobbly infant in a Valentine’s Day hat with his head resting on his hand, was published in the Journal-World’s Friends and Neighbors section in 2006 and almost immediately became an Internet sensation.

Kelton said that before she knew it, Bradley was making thousands of appearances on Facebook pages. Then she started receiving e-mails featuring her son’s picture and the phrase “Is it Friday yet?” from friends across the country.

That’s when she contacted Hallmark and found out about a contest to design your own all-occasion greeting card. She knew she had to enter.

“I wrote the caption and the inside and sent it off, and it didn’t take long,” Kelton said. “I think within two or three weeks we were notified we were one of 18 grand prize finalists.”

This is Hallmark’s third contest, and organizers described the entries as top-notch.

“The submissions we’ve received during all three competitions have blown us away,” said Ingerlene Embry, Hallmark Cards’ editorial director. “It’s been so much fun to see how creative our consumers really are.”

The 18 finalists’ cards have been printed and are being sold online, as well as in more than 3,500 Gold Crown stores nationwide. You might not be able to find Kelton’s design at the Lawrence store because she keeps buying them off the shelves.

“Anyone can buy them online, but I wanted to go to the store and actually pull it off the shelf and see it there,” she said. “I’m just tickled that we can go in a store or my mom can go in a Hallmark store in California and buy pictures of her grandson. It’s pretty neat.”

Kelton says it would be even better to win the competition outright. The grand prize winner will be decided by a nationwide online vote and will get $1,000, hundreds of dollars in Shoebox greeting cards and a trip for two to Chicago.

You can cast your vote through Aug. 31 at www.Hallmark.com/you.

As of last week, Kelton’s design was leading the competition with nearly 20 percent of the vote.

“You get one vote per day,” she said. “My husband is much better at remembering than I am. He’s really the one that gets up in the middle of the night if we haven’t voted for him yet.”