'Prize winning' letter published

My real weakness is home magazines. I've always spent a lot of money on them but recently have manged to wean myself off the more expensive ones and now just buy the ones at the the more economical end of the market.

I recently up-cycled a mirror and altered a charity shop lamp shade to fit existing decor. I was so chuffed with the end result that I thought I would send in (via email) a couple of photos and a letter of explanation to one of the magazines (I've never done anything like that before!!).

To my astonishment it was published and not only that it was considered the 'Star letter' for which there is a prize.
I was not notified of the the pending publication and only noticed it because of my devotion to buying these magazines. I went back through my emails to see if I had missed any correspondence from them, but no I couldn't see anything.

My thoughts then went to how would they know where to send the prize as I hadn't include a postal address in the original email. So I waited to see if they would contact me. After several weeks I decided to send them an email with my postal address.

It's now 8 weeks since the providing them with my postal address and I've not received any acknowledgement from them at all, let alone the prize!!

I have no concern at all for the prize (a set of colourful plant pots the month of publication, a bouquet of flowers the month I emailed them) but the principle of it is irritating me.

Anyone else had a similar experience?