NEW YORK — Martha Stewart, who built a billion-dollar media empire based on her holiday and home decorating tips, was unable to lead her team to victory in a prison decoration contest, a magazine reported.

Stewart and a team of fellow inmates at a federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va. crafted paper cranes to be hung from the ceiling, People magazine reported in an article posted on its Web site Wednesday. They lost out to a competing team that built a nativity scene showing "pictures of snow-covered hills and sleds and clouds on the wall," the magazine quoted an inmate as saying.

Each team was given $25 worth of glitter, ribbons, construction paper and glue to build a display based on the theme "Peace on Earth," the magazine said.

Stewart was convicted along with her stockbroker of lying about why she unloaded shares of ImClone Systems Inc. stock in 2001, just before the price plunged.

She is due to be released in early March from Alderson, then must spend five months confined to her home in Bedford, N.Y.

Following the house arrest, she is scheduled to begin shooting a daytime talk show with a live studio audience.


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