SUO Challenge #63 – Clean and Simple Valentines

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With so many new – and not so new – Stampin' Up! products to use for Valentine Cards, it's a wonder that they're not all just covered with layers of papers and dozens of embellishments! It's so easy to put lots of Stampin' Up! products together to create elegant cards, especially for such special card-giving times as Valentine's Day!

But some of the most elegant cards that we've seen here at Stampin' Up! Only Challenges are elegant because of the Clean and Simple (or CAS) way that elements have been put together on the cards. Sometimes it takes a bit more thought and planning than for a more complicated card. But the results can be absolutely stunning.

So that's your challenge this time – to make a Clean and Simple Valentire's Day Card! There's a wide variety in what different stampers consider CAS, as you'll see in our Design Team entries for this week. And we're looking forward to what YOU have to offer with your own take on the CAS Valentines!

(Update – the link to Jennifer's blog has been fixed)

Mary Brown

Robin Messenheimer

Pam Staples

To participate in our challenge, make a card or other paper-crafted project and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet. Then come back here and use our link tool at the bottom of this post to share the photo with us. We're looking for cards posted to the internet after January 28, 2013, and (of course!) made with Stampin' Up! products only. The products may be those that are in current catalogs, or they may be retired products. But (as our blog title says) SUO – Stampin' Up! Only! This means that products from other papercrafting, rubber stamp, die-making or other companies may not be included in your project or in any other project included in your blog post if Stampin' Up! sells a like product. For example, Stampin' Up! does not sell sewing thread. So use of sewing thread from another company is just fine. Stampin' Up! does sell the Sizzix Big Shot, so use of die-cuts, texture plates or other such products from another company is not fine. If you have a question, please send an e-mail to our Coordinator, Robin Messenheimer, and she'll be glad to answer it!

Challenge Dates: January 29, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

February 9, 2013 (9 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #62, New Toys – Our Top 3!

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What an outpouring of entries we had this time around – our most ever! You must really like showing off your "New Toys" when it comes to Stampin' Up! And we enjoyed looking at each and every entry – lots of new ideas for those new toys, and we love new ideas as much as the next stamper!

As you can imagine, we had as much difficulty picking our Top 3 as we had fun going through all the entries. But the Design Team came through, and here are our Top 3 picks for the challenge:

Sharnee Torrents. Some of us have had some difficulty making the new Summer Starfruit color work well for us. But Sharnee made this color SING with the way she put it together with all the lacy elements from the new Spring Catalog (not yet out in Australia, but soon to be!). A beautiful card!

Allison Ohran. What an elegantly simple style in this lovely monochromatic classic card! All of the elements seem so perfectly placed.

Kristin Moore. Again here is a card that is so elegant in its simplicity. The grays are beautifully put together – we loved the progressive colors on the butterflies!

SUO Challenge #62 – New Toys!

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Finally we're getting around to a new challenge here at SUO Challenges! Your Design Team Coordinator is delighted to be back at the computer, not to mention healithily crafting to my heart's content! Our Design Team Members have been champing at the bit to get their challenge cards out for you all to see, too, so I won't delay a moment longer.

The challenge for this time? As the title says – bring out your New Toys! If you've placed an order from the Stampin' Up! Spring Catalog, go for it! But even if you just have something in your stash that's new to you and you just need to break it out and finally use it, go for it. New to Stampin' Up!? Then EVERYthing's new for you! So use whatever your heart desires!

And now for our Design Team's Creations!

To participate in our challenge, make a card or other paper-crafted project and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet. Then come back here and use our link tool at the bottom of this post to share the photo with us. We're looking for cards posted to the internet after January 14, 2013, and (of course!) made with Stampin' Up! products only. The products may be those that are in current catalogs, or they may be retired products. But (as our blog title says) SUO – Stampin' Up! Only! This means that products from other papercrafting, rubber stamp, die-making or other companies may not be included in your project or in any other project included in your blog post if Stampin' Up! sells a like product. For example, Stampin' Up! does not sell sewing thread. So use of sewing thread from another company is just fine. Stampin' Up! does sell the Sizzix Big Shot, so use of die-cuts, texture plates or other such products from another company is not fine. If you have a question, please send an e-mail to our Coordinator, Robin Messenheimer, and she'll be glad to answer it!

Challenge Dates: January 15, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

January 26, 2013 (9 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #61, True Blue – Our Top 3!

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Even though it's been awhile since we posted this challenge, it's been hard to miss that gorgeous sea of blue that filled the last SUO Challenge Blog Post. I couldn't have imagined a better response to this challenge. Who knew so many loved blue?!

And now, finally, after a bit of a delay, we'd like to name our Top 3 for our last challenge. Don't forget to pick up a copy of the code for our "Top 3" winner that you can place on your blog side bars!

Julie Gearinger. This set of sympathy cards is amazing. We expecially loved that Julie included instructions for the basic brayering technique for the cards and showed us so many ways to use our final stamped product. Definitely stunning!

Julie Fields. Julie's Baby Wipes technique is just gorgeous! Not only that, the way that Julie divided her card into sections really made this card feel like a work of art

Lynn Starzl. That Henry card is so cute with the arrow clip to "point" us in the correct direction for extending Henry's wonderful trunk! Lynn's masking was spot on, too, making this a treasure of a card.