SUO Challenge #43 – Our Top 3!

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Thanks so much to all of you who joined in our challenge to say "Goodbye to the Occasions Mini Catalog." Some of you, of course, aren't in the North American Mini Catalog zone, so you featured stamps from other catalogs, which is just fine. We're nothing if not flexible here at Stampin' Up! Only (except we're not flexible when it comes to our "Stampin' Up! ONLY rule; we tend to dig our heels in on that!)

As always, so many great projects and so many of you received mention as we determined our Top 3 this week. So on to our congratulations for projects well done to::

Diane Vander Galien. Oh, my! How soft are those watercolored colors, and how beautifully layered is the card!! This is such an elegant card, and shows off so many wonderful techniques and products that it's hard to focus on any one as the "star" of the card. If nothing else, all the texture just made us say, "Wow, what a pretty card!"

Trish Giesbrecht. This card has so many elements that are just perfectly placed on it! The embossing with the Labels Framelits is a perfect frame for those two little flowers. Again, a very soft and pretty card!

Susan Rowe. This is not just a card – it's a whole suite of projects that makes a perfect gift package! Susan's in Australia, so is using the delicious Spice Cake paper to which we up north said, "Goodbye" back in January. So nice to see it again in such a fab project!

If you'd like to see more about any of these three projects, just click on the picture!

A Special Invitation for Stampin’ Up! Only Challenge #46!

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Sometimes when you're involved in something that's as much fun and as much of a success as the SUO Challenge Blog, you get into what might seem to be a bit of a rut. Post a challenge – get beautiful entries – oooh and aaah over the entries – select a top 3 – start all over again! Actually, not a bad routine at all!

But we've decided to break out of our routine a bit and invite some of you to be Guest Designers for a Special Edition of SUO Challenges! Those whom we're inviting are those of you who have been frequent contributors to our challenge over the last six months. We've decided that "frequent" means those of you who have contributed at least six projects to our challenge since November 2011. So we are very happy to invite the following contributors to be a Guest Designer for our May 29th Challenge.

Diane Hilborn
Julie Fields (Julz)
Kris Lynch
Bonnie Klass
Denise Pustelniak
Vannessa (Saffire's Stamping)
Jenny Greefhorst
Paula Sievers
Lisa Martz

I would like each of you to contact me by e-mail, and I will tell you the theme for the challenge and let you know about our deadline and other administrative details. If you choose not to participate, that's just fine – we want everyone to have fun with this challenge blog, so there are no requirements of you other than that projects be, of course, Stampin' Up! Only!

And if your name is not on this list and you'd like it to be, don't worry! We are going to do this regularly going forward, and the next time will not require an almost two-year wait!

SUO Challenge #43 – Occasions Mini Catalog Goodbye!

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We definitely know that not everyone who frequents and participates in our challenges is a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. But our Design Team Members are all demonstrators, and we in North America are about to say, "Goodbye," to the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog. Yes, there are lots of other retirements underway. Heavens, there was just this past Sunday the announcement of over 200 Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets that will retire for North America come May 31st of this year!

Nonetheless, the Occasions Mini Catalog has a special place in our hearts. So we've created some "goodbye" projects to show off to our audience. If you have a favorite item or items from the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog which you're going to miss, we hope that you, too, will share that with us. And even if you don't, we hope that you will join with us by sharing a card or other project made with a Stampin' Up! product that has retired or it otherwise no longer available to purchase. And, believe me, we all have a lot of those! So you may just give someone else a great idea for using that stamp set or other product that's been gathering dust in a drawer or closet!

You know the routine – make a card and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet, and 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 April 16, 2012, 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!

Oh, and a heads up on the closing time for this challenge. It's going to be one day shorter than usual to accommodate a bit of a vacation for your SUO Challenge Coordinator! There will be a few other timing adjustments around the end of April/beginning of May, but we'll announce them in plenty of time.

SUO Challenge #42 – Our Top 3!

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We are very happy that so many of you decided to join in our "Congratulations" challenge. Congratulations to all of you! And, as always, a special Congratulations to our Top 3 for Challenge #42!

Bonnie Klass. We all loved the use of the white space in this card, perfectly accented by the "stamped-off" images from the Herbed Expressions stamp set. This clean and simple design is just stunning!

Cathy Parlitsis. Those rosettes are adorable, and the layering of the whole card sets them off so beautifully. Cathy used so many techniques in this card, and they all blend together to make a really spectacular Congratulations greeting.

Erna Logtenberg. The fold in this card is one that many of us haven't used in a long time – and now we wonder why! Of course, the colors and the stamped layered motif of this card are what truly make it special – and one of our favorites of the week!

Thank you ALL for being a part of the SUO Challenge!