SUO Challenge 36, New Techniques for a Whole New Year!

1 / 9 / 121 / 10 / 12

If you are anything at all like me, you often find yourself using the same paper crafting techniques over and over. My "go-to" techniques are heat embossing and 2-Step Stamping. Many of Stampin' Up!'s stamp sets lend themselves beautifully to these two techniques. So when the idea for today's challenge occurred to me, it wasn't hard to find a technique to use that I haven't used in a while.

What about you? Are you a technique junkie, or do you pretty much stick with the same-ol'-same-ol' techniques? Whichever you are, I'll bet you can point to a technique that you've never used – or that you haven't used in a long while. That's our challenge this time around – pick a technique that's something you use infrequently – or not at all – and share it with us here at Stampin' Up! Only Challenges!

Our design team members have come up with some great examples of techniques they rarely or never use, and it's been a lot of fun for me to see what they can do with them. One thing's for sure, though. Even with different techniques, they each have their own style and it comes through beautifully no matter which techniques they use. I'm sure yours will, too!

Please remember, use ONLY Stampin' Up! products and share only something that you've made in response to this challenge. For a complete list of the guidelines for the SUO Challenges, please refer to our write-up down on the left.

Heidi Baks – Bleaching and Watercolor

Deb Hoekstra – Stamping on a Coffee Filter

Cindy Coutts – Using fabric cut with pinking shears, handmade rosettes, coloring pearls, coloring die-cuts

Cindy Elam – Emboss Resist

Jennifer Timko – Faux Delft Tile

Karen Barber – Paper Piecing and Fussy Cutting

Mary Brown – Marker Layering

Michelle Laycock – Tea Bag Dyeing

Pam Staples – Perpetual Card (Showing four "sides")

Robin Messenheimer – Watercolor

SUO Challenge 35 – Our Top 3!

1 / 9 / 121 / 9 / 12

Punchy it was indeed around the Stampin' Up! Only Challenges Blog these past two weeks! What a great collection of marvelous ideas for using punches, especially the new builder and layer punches – this challenge created! Thank to you to everyone!

Because there were such super entries, the Design Team had a bit of a challenge itself to pick our Top 3. In fact, almost half of the entries received votes for the Top 3 – you all should be very proud of your projects, and we look forward to seeing more projects from all of you in the weeks and months to come!

But, as always, we DO pick a Top 3 and here are those for the "Feeling Punchy" Challenge. If you want to read more about each artist, just click on the picture of her project.

Robbie Rubala, with her super cute Airplane Card! Look at all the different ways she used punches- the clouds in the sky especially caught our attention, along with the way Robbie used the Doily Triple Layer punch for the tree tops. This really is Punch ART – from a true artist!

Beth Rush with her drop dead cute lion made with the Owl Builder Punch. That face really does look like a cat (cute cat!), but you know you're dealing with a lion with the wonderful pleated "mane" behind that cute face. One of our Design Team said this, "Makes me roaring to punch one myself!"

Connie Babbert, a well-known "Queen of Creative Christmas Trees," who wowed us with this tree made from petals from the Blossoms Builder Punch.

Thanks again to all of you for your fabulous creations. We hope to see your creations in a lot more Stampin' Up! Only Challenges!

SUO Challenge 35, Feeling a Bit Punchy?

12 / 27 / 1112 / 26 / 11

Can you believe that the holidays are almost over? Those of you who celebrate Christmas are probably feeling the "punchiest" right now as the big weekend is over and all that's left is the cleaning up. You're allowed to feel punchy!

Today at SUO Challenges, though, "punchy" refers to all those wonderful punches that Stampin' Up! has had for us over the years. Most of the time in my crafting, punched features are just background or accents for the main motif of the project. But many of Stampin' Up!'s punches are good enough to be the main feature in their own right. So your challenge this week is to create a card, scrap page or 3-D project where the punch is the star of the show! As you can see from our Design Team projects, punch art is a great way to show off those punches – but it's not the only way! I'm sure that you have some great ideas to share with us, and we can hardly wait to see them!

And in case you missed our post from yesterday, please welcome Cindy Coutts back as a member of our Design Team!

As a bonus, Pam would also like to share a card she made using punches from My Digital Studio by Stampin' Up!

Robin Messenheimer

SUO Challenge 34 – Our Top 3!

12 / 26 / 1112 / 26 / 11

I can't believe that the holidays are almost over – but I continue to be inspired to be in the holiday spirit by looking over all the fabulous projects that you all submitted in our final holiday challenge of the year – Merry and Happy and Everything Joyous! As you read earlier, the SUO Challenge Design Team is all of that – at least the Happy and Joyous! – to have Cindy Coutts back among us!

But you all outdid yourselves to show off projects that put a smile on the face of everyone who looked at them. And that certainly is a hallmark of a successful holiday project!

As always, though, we do pick three of your submissions to our challenge as our "Top Three." That's not to say that every project isn't just wonderful. But these three artists caught our special attention, and all for much different reasons:

Julie Gearinger, whose oh-so-detailed Christmas card makes us want to reach out and touch all of those textured elements! The pearls, the embossing and the vintage distressing – all these details make this just a stunning piece of art!

Winnie Hon, who made a lovely basket of goodies and decorated them so well that I would be afraid to open them to get at the treats inside for fear I'd damage them. Well, maybe not. But still – texturizing the card stock for the boxes before constructing them, and then adding on the die-cut snowflakes makes this a delight to look at!

Paula Sievers (from Australia where there aren't that many snowflakes this time of the year!) impressed us all with the way that she used the same basic layout to create some Clean and Simple pieces of art that anyone would be happy to receive in the mail!

A big "Thank You" to these three and ALL of you who submitted entries for this challenge.