Category Archives: Announcements

SUO Challenge 34 – Our Top 3!

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.

SUO Challenge Design Team – An Exciting Announcement

As many of you know, the SUO Challenge Blog was founded over a year ago by Stampin' Up! Demonstrator, Cindy Coutts.  She pulled together a fun Design Team and it's been going strong ever since.  Earlier this year, though, Cindy felt that she had to devote more of her time to her other exciting personal and professional endeavors, and turned the SUO Challenge Blog over to the Design Team.  Shortly after that, the team asked me to be the Design Team Coordinator, and I've been having a blast doing that ever since!

      Recently, though, Cindy has decided to return to her Stampin' Up! roots and is once more a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  Not only that, she has accepted our invitation to rejoin us as a member of the SUO Challenge Blog Design Team!  We here at SUOC are so excited to have her back, with her great talent and all of her wonderful ideas.  She's jumping right in, too, and will have a sample on the new challenge tomorrow.

I hope you will all join with me in welcoming Cindy back!  It's great to have her here with us again!

SUO Challenge 32, Our Top Three

     The holiday season's just started and already I'm beginning to feel a bit frazzled!  But I have so many people and projects for which to be thankful – including all of you who entered our last challenge, "Thankful," with your delightful projects which all of us on the design team thoroughly enjoyed!

     But we try our best to pick a Top Three, reflecting a consensus of our Design Team members about whose projects did a special job of perking us up – although, as always, we love them all.

Kris Lynch.  OK, we all want to know how people like Kris come up with these ideas!  Just, wow!  My favorite comment from our design team was, "I think what I like about the punch art turkey lady is that she's obviously FAT and cute and motherly!!" followed closely by, "You have got to be KIDDING!"  This punch art is beyond cute and made us all smile (even a giggle) when we first saw it.  After focusing on that, we were also impressed by the use of the DSP for the apron and gloves, and the Sizzix frame for the platter.  Well, well done!

 

Denise Pustelniak.  This is simply a delightful My Digital Studio gatefold card, with warm colors that made us feel, well, warm – and cozy.  We especially like the diamond orientation of the front panel of the card.  Just  a nice card!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa Martz.  We definitely liked the whole layout of this card, and especially the flower that accents all the colors in the DSP so well.  The use of the ribbon in the flower to accent the pieces of ribbon over on the side is so very artistic – a gorgeous card as yours always are!

SUO Challenge 31 – Our Top Three

What a delight it was to read all about all the projects submitted for our challenge to make a "Thinking of You" card.  There were so many beautiful cards and, as always, we had to work hard to pick our Top Three for the challenge. 

 

Kasey from Oz (Australia) wowed us all with her beautifully ornate embossed frame for a simply gorgeous "painting" of a ship.  This really is true artistry of the stamping variety!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tanya Bell (also from Australia!) just pulled this vintage look together perfectly.  There was so much beautiful detail that it was hard not to keep looking at it to see if there was one more detail we missed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sheri Bradley's card has such a beautifully clean design. We loved the way the dogwood flower popped from the rest of the card, and how well it tied together with the rest of the paper!