SUO Challenge 30 – Congratulations to our Top Three!

10 / 31 / 1110 / 31 / 11

What fun our Challenge #30 – Treats for Everyone! – was for all of us! Such creative projects, both from our Design Team as well as all of you who entered your projects – thanks to everyone who participated – we loved them all and truly did have a hard time picking our top three. But here they are!

Beth Rush. The punched characters that top these treat holders are adorable, especially the Santa. The candy lovers among us love her choice of a long skinny candy bar, which is different from many treat holders. These are adorable and perfect for stocking stuffers, coming right out the top. Kids are just going to love these – almost as much as the treats in them!

Lisa Martz Elegant is the word that came to our minds when we saw this very classy stocking. The pleated rosette with the Mocha Morning paper and the Antique Brad really makes this elegant stocking, as do the stitching and all the great detail. Of course, we all love that different kind of goodie that fits everyone

Stacy Royster What a classy glassy bag! We all loved the cut glass look of the treat box – what a FABULOUS idea to emboss the clear window sheet! This could be used for any occasion and I dare say there's going to be some copying of this great idea.

Thanks again our top 3 and all of our entrants. If you'd like to see more of these projects, just scroll down to last week's challenge post!

SUO Challenge 26, Invitation to a Party

8 / 31 / 118 / 31 / 11

This month SU-Only Challenges is One Year Old, so it must be time for an online party! And do we have a party for you – not only a new challenge, but two new members of our Design Team to Introduce as well as a fond farewell to one of our original members. Here's our challenge for the week – and you'll find fun information about our new members in another post.

Create an invitation to a party – any kind of party! Of course there are always birthdays and showers and graduations. But there's also the Barbecue, the beach party, the end-of-summer bash, and so much more! Hey, even Stampin' Up! Workshops are parties! The list is endless.

Here are our Design Team Members' takes on this challenge, and we hope that you will join us in the fun we've had making them!

Deb's Card

Heidi's Card

Jennifer's Card

Karen's Card

Robin's Card

Mary's Card

Cindy's Card

Favorite New Stamp Top 3

Thanks for all your entries last week! But we did have to pick our Top 3 who are:

Jackie Topa for her hobby horse that is just too darned cute and wonderfully clever. Several of us wonder where we were when the "clever" gene was doled out. We think Jackie got more of them than is fair!

Bornwyn Eastley is another designer with more than her fair share of clever genes with imaginative use of the Two Tags Sizzix die. Beautiful card!

Leslie Croghan's design, coloring and overall execution of her vintage card was just the perfect card for congratulating her mother. Just gorgeous!

We did have to disqualify a couple of entries this week. We've noticed that there have been several projects over the past few weeks that have included dies from companies that compete with Stampin' Up!'s Sizzix products. Please remember that entries for this challenge should be SU! ONLY!

Here's our standard short reminder of the "rules": Entried should be Stampin' Up! products only, be a new creation in response to our challenge, and have no links to posts that are selling anything. You can find all the finer details on the sidebar at the top left

Welcome our New Design Team Members! And a fond farewell, too.

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We are SOOOO happy to have two great new design team members. We just know you're going to love their projects. We're also sad to see one of our members move on to other projects, but we'll definitely miss her.

Please welcome to the SU-Only Challenge Design Team:

Mary Brown

Hi…my name is Mary Brown and I have been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator since September of 1999 and a stamper since 1995 (wow…that's a LONG time!). I started out as a quilter (and still do that now and then) and then got into stamping. I love being able to finish projects in less than a year! I'm probably best known as stampercamper and my style tends to be more of a clean and simple nature. Honestly…I DO try to add more stuff and then just end up taking it back off. And as for watercoloring…once in a blue moon on that one; I like to stamp and go!

On a personal note, I've been married to my sweetie Randy since 1984 and was fortunate to earn the SU incentive trip to Hawaii the same year as our 25th wedding anniversary…COOL!!! We have 2 'fur children'…a spaniel mix (aka the BEST doggie IN THE WORLD) and her little brother a short hair havenese (known as a shavenese). Both are rescue doggies and little sweethearts. When I'm not stamping, I'm teaching full time at a local (and extremely large) community college. I am in the Allied Health Division and specialize in the new/beginning health care student. I LOVE my job and each quarter usually teach around 9 classes (approx 250 students).

I'm sooooo excited to be part of the SUO Challenge team as I am SUO ALL the time!

Cindy Elam

Hello! My name is Cindy Elam, and I live near San Diego with my husband Tom (aka the world’s most tolerant husband). We are blessed to have our two adult children living nearby. I am relatively new to stamping, having just started in February of 2008 after my BFF Barb suggested I might like paper crafting. She pointed me to a few blogs and Splitcoast Stampers, and that was all it took to get me hooked! I discovered Stampin’ Up! shortly after, and became a demonstrator in 2009, for the discount of course! Well, being a “hobby” demo has evolved into a business that now supports my stamping addiction!

I used to sew, do a little quilting, and various other crafts. I even had my own business designing and selling bra patterns (Élan Patterns) and the supplies to sew them. Threads magazine published an article I wrote on the subject, too.

Now I am devoted entirely to cards, scrapbooks, and 3D paper crafts. Card making is so rewarding – just one card can spread triple love that went into it. There’s the pleasure you get when you create it, and the pleasure it gives the recipient when they receive it, and then the pleasure you get again when you see their reaction to it. That little piece of paper has amazing powers!

We are so very happy to have these talented ladies join our group!

A Fond Farewell to Melina Pylant

Unfortunately, one of our original members, Melina Pylant, has decided to move on to other endeavors, and we are so very sad to see her go. I've just finished going through many of her contributions to the SUO Challenge Blog – what a treasure she has been for us and for you! We wish her well and invite her to join in the challenge when she can find the time!

SUO Challenge 22, Happy Summer Anniversary

6 / 27 / 116 / 28 / 11

Last time we shared all kinds of ideas to help celebrate our June Brides and Grooms. And we sincerely hope that every single couple that's married in June (or any other month, of course) has many happy anniversaries.

When do you think they will have these anniversaries? Well, in the same month as the wedding. So here we are with a challenge to help all those Summer Brides and Grooms of years past celebrate their anniversaries.

Our design team has come up with an extra wide variety of cards for this occasion, and we're sure that you have some fabulous ideas of your own. We hope that you will join in the challenge and share an Anniversary project with all of us and our blog readers!

Heidi

A Note From Our Challenge Team

We are really enjoying this challenge blog, and are very excited that there are so many of you who are eager to participate in a Stampin' Up! Only Challenge. However, we've noticed with a few entries a trend that doesn't align well with our purpose for hosting this blog. What we're trying to do is to challenge both our design team and all of you to have fun creating something new with Stampin' Up! products only. But several entries lately have been from designs that were posted to blogs in the past – sometimes in the distant past! We're trying to encourage you to get your Stampin' Up! products out NOW and have fun designing something new. Going back to find something in the past to fit today's challenge isn't quite making that happen. So we'd appreciate it very much if you would post fun new projects for our design team – and everyone else! – to enjoy.

We have a great time every two weeks going to all of your blogs and galleries to enjoy what you've done and read more about your projects. We definitely have a hard time deciding who the "Top Three" for the week are going to be – you're all so good! But we respectfully decline to consider for the "Top Three" honors any project that is not Stampin' Up! Only and any project that has been posted to a blog prior to the date that our challenge is issued.

And Now for our Top Three Bride and Groom Designs!

1. Tammy Q. Howell enthralled us with the Spring/Summer feel of this design, and especially the very creative flower. The way Tammy carried the colors throughout this card, especially on the embossed border and the tips of the flowers is just exquisite. Just wow!

2. Alycia Tedford captured our attention with her oh-so-clever rendition of the Tie the Knot theme. The colors are so (here's that word again) cleverly arranged that we found it hard to keep our eyes off the card, looking at all the different combinations of the sizes of circles. Fun!

3. Sara Goke was our next pick for a simply elegant wedding invitation featuring a lovely fold to open to the invitation text. We especially liked the way that she carried the colors and theme from the cover to the inside, and then to the reply card that went with it. Beautiful work!

Thanks to all of you – and don't forget to grab the code for your blog badge – up to the left!