SUO Challenge #49 – A Special Thank You!

7 / 10 / 127 / 10 / 12

My favorite type of greeting card to make is a "Thank You" card. There are always people to thank for something, whether it be a little random act of kindness, a gift for a special occasion, or a very special treat. And it's so easy to pull out some paper, ink and embellishments and whip up a quick note card!

Sometimes, though, a kindness seems to call for just a bit more time and effort on my "Thank You," whether it be a card or a gift. And I want this to be a Special Thank You! We in the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge crew are pretty sure that this happens to you, too. So this week we challenge you create that Special Thank You card or gift and share it with all of us and our blog readers.

A big benefit of your participating in this challenge? The next time YOU need a Special Thank You, it will be there ready for you to use!

As always, you'll have 12 days for our challenge and, as always, please be sure that your projects are Stampin' Up! Only! When you've finished with your project, just click on the link tool at the end of the post and follow the instructions! And now here are our Design Team Member Special Thank You projects!

Michelle's Card

Deb's Card

Karen's Card

Heidi's Card

Mary's Card

Robin's Card

Jennifer's Card

Pam's Card

To participate in our challenge, make a card or other 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 July 9, 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! This means that Products from other papercrafting, rubber stamp, die-making or other companies may not be included in your project 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!

SUO Challenge #48 – Our Top 3!

7 / 9 / 12

Oh, my, you all seem to love our Stampin' Up! Birds! From chicks to chickadees and robins to roosters, you used at least 15 different Stampin' Up! Bird stamps and even a few punches! What fun it was for us at the SUO Challenges Design Team to review all of them. And, as always, it was a challenge for us to come up with a Top 3!

But we did manage to select three of the entries for our ""For the Birds" challenge as our favorites, though we really did love them all!

Diane Vander Galien. This is a perfect stamp for the spotlighting technique! And the card itself is beautiful overall, especially with the way that Diane used the Delicate Designs Embossing Folder and the Large Scallop Edgelit on the mat as well as on the stamped/embossed layer!

Vicki Parson. What an elegant card, with all those perfectly coordinated neutral colors! The understated tone and simplicity of this card is accented beautifully with that carefully designed bow.

Crystal Langton. What a gorgeous vintage-style cover for this journal! The collage is just done perfectly. I, for one, find something new and different in this project every time I look at it!

SUO Challenge 39 – Happy Birthday!

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I love birthday cards, especially on MY birthday. No, my birthday isn't this week – but someone's birthday must be sometime soon! And even if you don't have a special friend or relative who has a birthday coming up, you're going to need a birthday card sooner or later! So why not take some fun time to make a birthday card you'll have a blast making – with no deadline except for the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge team deadline of two weeks from now!

Our design team has started out with a wide variety of designs for this challenge theme. And I can hardly wait to see what kind of a card YOU make. Use your favorite of everything – stamps, papers, embellishments – anything in your stash, as long as it's a Stampin' Up! product, and you make the card for this challenge. And when you're finished, you'll have a card ready for that next special birthday in your life!

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!

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.