SUO Challenge 136 – Favorite Holiday Colors!

11 / 24 / 1511 / 24 / 15

The holidays are definitely here! No matter where you are, there is an important fall or winter holiday coming within the next month. So that means all of use paper crafters will be in full gear making cards and gifts for the season. Your challenge this time is to share with us your favorite set of holiday colors to use in your crafting.

To get you started on thinking about Holiday Colors, our Design Team has come up with a lovely assortment of cards. We look forward to seeing what you do with this challenge.

To participate in our challenge, make a card or other paper-crafted 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.

PLEASE remember this: We’re looking for projects posted to the internet AFTER November 23, 2015 This is a NEW challenge! AND please mention/link to the SUO Challenge Blog in your post!

Of course, your projects must be 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 or in any other project included in your blog post 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!

Challenge Dates: November 24, 2015 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

December 5, 2015 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

An InLinkz Link-up

SUO Challenge #129, Cards Without Words

8 / 18 / 158 / 18 / 15

It seems that almost every greeting card that appears online in Stampin’ Up! groups has some sort of greeting or sentiment. But sometimes we just want a card to use to write a note off to a friend. That “get well” card might be the perfect design, but not for a note to your friend who isn’t ill.

So your challenge this time is to create a greeting card with no words on it.

Before we get started today, we’d like to introduce the newest member of the SUO Challenge Design Team:

Cindee Wilkinson!

Stampin’ Up! demonstrators who went to convention this year may have caught Cindee’s demonstration during one of the sessions. Even more of us have followed Cindee’s blog and Facebook postings and know how much fun she has with her Stampin’ Up! designs, and how beautifully they turn out. Here’s her introduction to us all:

Hi, I’m Cindee Wilkinson! I’ve been a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator for 6 years and a Manager since 2011. I’ve been married to my husband, David, for 37 years, and we have 2 grown children and 3 grandchildren. Stampin’ Up! is my dream job. I love creating, teaching classes and more!

Welcome, Cindee!

Need some ideas to get your creativity started? Then check out our Design Team projects – and have fun with your own project!

PLEASE remember this: We’re looking for projects posted to the internet AFTER August 17, 2015 This is a NEW challenge! AND please mention/link to the SUO Challenge Blog in your post!

Challenge Dates: August 18, 2015 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

August 29, 2015 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

An InLinkz Link-up

SUO Challenge 71 – Favorite Retiring Stamp Sets!

5 / 21 / 135 / 23 / 13

By the time we issue our next challenge here at the Stampin' Up! Only Challenges blog, dozens of favorite stamp sets will have been retired by Stampin' Up! But this happens every year – twice a year for awhile there! – and so most of us are used to this time of transition. This doesn't make it any easier for those of use who are SU! Demonstrators to say, "Goodbye," to our favorites. Of course, if you're not a demonstrator (and even if you are) you may keep all your favorites around for years and years.

As all of our current SUO Challenge Design Team Members are Stampin' Up! Demonstrators, my challenge to them was to use their favorite stamp set that is retiring this year. For the rest of you, we'd really like to see your favorites that are retiring this year – but you may use any retired Stampin' Up! stamp set that is a favorite to enter Challenge 71.

The challenge rules and deadlines are at the end of this blog post. One thing I'd like to emphasize is that, as the SUO Challenges Coordinator, I'm here to help you if you have problems getting your entries posted. Just send me an e-mail (link below) and we'll get things fixed up!

Finally, once again we are saying, "Goodbye," not to a stamp set but to one of our Design Team Members. Cindy Elam has been a treasure for all of us, and I'm really going to miss her style here at SUO Challenges! But she's not leaving the Stampin' Up! community, and I'm sure we'll have lots of chances to see her work, even if it's not here. She does have one last design for us, though. I hope you'll enjoy it as well as the projects of all of the other Design Team members!

PLEASE remember this: We're looking for projects posted to the internet AFTER May 20, 2013. This is a NEW challenge!

And, of course, your projects should be 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 or in any other project included in your blog post 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!

Challenge Dates: May 21, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

June 1, 2013 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #55 – Mmmm, Feel that Texture! And there’s blog candy involved!

10 / 2 / 1210 / 3 / 12

This month is a milestone for the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge Design Team as we are beginning our 3rd year of challenges!

Of course, we wouldn't be here without all of you who enter those challenges and provide a great opportunity for all of our readers to see lots of fun and fabulous samples of Stampin' Up! Only projects! So congratulations to all of you for keeping this challenge going!

To really show our appreciation, the design team is offering blog candy for each of our Top 3 entrants for this challenge! But first, you might want to know what the challenge is (if you haven't guessed it from the title of this post): it's to make a project that has texture to it. As you can see from our Design Team's samples, texture can take many forms. But the most frequent of those forms is texture that's created with Stampin' Up!'s Textured Impressions Embossing Folders! So an embossing folder of your choice is our blog candy this time around.

All you have to do is enter your project (card, scrap page, 3-D project) with some texture in it, and, in about 2 weeks, our Design Team will choose the Top 3 designs from all the entries. Once your project has been selected as a Top 3, I'll be in touch to find out which currently-available Stampin' Up! Embossing Folder you'd like. I'll order it for you and send it off to you as soon as I get it from Stampin' Up!

Now onto our Design Team's inspirations to get you started on our challenge!

Robin's Project

Jennifer's Project

Mary's Project

Cindy E's Project

Deb's Project

Connie's Project

Karen's Kreation

Heidi's Project

Pam's Project

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 October 1, 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!

Challenge Dates: October 2, 2012 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

October 13, 2012 (9 am USA Eastern Time)