SUO Challenge 37, Favorites from the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog

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QUICK UPDATE: The TOP 3 for Challenge 36 – New Techniques is announced in the blog post just beneath this one! Congratulations to our Top 3 and I hope you will all have a chance to visit their blogs!

Oh, my – have I been having a blast since January 4th, since the 2011 Holiday Season was officially over and the new 2012 Stampin' Up! Occasions Mini Catalog was released! I can't believe all the wonderful new products in that wonderful Mini Catalog. But what's my favorite? What's YOUR favorite?

And that's our challenge for this time with the SUO Challenge Team – make a card or any paper-crafted project with your favorite product from the Stampin' Up! 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog (or, if you're in an area that doesn't have this mini catalog, what's your favorite product from your most current Stampin' Up! catalog)? If you're anything like me, you'll be hard pressed to come up with just one. So I "cheated" a bit and included more than one "favorite." Feel free to follow my example!

I hope you'll enjoy all of our Design Team entries this week – all of which focus on the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog. We can hardly wait to see you YOU have to show off from YOUR favorites!

As always, please remember to 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.

SUO Challenge 36: Top 3

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Finally life has come to be somewhat normal (as in “normally chaotic” rather than “all-heck-is-breaking-loose” normal) and I have compiled all our votes for the Top 3 for SUO Challenge 36 – New Techniques. Without a doubt many of us on the SUO Challenge Design team were impressed with all the techniques and I think that each one of us learned a new technique in the process. I’m trying out two of them in my classes next week!

But enough of us! Congratulations to all of you for showing off so many wonderful techniques – but especially to our Top 3. Note that clicking on one of the pictures will take you to the original blog post and more information about the stamper’s technique!

Margaret of TotallyAwake4-Stampin. How much fun is that “Peekaboo Embossing”!? Not only is the technique fun to use, but Margaret used a perfect stamp set with all the butterflies flitting in and out and around her embossed flowers. Fun, fun, fun! Now to go get out our “Flight of the Butterfly” set!

Liz Fedyna of Stamper’s Bliss. Her take on the Vellum Faux Dry Embossing is just stunning, and we especially liked the added touch of the stitching around the central image. We think that Liz executed this technique with vellum perfectly and we’re all itching to try it again as soon as possible!

Gayle Wheeler of Stampingville. We all just loved the idea of using the Dazzling Details to trace the stamped image in this card. Gayle gave credit to Stampin’ Up! for showing off the technique. But Gayle did a dynamite job showing it off to everyone (including those of us who missed it in the demonstrator’s magazine!)

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

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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!

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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!