SUO Challenge #51 – Love Those Designer Papers – and a New Design Team Member!

What a fun challenge we have for you this time around, and a fun announcement as well!

First our announcement – we have a new Design Team Member! We at SUO Challenges are excited to announce that the fabulous Connie Babbert has joined our team!! She has shared the following brief bio with us:

I've been stamping for over 11 years and just had my 10 year anniversary with Stampin' Up! in May! I've always been "crafty", participating in many craft fairs before I found stamping. Since then, it has been stamping all the way and I've given up all of my other crafts. I just finished building a wonderful stamp studio in our home and I love having my space organized and behind cabinet doors! I don't know that I have a typical "style"…but I love challenges to stretch my creativity. I frequently wake up dreaming about a card or project that I want to make!

I took the early retirement incentive from my job as manager in the engineering department for the local phone company…a decision I have NEVER regretted. I've been married to my husband, Eric, for 33 years in September (yes, I was young!) and we have two wonderful sons, Adam – 30 and Ross – 26. Both married wonderful girls. It is SO nice to finally have some GIRLS in the family! Bleach, our cat, keeps us company now that the kids are out of the house.

I'm excited to be a part of the SUO Challenge Team!

Welcome, Connie!

And now for this week's challenge, which is to use some Stampin' Up! Designer Series paper in a creative way on any kind of a project. Our design team has taken on this challenge in quite a few different ways, and we can hardly wait to see what you share with us, too!

Connie's Card

Cindy Elam's Card

Heidi's Card

Robin's Card

Pam's Card

Karen Barber'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 August 6, 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: August 7, 2012 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

August 18, 2012 (Noon USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #50, Buttons and Brads – Our Top 3!

8 / 6 / 12

What fun to see all the different ways that Stampin' Up! Only artists use Stampin' Up!'s Buttons and Brads! From hardware to bright accents to the stars of the show, you all really showed us some fabulous ideas to think about as we go about using them in our own projects. Thanks so much for all the great entries!

As always, we really studied all of your entries; and, as always, we had a tough time of it selecting those of you to be highlighted as our Top 3 Designers for the challenge! But once again we managed to pick out three of your projects for special mention. Congratulations to our Top 3 for Challenge #50!

Paula Sievers, with her "all boy" project, showing off how rugged Stampin' Up!'s brads AND buttons are when they become part of a fun Stampin' Up! machine! All of those buttons and brads are just perfectly placed. "Too cute!" was the operative word in our discussions this week.

Darcie Bardach, who shared a simply gorgeous boxed bouquet of wonderful paper flowers with the brads forming the centers of some of them. It's so nice to have a beautiful 3-dimensional project as a challenge entry! "Stunning" perfectly describes Darcie's project!

Jade Boteler, who got our attention immediately with her riche brayered colors. Those Daffodil Delight buttons perfectly accented that bit of card stock peeking out from behind one of the textured layers. "Eye-catching" certainly describes this beautiful card!

SUO Challenges #50 – Buttons and Brads

7 / 25 / 127 / 25 / 12

I know I'm giving away my age somewhat when I tell you that one of my fondest memories of my childhood is sitting and singing Dinah Shore's song, Buttons and Bows, with my mother. Yes that was the the 1940s. But even today I hum that song to myself sometimes when I'm making a greeting card or scrapbook page with Buttons and Bows!

Today's challenge on Stampin' Up! Only Challenges also reminded me of that song – but we've got a bit of a different twist on it – Buttons and Brads. And Stampin' Up! has lots of those! So your challenge is to make a card – with Stampin' Up! products Only, of course – that has either buttons or brads – or maybe even both!

We have 11 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 Buttons and Brads projects! To learn about each of them, just click on the name of the designer, which is a link to her personal blog.

And a special "Welcome Back" to all of our Design Team Members who just returned from the annual Stampin' Up! convention. You'll find lots on their blogs about their wonderful experiences there.

Cindy Elam's Card

Cindy Elam

Pam and Cindy

Pam Staples (top) and Cindy Coutts (bottom)

Jennifer Timko

Heidi Baks

Mary Brown

Karen's Card

Karen Barber

Deb's Card

Deb Hoekstra

Robin's Card

Robin Messenheimer

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 24, 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 #49, A Special Thank You – Our Top 3!

7 / 23 / 127 / 24 / 12

After so many weeks of having to struggle to decide on our Top 3 for the week, we're thinking we may have to start having a Top 10! Well, we probably won't actually do that. But your entries are just so fabulous each and every week that our job the weekend after each challenge is – yes – a challenge!

We say all this each week to let you know that, while we may not announce your name as one of our Top 3 does not in any way mean that your creation was less than wonderful. And I know that every single person who receives one of the Thank You cards that each of you shared with us this week will be thrilled to receive it!

That said, we have chosen our Top 3 for our Special Thank You challenge! UPDATE: If you'd like to read more about each of our winning posts, just click on the photo of the project!

Beth Rush. Beth's Beautiful Butterflies are definitely colored, well, beautifully! We were especially thrilled to learn how she so carefully created all of the colors and layers for her butterfly thank you card with her very well thought out tutorial.

Cathy Parlitsis. There is so much in the way of gorgeous details in this card, including that delightful rosette in the middle of the ruffled lace flower and the mat for the framelit. The Fancy Fan embossing folder is also the perfect accent for the sheet of paper from the International Bazaar set of Designer Series Paper.

Bensarmom. We had trouble counting all of the many techniques that Sue used in this stunning card showing off the latest Stampin' Up! stamp set. And all of those techniques complement each other so well that it's hard to imagine this card without all of them.