SUO Challenge #45 – 3-Dimensional Flowers

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Everywhere I look these days, I see flowers everywhere – even on cards and other papercrafting projects! So, with many of us in the middle of prime late Spring flower season out in the garden, we decided that those of us at our computers should have some lovely flowers to view while we're surfing the net. So this week's challenge is to create a card or other project with 3-Dimensional Flowers on it. It can be anything from flowers popped up from a card's surface with some Stampin' Dimensionals, to fabric and ribbon flowers, to intricately folded paper flowers – and everything in between!!

Here are the projects offered by our SUO Challenge Design Team, a bouquet with flowers picked from the products in their Stampin' Up! stashes. While we may not be able to sniff these lovely flowers, I'm sure we can imagine how some of them might tickle our noses' fancy if we found them out in a garden.

Mary's Card

Heidi's Card

Jennifer's Card

Deb's Card

Karen's Card

Cindy Elam's Card

Cindy Coutts' CArd

Michelle's Card

Pam's Card

To participate in our challenge, make a card 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 May 14, 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 #44 – May is For Mothers!

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One of the most popular times of the year for making those special handmade greeting cards and gifts is the two weeks leading up to Mother's Day! So here we are right in the thick of Mother's Day preparation with a challenge that will be sure to gather interest around our Stampin' Up! world.

Even for those of us who do not have a mother with whom to celebrate the day, or who are not ourselves a mother, there is usually someone special who is a special mother in our lives. I have three special young women in my life who are mothers to my grandchildren, and they give me good reason to celebrate Mother's Day each and every year. It is for them that I make my special Mother's Day cards and gifts. I hope you will join me and the rest of the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge Design team in making and displaying projects that you make to celebrate Mother's Day 2012! Just add your project using the Link tool at the end of today's post!

Robin's Project

Jennifer's Card

Heidi Baks (There's a seed packet in this card!)

To participate in our challenge, make a card and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet, and 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 April 30, 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, or other crafting 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 not sell picture frames, so use of picture frames from another company is fine. If you have a question, please send an e-mail to our Coordinator, Robin Messenheimer, and she'll be glad to answer it!

As with the last challenge, the time for this challenge is going to be one day shorter than usual to accommodate some scheduling conflicts. We'll also be a bit late in announcing the Top 3 for this challenge – but it will only be a day or two later than usual.

SUO Challenge #43 – Our Top 3!

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Thanks so much to all of you who joined in our challenge to say "Goodbye to the Occasions Mini Catalog." Some of you, of course, aren't in the North American Mini Catalog zone, so you featured stamps from other catalogs, which is just fine. We're nothing if not flexible here at Stampin' Up! Only (except we're not flexible when it comes to our "Stampin' Up! ONLY rule; we tend to dig our heels in on that!)

As always, so many great projects and so many of you received mention as we determined our Top 3 this week. So on to our congratulations for projects well done to::

Diane Vander Galien. Oh, my! How soft are those watercolored colors, and how beautifully layered is the card!! This is such an elegant card, and shows off so many wonderful techniques and products that it's hard to focus on any one as the "star" of the card. If nothing else, all the texture just made us say, "Wow, what a pretty card!"

Trish Giesbrecht. This card has so many elements that are just perfectly placed on it! The embossing with the Labels Framelits is a perfect frame for those two little flowers. Again, a very soft and pretty card!

Susan Rowe. This is not just a card – it's a whole suite of projects that makes a perfect gift package! Susan's in Australia, so is using the delicious Spice Cake paper to which we up north said, "Goodbye" back in January. So nice to see it again in such a fab project!

If you'd like to see more about any of these three projects, just click on the picture!

SUO Challenge #43 – Occasions Mini Catalog Goodbye!

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We definitely know that not everyone who frequents and participates in our challenges is a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. But our Design Team Members are all demonstrators, and we in North America are about to say, "Goodbye," to the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog. Yes, there are lots of other retirements underway. Heavens, there was just this past Sunday the announcement of over 200 Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets that will retire for North America come May 31st of this year!

Nonetheless, the Occasions Mini Catalog has a special place in our hearts. So we've created some "goodbye" projects to show off to our audience. If you have a favorite item or items from the 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog which you're going to miss, we hope that you, too, will share that with us. And even if you don't, we hope that you will join with us by sharing a card or other project made with a Stampin' Up! product that has retired or it otherwise no longer available to purchase. And, believe me, we all have a lot of those! So you may just give someone else a great idea for using that stamp set or other product that's been gathering dust in a drawer or closet!

You know the routine – make a card and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet, and 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 April 16, 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!

Oh, and a heads up on the closing time for this challenge. It's going to be one day shorter than usual to accommodate a bit of a vacation for your SUO Challenge Coordinator! There will be a few other timing adjustments around the end of April/beginning of May, but we'll announce them in plenty of time.