SUOC #66, Our Spring Holiday Top 3!

3 / 25 / 133 / 25 / 13

Our last Stampin' Up! Only Challenge was to make a project about Easter, Passover, or whatever holiday you celebrate as Spring begins. And what a diverse group of entries we received covering these celebrations! Thank you all so much for contributing some fab ideas for this week's holidays!

As always, no matter how many wonderful projects we receive, we choose our Top 3 and I hope you like them as well as we did. For those of you who are awarded our "Top 3" designation, don't forget that you are welcome to use our html "Top 3" code that you can find in the middle part of our left column!

Karren Johnson. We loved the layout of this card, including the way that Karren "popped" the balloon from the circle on the right. The colors are beautifully balanced, too, as well as the design of the card with those lovely colored flowers in the lower left.

Amanda Frankel. What a beautifully creative display of punch art in this unique design. This is a wonfderful use of Stampin' Up! products!

Deena Boos Deena's card is just what those of us who continue to get snow want our spring to look like! The flowers are so realistic, and this makes a beautiful Easter card!

SUO Challenge 65, Our Going Green Top 3

3 / 12 / 133 / 12 / 13

I have to tell you that this challenge provided a lot more fun that many of our challenges – and you'll know what I mean if you make sure to read the blog post for the first of our Top 3 entrants for the challenge. I'm still laughing, and I can probably truthfully claim to have memorized the whole story!

Thanks so much to all of you who joined in in our "Going Green" challenge, and we're all looking forward to seeing all of you – and even more! – as we get deeper and warmer intro Spring!

Linda Callahan. Linda's card is so beautifully balanced, and we loved the 4-leaf clover with the word, "Lucky." The splash of yellow was a nice finishing touch! You have GOT to read her story.

Charissa Laarman. We loved the dimension in Charissa's Shamrock and the texture that highlighted the entire card.

Julie Gearinger. The layering and all of the shading of greens in Julie's card is just beautiful. And it's so much fun to have a Christmas card this time of the year!

SUO Challenge #66 – Easter Parade – and More!

3 / 12 / 133 / 25 / 13

So very many of us have already started to make our Spring greeting cards, not just for Easter but also for other celebrations such as the Spring Equinox and the Festival of Passover. There are so many stamps and embellishments that we can use for all of these kinds of cards that Stampin' Up! provides for us that it's definitely a fun time of the year for us to show off our creativity.

Your challenge over the next two weeks is to show YOUR creativity for your favorite seasonal celebration. Most of our design team members are showing off Stampin' Up!'s Easter Stamps. But you are definitely NOT limited to Easter and we are really looking forward to lots of different ideas from all of you!

As always, the rules for the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge blog are at the end of this blog post. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions. For now, we hope you'll enjoy getting some inspiration from our Design Team!

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 cards posted to the internet after March 11, 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: March 12, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

March 23, 2013 (9 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #65 – Going Green!

2 / 26 / 132 / 26 / 13

It's hard to believe that, before the end of this week, March will be here! And once March is here – at least in the northern hemisphere – we are going to be beginning to be seeing lots of green! Already I have seen photos of crocuses with their green leaves peeking through some snow.

And of course there are those of us who have fun with St. Patrick's Day Green! I remember going to school on St. Patrick's Day and making sure that I had at least something green or else it was open season on pinching! This month St. Patty's Day is a Sunday and I'll be sure to have my favorite green sweater no matter where I head that day!

But whether you celebrate the green of spring or the green of a bit of the Irish, or just one or more of the fun greens that are in the Stampin' Up! collection, I hope you'll join in our Going Green Challenge.

Our Design Team has a fun variety of Green to help you with some inspiration –
and we're looking forward to your challenge entries. All the rules are at the end of this post.