SUO Challenge #58 – A Clean and Simple Holiday Card

11 / 13 / 1211 / 13 / 12

There's only a month and a half left until Christmas and even less time left until Hanukkah! Do you have YOUR holiday cards done?

This is the time of the year when some of us are desperate for some great ideas for Clean and Simple – CAS – designs that we are able to complete quickly but still end up with a beautiful greeting card. Our design team members have come up with some fabulous CAS ideas, and I know that you can, too!

So that's all your challenge is this time – create and share with us a lovely holiday card that's clean and simple. Not too many embellishments, not too many layers, not too many steps. In fact, some of the most beautiful cards I've seen have had no layers, and lots of open space, drawing our attention to a small but elegant element on the card. I really can hardly wait to see all your ideas!

To get you started, I hope you'll enjoy our Design Team's Clean and Simple designs!

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 November 12, 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: November 13, 2012 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

November 24, 2012 (9 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #57, Elegant Autumn – Our Top 3!

11 / 12 / 1211 / 11 / 12

Autumn isn't just all about cute – and quite a few of you agreed with us and entered our Elegant Autumn Challenge! Such lovely projects, and I'm sure many of them are going to be cased before the season ends – and even beyond!

Thanks for all of your entries! And congratulations to our Top 3 for this challenge!

Melissa Davies. OK – our first of the Top 3 isn't in an Autumn Season right now. Melissa lives in Australia where Spring is the season of the moment, so her focus was on things getting ready to grow in her seed packet project. Every detail in Melissa's spring gardening-theme card is amazing. We loved the rock-n-rolled leaves, the Crystal Effects on the die-cut letters, the subtle script from French Foliage over the First Edition DSP, right down to the tiny pearls on the Adorning Accents scallops.

Vicki Burdick. Vicki's project is just simply gorgeous. Our favorites were the amazing punch art pumpkins and the lattice in the background.

Aimee Cretsinger. What fabulous leaves and we truly liked the way Aimee colored the Hodge Podge Hardware to match the other elements in the card.

SUO Challenge #57 – Elegant Autumn (or Spring if you’re down under!)

10 / 30 / 1210 / 29 / 12

Ah, here we are almost into the month of November the second full month of Autumn. The past few weeks, I'm sure we've all enjoyed all the fun projects that people have been sharing using some of the fun Halloween products that Stampin' Up! has created for those of us who love Stampin' Up! products – I know I have!

So now I'm ready for a little bit of elegance as we here in the United States start paying more attention to our Thanksgiving celebration. Of course, there are many, many ways to make a project elegant. Stamps, layouts, colors, embellishments – all can make a project elegant. I'm sure you'll agree that there's a nice variety of elegance provided as an inspiration by our Design Team. And I'm equally sure that there are many more ideas you have that can add some delight to our collection this week!

Your challenge is to make an elegant card, and give it an autumnal feel – or give it a spring time feel if you're in Australia or New Zealand! I'm sure there are some of us who would rather be looking forward to warmer weather already! As always, please make your projects with Stampin' Up! products only. We are really looking forward to see what you are going to use for this project!

Heidi's Card

Deb's Projecty

Robin's Card

Cindy Elam's Project

Mary's Card

Connie's Card

Jennifer's Project

Karen'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 October 29, 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 30, 2012 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

November 10, 2012 (9 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge #55, Feel That Texture – Our Top 3!

10 / 15 / 12

A special congratulations to our Top 3 for Challenge #55 in which we celebrated the beginning of our 3rd year as a Stampin' Up! Only challenge blog. What fun it's been these past two years, and we're really excited about the coming year with all the new products that Stampin' Up! will be offering – fab as always, we're sure!

Besides "just" being named our Top 3 for the week, each of these ladies gets to choose a Stampin' Up! Embossing Folder as blog candy to help us celebrate! If each of you would let me know which Embossing Folder you'd like, I'll place an order for it this week!

Offering Blog Candy was fun, and we may not wait for another whole year to do it! So keep in touch with us as the year goes on.

Shanna's Card Shana Gaff. The details in the leaves are spectacular, and we loved that Shana gave us some instructions on how to make our own! The button with the Baker's Twine and the layer with the embossed background add to the overall elegance in this stunning card.

Melissa's Card Melissa Davies. The colors and all of the details in this card are absolutely amazing! This is another elegant card with such a variety of textures that were perfect for this challenge!

Cat's Project Cat Spicer. The elegance in this card is the simplicity of the design, and the fun way in which Cat used texture to give us the feel of that sailboat on the waves. And what a fun idea to use the die she used for the waves – and the little detail of the sentiment on the bottom wave.

–