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

1 / 9 / 121 / 10 / 12

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!

1 / 9 / 121 / 9 / 12

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!

SUO Challenge 34, Merry and Happy and Everything Joyous!

12 / 13 / 1112 / 13 / 11

It's mid-December, and all around me I hear holiday greetings. The greetings I most frequently hear are, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays." But there are many other holiday greetings that we hear this time of year – Happy Hanukkah and Joyous Kwanzaa are just two more. Whatever the greeting, though, invariably they begin with Merry, Happy, or Joyous. And it's so much fun to make cards that express those bright, cheerful and joyous feeling of the holidays. So that's what our Design Team has done for our Stampin' Up! Only Challenge 34 – some card to inspire us to be happy with whatever we're celebrating this time of the year.

And we'd love to have you join in our fun! Just create a card to celebrate a December Holiday and add a link to it at the bottom of this post. I'm sure that there are quite a few of us and many of our readers will be thrilled to have some great ideas for last minute celebration cards!

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.

SUO Challenge 33, Our Top Three!

12 / 12 / 1112 / 12 / 11

Wow, isn't that title for this post a convergence of threes! Maybe just for giggles, we'll have a top 4 when we get to post 44. Or maybe not – just a wild thought that popped into my tired little brain!

And what a top three we have this time around! We always have trouble picking out three because all members of the design team pick THEIR top three and I have to work from there. This time, while we had lots of different opinions as usual, there was one name that was on EVERYone's list.

But that doesn't mean that each and every project shared for this challenge wasn't wonderful – they ALL are and we appreciate all of you who enter our challenges. I hope those of you who haven't clicked on the links in last week's post will take some time to do so today – it's well worth the effort!

Now for our Top Three for Challenge 33:

Kris Lynch. I just cannot imagine how anyone could look at Kris' project and not say, "Wow!" This picture is just the outside of the Peek-a-Boo Nativity that Kris created with scraps that she never throws away. You have to visit her blog post (click on the picture at the right) to see all the detail behind the doors!

Marlene Peters was also on many of our lists with her Snowflake and Scallop Circle Cards. Yes, it's cards plural! She made the same card with different colors and we were just amazed at how different each one feels. This card is my favorite among the three that she displayed on her blog.

Bonnie Klass shared with us a card that is so simple yet definitely elegant. This would be a great card for a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator to use in a workshop, and a great card for any of us to make when our time is short but we just have to have something well, elegant! The traditional Christmas colors in this card are stunning, again in their simplicity. But we could see this layout used in cards for many different occasions!