SUO Challenge #52 – A Photo Op!

8 / 20 / 128 / 21 / 12

Quite often I receive greeting cards from friends and family that have photographs on the front. Sometimes they're photos of gorgeous flowers or art work, and other times photos of the places where the card was made. So why don't we think more about doing that with all the wonderful Stampin' Up! products that we have to accent some of our own beautiful photographs?

With that thought, we decided this was a good time to bring the photo back into our projects. Of course, many of us started out our papercrafting hobby or business as scrapbookers. And we know how much scrappers love to embellish their photos! So, whether it's a greeting card, a scrap page, or some other kind of papercrafting project using Stampin' Up! products, our challenge to you today is to make something featuring a photo.

To give you some ideas, here is a great variety of projects from our SUO Challenge Design Team. We hope you get inspired by them to join in our challenge!

Karen's Page

Connie's Card

Cindy Coutts' Page

Mary Brown

Cindy E

Cindy Elam

Robin's Card

Robin Messenheimer

Pam Staples

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 20, 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 21, 2012 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

September 1, 2012 (Noon USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge 51, Love Those Designer Papers – Our Top 3!

8 / 20 / 128 / 20 / 12

There are certainly many of you who do, indeed, love your Stampin Up! Designer Series Papers! We were thrilled to see all the different papers and all the different ways that you used them as part of our Love Those Designer Papers! Challenge. I've already had to pull some out of my Designer Paper box to see if I can CASE some of your projects – what fun!

So thank you all for your fabulous entries, from which we have picked this challenge's Top 3! Just remember that you're all tops in our estimation – lots of oohs and aahs this time as there are every time we send out a challenge.

Now for our Designer Papers Top 3. Be sure to click on the pictures of their projects to go to their blogs to learn more about them!

Diane Vander Galien.

We had no idea that so many of our design team members just LOVE pinwheels! And what a fantastic job Diane did in showing off the Designer Series Papers with the pinwheels as well as with the pennants. She even made that delightful holder to complete this wonderful centerpiece! (Your SUO Challenges Coordinator did NOT miss the candy on the table! Definitely MY fave!)

Julie Cluff. How did she do that??? Well, Julie described in quite some detail how she made that gorgeous Peacock with all those layers! Just a WOW! And how stunning is the bird against that backdrop of the International Bazaar Designer Series Paper – great accent!

Melissa Davies. We all loved the soft colors and delicate elements in this card. All the details just perfectly accent the design of this simply beautiful card. Fabulous look!

Thanks to all of you for participating in the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge!

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

8 / 7 / 128 / 7 / 12

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!