SUO Challenge 71 – Favorite Retiring Stamp Sets!

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By the time we issue our next challenge here at the Stampin' Up! Only Challenges blog, dozens of favorite stamp sets will have been retired by Stampin' Up! But this happens every year – twice a year for awhile there! – and so most of us are used to this time of transition. This doesn't make it any easier for those of use who are SU! Demonstrators to say, "Goodbye," to our favorites. Of course, if you're not a demonstrator (and even if you are) you may keep all your favorites around for years and years.

As all of our current SUO Challenge Design Team Members are Stampin' Up! Demonstrators, my challenge to them was to use their favorite stamp set that is retiring this year. For the rest of you, we'd really like to see your favorites that are retiring this year – but you may use any retired Stampin' Up! stamp set that is a favorite to enter Challenge 71.

The challenge rules and deadlines are at the end of this blog post. One thing I'd like to emphasize is that, as the SUO Challenges Coordinator, I'm here to help you if you have problems getting your entries posted. Just send me an e-mail (link below) and we'll get things fixed up!

Finally, once again we are saying, "Goodbye," not to a stamp set but to one of our Design Team Members. Cindy Elam has been a treasure for all of us, and I'm really going to miss her style here at SUO Challenges! But she's not leaving the Stampin' Up! community, and I'm sure we'll have lots of chances to see her work, even if it's not here. She does have one last design for us, though. I hope you'll enjoy it as well as the projects of all of the other Design Team members!

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 projects posted to the internet AFTER May 20, 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: May 21, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

June 1, 2013 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO Challenge 70 – Butterflies Are So Much Fun!

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I personally am so pleased that Stampin' Up! has chosen to keep my favorite Butterfly products for the 2013-2014 Catalog year. I just love what we can do with the Punches, Sizzlits, Sizzix Die, and Stamp Sets (including the Best of Butterflies that will be around for the next year!). And obviously our Design Team has fun with the Stampin' Up! Butterflies, too!

You may notice a couple of new names in the group today. Yes, we have TWO new Design Team members joining us as of this week's SUO Challenge, and we are so excited to be introducing them to you today. You'll recognize one of them as someone who has participated in some of our challenges. And the other is completely new to SUO Challenges. We're thrilled to have them both join us.

Deena Boos. Her blog is My Home Grown Art.

I am a wife to a wonderful husband (who puts up with my crazy craftiness) and a mother of two children; a teenage boy, and a newly grown-up girl.

I fell in love with paper crafting the minute I put my first stamp to paper, at a Stampin’ Up! class, and I became a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator only one week after that! My passion for paper crafting, and sharing with others, has now been going on for nearly 7 years.

I have enjoyed playing along with SU-Only Challenges, and now I’m thrilled to be a part of such a talented group, who share the same love for paper crafting as I do.

Justin Krieger. His blog is JK Cards.

I’m a techie that does computer consulting. I live in Long Island, NY and I have a wonderful daughter Taylor and Mini Schnauzer Winston.

I have always done some kind of paper crafting ever since I was little when I made entire car dashboards out of oaktag. I discovered my love of card making in January of 2010 while watching a show on PBS. I saw them make a waterfall card and I thought I can do that so I went out and got some supplies and made one.

My friend introduced me to Stampin’ Up! in August of that year and I became an Independent Demonstrator in September. I’m completely hooked and take some time to make something every day. It relaxes me and is my wind down at the end of the day!

I'm sure you'll be as happy as the Design Team is to welcome their new styles to the bi-weekly SUO Challenge Blog! Here are their entries for the Butterflies Are So Much Fun challenge – and we're looking forward to seeing your entries! The link to enter is at the end of the blog.

PLEASE remember this: We're looking for projects posted to the internet after May 6, 2013. This is a NEW challenge!

Challenge Dates: May 7, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

May 18, 2013 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

SUO 69, Anything Sizzix – Our Top 3!

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As I often say when I go through our entries at the end of every challenge, "Wow! What a great variety of fabulous projects!" And so it was this week when all that we asked of you was to use something that Stampin' Up! has had in its Sizzix Collection. You all did a wonderful job of showing off just how diverse the Sizzix line of products is!

So here is my favorite part of every challenge – naming our Top 3! And thanks to all of the rest of you, many of whom got multiple votes for the top 3. We love ll your projects!

Stef Perry. There are so many great details in this card that really do make it a, "Wow!" We all agree that Stef did a fab job highlighting the Baja Breeze background and one of us even offered up a sigh that we're going to lose this color that's a favorite of many of us. The Sizzix texture throughout this card along with (did I mention this before) all the great details give it a lovely vintage-antique feel. Just lovely!

Vicki Parson. It's always fun to have a 3-dimensional project as an entry, and Vicki did this one up beautifully. The colors are so much fun with all the various Sizzix details in the project. We especially like how the flowers mask where the handle ends meet the box. Fun project!

Julia Quinn. We just couldn't resist this beautifully-embossed Vellum – such a nice job with it all centered on the project! The layered ribbons are beautiful and the perfect accent for the embossing. The addition of the paper doily is a striking accent for this soft and elegant card!

SUO 69 – Anything Sizzix!

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I had no idea what I got myself into when I posted this as this week's challenge! Mainly it's because I didn't realize how much Sizzix stuff I have!! I'll bet you will be surprised at what you have, too!

So we're giving you the chance to look through all your Stampin' Up! products to find all that you have that is Sizzix and make a project with it! I'm really hoping that some of you will use some of those fab 3-dimensional dies. But dies of any size, Sizzlits, framelits, textured impression embossing folders – everything is up for grabs when you decide on this week's project! Have fun with it.

And now the most fun for me with this week's post – the introduction of our newest Design Team Member. You'll probably recognize her as someone who's been contributing to the challenges pretty regularly. She has a style all her own, and we are so excited to welcome Julie Gearinger to the SUO Challenge Design Team! Here's what Julie has to say to introduce herself to our readers:

Hi, my name is Julie Gearinger and I live in Frederick, Maryland, with my wonderful husband (just celebrated 30 years together, and our two beautiful "fur-babies". I have always been artistic and in 1999 attended my first Stampin' Up! party. I had never heard of Stampin' Up! or stamping for that matter, but had so much fun that I decided to sign up as a demonstrator that very night (to the surprise of my upline)!

I love being able to share cardmaking with others and am thrilled when they realize that they can be artists as well. I feel so honored and thankful to be part of the Design Team at SUO Challenges and look forward to seeing all of your beautiful creations in the future.

Julie will be our newest member for a very short time. Oh, she'll be here for awhile, but this will be the final Design Team blog post for Jen Timko. I am so going to miss her style in our Design Team pictures! But she's keeping busy all over the internet, and I'm sure you'll continue to see her fab projects as you surf Stampin' Up! and other sities. The best of luck in everything, Jen- we'll miss you! We already have a new Design Team member to take Jennifer's place, and I'll be introducing her next time!

So now on to the samples created by our Design Team – including our newest member, Julie!