SUO 67, Our Spring is in the Air Top 3!

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As I write this, there are cardinals singing away outside my window. Here in Hawaii they are almost like Mockingbirds, with a new song just about every time they open their little beaks! So Spring is definitely in the air.

And we loved each and every entry in our challenge this week – even some My Digital Studio cards, which are always welcome! But, as always we have decided on our Top 3 for the challenge, and they are:

Deena Boos. Deena wow'ed us with her flowers "cut out" from the frame. What a gorgeous way to show what we can do with Stampin' Up! products. And those butterflies really do look like they're flying over the leaves. Wow!

Julie Wadlinger. The flowers in Julie's card are so beautifully framed. And the colors in the whole card are just lovely and so pleasing to the eye. We especialy like the way that she used the patterns from the poppy sheet in the Floral District Designer Series Paper.

Cindy Malone. Cindy's bright colors just cry out "Spring"! And we really enjoy the way that she layered up her card. Of course, this image is just perfect for Spring!

Congratulations again to our Top 3! Don't forget to get the blog sidebar code for the Top 3 winners, over to the left and down a bit if you'd like to display it on your blog!

SUOC #67 – Spring is in the Air!

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I know that it snowed this weekend where a lot of you live. But Spring is still in the air somewhere out there! And look at the places where the snow has thinned out a bit and you'll see the beginnings of lots of Spring Flowers peeking through! My favorite part of Spring is when the birds start singing up a storm looking for mates and letting us all know that they are building their nests for all those little nestlings that will be filling the air with their begging chirps. Yes, even where I live in Hawaii, the birds are letting us know that winter is over – beginning much too early in the morning for my taste! Oh, and of course Spring is that time when a person's fancy turns to love! I'm not limiting that to the young or the men.

For our last challenge, there were lots of projects that featured Spring as we were getting ready to celebrate our Spring holidays. But Spring has just started and there are so many ways to celebrate it with our Stampin' Up! Only products! We hope you will pull out your Spring stamps, papers, and embellishments and get started right away to make some fun project for this week's challenge! The "rules," as always, are at the end of this post, as is the link tool to use to share our project with us (and multiple projects are always welcome).

To get you started, here are some fun samples 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 projects posted to the internet after March 25, 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 26, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

April 6, 2013 (6 am USA Eastern Time)

SUOC #66, Our Spring Holiday Top 3!

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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

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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!