SUO Challenge 32, Our Top Three

11 / 29 / 11

The holiday season's just started and already I'm beginning to feel a bit frazzled! But I have so many people and projects for which to be thankful – including all of you who entered our last challenge, "Thankful," with your delightful projects which all of us on the design team thoroughly enjoyed!

But we try our best to pick a Top Three, reflecting a consensus of our Design Team members about whose projects did a special job of perking us up – although, as always, we love them all.

Kris Lynch. OK, we all want to know how people like Kris come up with these ideas! Just, wow! My favorite comment from our design team was, "I think what I like about the punch art turkey lady is that she's obviously FAT and cute and motherly!!" followed closely by, "You have got to be KIDDING!" This punch art is beyond cute and made us all smile (even a giggle) when we first saw it. After focusing on that, we were also impressed by the use of the DSP for the apron and gloves, and the Sizzix frame for the platter. Well, well done!

Denise Pustelniak. This is simply a delightful My Digital Studio gatefold card, with warm colors that made us feel, well, warm – and cozy. We especially like the diamond orientation of the front panel of the card. Just a nice card!

Lisa Martz. We definitely liked the whole layout of this card, and especially the flower that accents all the colors in the DSP so well. The use of the ribbon in the flower to accent the pieces of ribbon over on the side is so very artistic – a gorgeous card as yours always are!

SUO Challenge 32, Thankful

11 / 15 / 1111 / 16 / 11

Here in North America we're right in the middle of our traditional Thanksgiving celebrations, with our Canadian Stampin' Up! community having already celebrated their annual Thanksgiving Holiday in October and our United States Community planning to celebrate their traditional Thanksgiving in just a bit more than a week. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

But Thanksgiving is not the only time or season for thankfulness. We frequently have something for which to be thankful, whether it's for a plentiful harvest for the community or for a simple act of kindness for us personally. So our challenge to you this week is to make a card or gift to express your thankfulness – for anything or anyone – and share it with us here at Stampin' Up! Only Challenges!

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.

To help you get started, here is some inspiration from our talented Design Team members!

Deb's Card

Cindy's Card

Heidi's Gift

Jennifer's Card

Karen's Card

Pam's Card

Mary's Card

Robin's Card

SUO Challenge 31 – Our Top Three

11 / 15 / 11

What a delight it was to read all about all the projects submitted for our challenge to make a "Thinking of You" card. There were so many beautiful cards and, as always, we had to work hard to pick our Top Three for the challenge.

Kasey from Oz (Australia) wowed us all with her beautifully ornate embossed frame for a simply gorgeous "painting" of a ship. This really is true artistry of the stamping variety!

Tanya Bell (also from Australia!) just pulled this vintage look together perfectly. There was so much beautiful detail that it was hard not to keep looking at it to see if there was one more detail we missed!

Sheri Bradley's card has such a beautifully clean design. We loved the way the dogwood flower popped from the rest of the card, and how well it tied together with the rest of the paper!

SUO Challenge 31, Thinking of You!

11 / 1 / 1111 / 2 / 11

With all of the very specific kinds of greeting cards to make, you'd think that we could all keep busy with those! But so much of the time, I just want to make a card that uses that special stamp set or that special Designer Series Paper or that technique that I just read about on the Internet, and I don't really have any other purpose in mind. Until, that is, when I get to the end of the design process and realize that I really do want to "say" something with the card. More often than not, I end up using a simple greeting such as, "Friend to Friend," or "Thinking of You." But what do you do when you START with the idea of making a "Thinking of You" card? That's what we'd like to find out in this week's challenge.

So join with us in today's challenge – to make a greeting card just for the purpose of sending to someone to say you're thinking about them. I've already used the card I made for today's challenge to send to someone who's going to be undergoing some medical tests. I want her to know that I'm thinking about her as she approaches this day that will be somewhat of an ordeal. I can hardly wait to see what kind of card YOU would make to say, "Thinking of You"!

Here, as always, are some cards from our Design Team to get you started as you design your own card. Please remember to post your card using the InLinkz tool at the end of this post – and be sure to use Stampin' Up! products ONLY, and post only cards that you've made in response to (that is, after) we've posted today's challenge.