SUO Challenge #74, Favorite Accessories – Our Top 3!

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What fun to learn what everyone's favorite Stampin' Up! Accessories are! The variety of "favorites" included some samples where "variety" was the key – you couldn't pick your favorite! There were more of you who chose Textured Impression Embossing Folders than any other accessory. The embossing didn't stop there, though, as a couple of you chose Embossing Powder as your favorite. Punches, which have been around for awhile, are the favorites of many of you. And two of Stampin' Up!'s newest accessories – Candy Dots and Simply Pressed Clay – also made the long list of favorites!

So thank you all for making this a fun set of entries to go through. The creativity of each and every one of you is outstanding! It was difficult as always to pick our Top 3, but pick we did.

Congratulations to our Top 3 for the Accessories Challenge! You may click on the photo of their project to go to their online post to learn more about them.

Karren Johnson. This card does a fabulous job of showing off the emboss resist technique. We especially liked how the black card base made the colors pop! This is definitely a fun "grunge" look card!

Linda Callahan. We loved this bright, cheery card with all the well-displayed embellishments. The colors are all so beautifully complementary, and the layout shows all the elements of the card off perfectly!

Katie Shimshock. This is a beautifully Clean and Simple (CAS) card, with the butterflies perfectly complementing the Designer Series Paper and the ruffled ribbon.

SUO Challenges 72, Weddings – Our Top 3!

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Thanks to all of you who participated in our challenge to make projects that would be appropriate for weddings! While there were not as many entries as we usually have, our Design Team agreed that, what we lacked in quantity, you certainly made up for in quality! More than half of our entrants for this challenge received votes in our Top 3 selection!

So congratulations to all of you – but especially to our Top 3 for the Weddings Challenge! Click on the pictures of their projects to go to more details on their blogs. We hope our Top 3 winners will take a copy of the Top 3 banner and add it to their blogs – it's down towards the bottom of this blog on the left side.

Sharon Green. All the details in Sharon's card make for an absolutely gorgeous wedding card. For those of you not yet familiar with the latest Stampin' Up! catalog, there is a Simply Sent Kit called Simply Fabulous, and Sharon used part of the laser-cut card front to accent her fabulous border. Now I can see that this is going to have to go on my next shopping list! The ribbon and the glimmer butterfly accenting the glimmer paper under the border really make this a special card! Stunning!

Amanda Burditt. We loved the way that Amanda cut all those little white hearts with the Hearts a Flutter framelits and adhered them all together to make the embossed-looking background. Adding the red heart made with the same framelit added the perfect accent to make this a beautiful Clean and Simple card. Lovely!

Charissa Laarman. The layers and the colors in this card make this a very special Wedding card. Sharon skillfully used the Adorning Accents embossed hearts and the crochet ribbon trim as layers of their own with the other beautifully coordinated layers under the wedding dress. I personally really like the rock and roll technique that she used on the wedding dress, which highlighted the shabby chic look of the entire card. Gorgeous!

SUO Challenge 71, Favorite Retiring Sets – Our Top 3!

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Once again, thank you all for your delightful entries celebrating your favorite retiring or retired Stampin' Up! Stamp Sets. Here we are at the beginning of the new year, many of us waiting breathlessly for our first order from the new catalog. But we also love to go back and look at past favorites – even if they're from the near past!

So many of you received votes from our Design Team this time around it was hard just to pick a Top 3. But we did, and here they are! Just click on the pictures if you'd like to read more about their projects on their blogs.

Gloria Steger. We all loved all the details on this card – it's a great all-around card, even if Gloria did call it Christmas in May! The soft coloring is lovely, and the whole design makes for a very clean-looking card!

Shanna Gaff. We loved the use of the Vellum and how it softens the coloring behind the sentiment. One of our design team members offered, "It's always better with Vellum!" Such a lovely color combination, too!

Gayle Wheeler. First of all, I think that little bird is so darned cute – it's got to make anyone who looks at it smile! We also loved the free-form hills, and the use of the retiring Clouds Embossing Folder, just embossing a part of the sky. Overall a delightful picture!

SUO Challenges 70, Butterflies – Our Top 3!

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After we posted this challenge, it was almost a week before I made anything with other than Butterflies. They really do add so much to greeting cards and other projects!

Thanks to all of you who entered this challenge – there are so many great ideas for using Stampin' Up!'s Butterfly products that I'm sure many of us will be using a lot going forward. But, as always, we do have to select our Top 3 entrants – difficult this week as it always is!

So please enjoy once more the creations of our Top 3 Designers for this latest SUO Challenge!

Kathy Tanner. We all loved the chalkboard technique and the way that Kathy colored the butterfly so softly that it looks right at home on the chalkboard. This is a beautifully laid out card, with great use of the space.

Fiona Whitten. The butterflies definitely take center stage as they dance across this card! You really do have to go to her blog to see the store front that inspired this card. We really loved how Fiona caught the same feeling as on the store front, and all the colors that she used to make this card.

Gloria Steger. What a fun design – and all the colors that she used make this just a gorgeous work of art! And, with all the beautiful details, including the white embossing, Gloria definitely made the butterfly the focal point of the design.