SUO Challenge #75, Get Well Cards – Our Top 3!

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I'm so glad to see that so many of our readers now have Get Well Cards in their stash of gorgeous Stampin' Up! cards. And I hope that very few of you actually have to use them during this fun, relaxing time of the year. For those of you who do have to use them, rest assured that you will all be sending the BEST kind of Get Well Card – one that's from the heart and made with the best paper crafting products out there!

There were so many beautiful cards this time – actually, all of them were beautiful! But we've managed to make our selection for this challenges Top 3 Entrants!

Congratulations to you all, and especially our Top 3. Please be sure to "pick up" your SUO Challenge Top 3 blog widget over at the left!

Kathy Schweinfurth. Such striking colors and the butterfly is SO realistic! There are so many wonderful details in this card, and we love them all!

Stef Perry. What a lovely, soft, color combination! And the watercoloring in this card finishes off the whole effect beautifully!

Karren Johnson. Karren used the white space beautifully in this Clean and Simple (CAS) card. The pop of color with the red butterfly is the perfect accent!

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!