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!

 

 

 

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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!