SUO Challenge #56, Stampin’ Up! Loves Animals – Our Top 3!

10 / 29 / 1210 / 29 / 12

Wow, not only does Stampin' Up! love animals, but quite a few of you do, too! Thanks so much for sharing your projects with animals – and Birds and Bugs! – for the SUO Challenge #56.

Congratulations to our Top 3!

Brenna Anderson. Brenna's is overall a beautiful card, with a layout that nicely accents the fluttering of the butterflies. We especially liked the way that the ribbon divides the card and provides a lovely accent to both the top and the bottom elements.

Shana Gaff. The "Baby Wipe" technique never gets old, and Shana really showed it off beautifully with these multi-colored butterflies. Notice how she, too, used ribbon to divide the card horizontally. That's a really nice effect!

Melissa Davis. Melissa used the Sizzix Framelits and Embossing Folders so creatively to form the center of this card – with the lovely bird setting it off quite nicely. And there's more ribbon for us all to enjoy along with the bird!

SUO Challenge #54, For the Kids – Our Top 3!

10 / 2 / 12

If projects both from our Design Team as well as from our entrants this week are any indication, there are a lot of lucky children out there who are going to receive some really great paper-crafted projects! As always, we had a lot of fun chatting about all the projects, but, as always, we have managed to pick a Top 3 from a really wonderful group of projects!

So here are our Top 3 picks for Challenge #54! Click on a photograph to learn more about each project from the designer's blog.

Melissa Davies. We thought using the truck stamp as a dump truck and having the contents spill over to the base of the card was a fab idea! Of course, using the framelit for the shape of the card and the creative cutting of the "rocks" were equally creative. Sigh. Some of us have more of the creative genes that others!

Shana Gaff. Aren't these "happy colors" picked out by a child just the greatest?! And then the card itself with its creative design is such a fun idea!

Julie Cluff. This bag with the coordinating tag made us smile – and those yellow spider eyes are perfect! You definitely should check out Julie's video on how to make this whole project!

SUO Challenge 52 – A Photo Op – Our Top 3!!

9 / 3 / 12

We were wondering what kind of entries we'd get for this unusual challenge for us. It did not surprise us at all that a good number of the entries were scrapbook pages, but we were delighted with the variety of the designs. I know it's hard to think of photos as the fronts of cards or as elements in a 3-D project. But we hope this at least got you thinking about those possibilities.

As always, we thank all of you for your entires – we loved looking at each and every one of them! But we did managed to come up with out Top 3 for this challenge, and hope you all like them as well as we did.

We'd also like to comment that two of this week's Top 3 are new to our challenges – a big thanks to Shana and CJ for their first-time entries!

Shana Gaff. Shana's die cut photo of a sunset seemed just to be a perfect use for the Stampin' Up! framelit. The top of the shape especially mimics clouds, and the bottom made us feel as if we were on the beach looking out at this scene. The sentiment goes beautifully with the photo, and was offset from it so nicely. Lovely, simple card!

Diane Vander Galien. This is a fantastic example of how to use photos in My Digital Studio by Stampin' Up! The background, with its low-opacity photo is the perfect backdrop for the oval photo. Of course, this is a gorgeous couple, too, which really makes this digital web page special!

CJ Thibault. What a great anniversary card! The sunset in the circles at the bottom accent the sunset shining through in the wedding photo so nicely, even though they were taken at different times. Another beautiful couple, too!

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SUO Challenge 51, Love Those Designer Papers – Our Top 3!

8 / 20 / 128 / 20 / 12

There are certainly many of you who do, indeed, love your Stampin Up! Designer Series Papers! We were thrilled to see all the different papers and all the different ways that you used them as part of our Love Those Designer Papers! Challenge. I've already had to pull some out of my Designer Paper box to see if I can CASE some of your projects – what fun!

So thank you all for your fabulous entries, from which we have picked this challenge's Top 3! Just remember that you're all tops in our estimation – lots of oohs and aahs this time as there are every time we send out a challenge.

Now for our Designer Papers Top 3. Be sure to click on the pictures of their projects to go to their blogs to learn more about them!

Diane Vander Galien.

We had no idea that so many of our design team members just LOVE pinwheels! And what a fantastic job Diane did in showing off the Designer Series Papers with the pinwheels as well as with the pennants. She even made that delightful holder to complete this wonderful centerpiece! (Your SUO Challenges Coordinator did NOT miss the candy on the table! Definitely MY fave!)

Julie Cluff. How did she do that??? Well, Julie described in quite some detail how she made that gorgeous Peacock with all those layers! Just a WOW! And how stunning is the bird against that backdrop of the International Bazaar Designer Series Paper – great accent!

Melissa Davies. We all loved the soft colors and delicate elements in this card. All the details just perfectly accent the design of this simply beautiful card. Fabulous look!

Thanks to all of you for participating in the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge!