SUO Challenge #46 – Our Top 3!

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First of all, I and all the members of the SUO Challenges Design Team would like to express a delighted, "Thank You!" to our first ever Guest Designers! It has been wonderful having them as members of our team, and they participated throughout the entire course of the last challenge, even providing their input to the voting for this week's Top 3! We can hardly wait to do this again, probably in late Fall 2012. All of our entrants are eligible to be invited to be Guest Designers, with those who have contributed the most to the challenges given top priority.

Speaking of "top," here are our Bright Summer Days Challenge Top 3:

April Jackson. This card certainly shows off the "Bright Summer Days" theme with the sunshine. And what a delightful way of displaying the tree from the "Season of Friendship" stamp set. Those bright flowers seem to love the sun shining down on them and that little bird reminded one of our Design Team members of the mockingbird singing outside her window – such a happy little fellow!

Patty Corriere. What a beautifully designed and executed card! All of the card's elements go together so well – the colors, the layout and the little piece of ribbon. And we definitely wanted to taste those cherries – they certainly look good enough to eat!

Diane Vander Galien. Diane did a fab job of showing off one of Stampin' Up!'s newest Hostess Sets and some of its newest colors and papers with this lovely window card. What makes this card especially easy on the eyes is the beautiful balance of all the elements that make it up.

SUO Challenge #46 – Bright Summer Days!

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As I write this, it is Memorial Day 2012 in the United States. Once we have finished remembering members of our armed services who have given their lives in defense of our country, we observe this day as the official "First Day of Summer." The school year is about done, barbecue grills are all fired up, and vacations are being planned. So our challenge for this week is to capture something about a bright summer day and turn it into a greeting card or some other project – with Stampin' Up! products Only, of course!

I probably don't need to say this, but our Aussie and Kiwi friends to the south are definitely NOT approaching summer! It's the end of Autumn in the southern hemisphere, and winter is about to descend on the land. But there's brightness in winter days, too! So those of you who are looking forward to some bright winter days with all the sports and other activities that go along with it, join in, too!

And this is a very special challenge for us at SUO Challenges! It's our first ever challenge featuring Guest Designers! We selected our very special Guest Designers for today's challenge from those of you who have been frequent contributors in our biweekly challenges. I'm sure all of you who are reading our blog today will gain some inspiration for this week's challenge theme from these fun projects – and we hope you'll welcome them by visiting their blogs to learn more about them!

To participate in our challenge, make a card and post a photo of it to your blog or a gallery on the internet. Then come back here and use our link tool at the bottom of this post to share the photo with us! We're looking for cards posted to the internet after May 28, 2012, and (of course!) made with Stampin' Up! products only. The products may be those that are in current catalogs, or they may be retired products. But (as our blog title says) SUO – Stampin' Up! Only! This means that Products from other papercrafting, rubber stamp, die-making or other companies may not be included in your project if Stampin' Up! sells a like product. For example, Stampin' Up! does not sell sewing thread. So use of sewing thread from another company is just fine. Stampin' Up! does sell the Sizzix Big Shot, so use of die-cuts, texture plates or other such products from another company is not fine. If you have a question, please send an e-mail to our Coordinator, Robin Messenheimer, and she'll be glad to answer it!

SUO Challenge #45 – Our Top 3!

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What a gorgeous bouquet of flowers you all brought to the SUO Challenge Blog! We all loved looking through all the entries, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of CASEing going on! As always, it was hard to "pick" our favorite flowers, but we think that you'll all love the bouquet we chose. So here are our Top 3 for the 3-Dimensional Flower Stampin' Up! Only challenge! Just click on a picture to find out more about the card from the designer's blog.

Sandi McIver. Look at all the different Stampin' Up! tools Sandi used to make this gorgeous flower! The textured petals take this to a whole new level – we'd love to have a bunch of these flowers in a vase our our desks!

Bonnie Klass. This is a delightfully folded flower for this card, and we especially liked the way that Bonnie tied the leaves of the flower together with the knotted accent ribbon. "Inspire" is the perfect word for this card!

Christine Blain. This is definitely not your basic Simply Sent kit card! We love how Christine really kicked it up a few notches with the beautifully matching flower, the layers and the bow.

SUO Challenge #44 – Our Top 3!

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We are finally getting around to a review of all of the gorgeous projects entered into our Mother's Day challenge, now that the SUO Challenges Coordinator has recovered from a bit of jet lag. Gosh that's getting harder the older I get!

It's also getting harder and harder for the SUO Challenge Design Team to come to an agreement on our Top 3 for our challenges. We are SO thrilled to have Stampin' Up! only projects of such quality all in one place! Of course, for Mother's Day, the projects were no exception. And here are the Top 3 on which we have finally decided. Congratulations to them all – and be sure to click on the photograph of their projects to go to their blogs or galleries to learn more about them!

Jonia Smith. The word that popped up on several of our ballots was, "Wow!" This set for Mom is beyond spectacular. And those 3-Dimensional flowers are just gorgeous! We do hope that Jonia will join in our next challenge (which, as you all now know is to make a project with 3-Dimensional flowers).

Gayle Wheeler. We all loved the details on both the card and the envelope. This is a delightful use of a color combo, showing how it works on both a light and dark background. We especially like how Gayle decorated the envelope for this ensemble!

Diane Vander Galien. There are so many delightful little details on this pop-up card that make it just beautiful to look at! The ribbon, pearls, and the spritzing have help to create a soft and feminine feel which is just perfect for Mother's Day!