SUO Challenge #76, Back to School – Our Top 3!

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After a slow start, we had quite a few people jump into this challenge with some great projects. Who says going back to school can't be fun! Of course, we did expand the theme a bit to include any "Kards for Kids." But that doesn't at all detract from the fine projects you all entered!

Thanks and High Marks to everyone who participated, and especially to our Top 3:

Susie Nelson. Susie got to the Top of the Class with her READ theme! There's so much fun detail in this card, including the Book Mark, the creatively placed letters, and the different reading subjects. All the colors were beautifully complementary which pulled this whole card together perfectly.

Nanci Simmons. Nancy gets an A+ for her creative use of the Owl Builder Punch! How cute are those Minions!

De Williamson. De received High Honors from our Design Team for her creative use of the old and the new. She remembered this retired Stampin' Up! paper set and combined it beautifully with the new and very current Hexagon Punch and the greeting from Regarding Dahlias.

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 #75 – Get Well Cards!

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In my stash of cards, there are just as many Get Well Cards as there are Thinking of You, Thank You, and Birthday Cards! Unfortunately people do become ill more than we'd like – but leave it to those of use who use Stampin' Up! products to make the BEST Get Well Cards around!

That's your challenge this time with our Stampin' Up! Only Challenge – to make a Get Well Card. Our Design Team really liked this challenge, which shows in their samples that are laid out here for your inspiration. We hope you'll join with us and enter your own Get Well Card in the challenge, using the link tool at the end of the post.

For those of you who entered our last challenge, we will post the Top 3 a bit later than we usually do because many of our Design Team members are at the Stampin' Up! Convention this week, and are unavailable for the administrative part of our challenge blog work. But there will be a Top 3 posted – towards the end of next week when we're all back home and a bit rested from our travels!

Now here are the Design Team's Get Well Cards!

To participate in our challenge, make a card or other paper-crafted project 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.

PLEASE remember this: We're looking for projects posted to the internet AFTER July 15, 2013. This is a NEW challenge!

And, of course, your projects should be 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 or in any other project included in your blog post 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!

Challenge Dates: July 16, 2013 (3 am USA Eastern Time) –

July 27, 2013 (6 am USA Eastern Time)