SUO Challenge 39 – Our Top Three

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Ladies, this is getting harder and harder to do! All of us on the Design Team were overwhelmed with all the fantastic entries for our Birthday Card challenge; this was a tough one. One of our members even asked if we couldn't do a Top 5 this time around! Every single one of you who entered our challenge last time definitely had a winner of a card!

But we did finally figure out our Top 3 for this challenge (and I had to use our tie-breaker system to get there, too!). So with a virtual drum roll, please welcome the SUO Challenge Top 3 Birthday Cards! (Click on the pictures to go to the individual websites.)

Paula Sievers' gorgeous, beautifully embossed and colored roses from the Fifth Avenue Floral collection are stunning with the special fold of this birthday card – for someone very special, we're sure! Be sure to look at Paula's website to see more about the fun fold of this card!

Catherine Pooler created a fabulous "shabby chic" card with a flair that had us all looking at the details and wondering how we could do that, too! Not to worry – check out Catherine's website for a video on how to make this very card!!

Patty Gorka (aka LaLatty) gave us another card with all kinds of details that, put together, make a simple yet beautiful layout. We especially like that center cupcake with the crimped "liner" and the little button all mounted with Stampin' Dimensionals to make it stand out from the rest.

SUO Challenge 36, New Techniques for a Whole New Year!

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If you are anything at all like me, you often find yourself using the same paper crafting techniques over and over. My "go-to" techniques are heat embossing and 2-Step Stamping. Many of Stampin' Up!'s stamp sets lend themselves beautifully to these two techniques. So when the idea for today's challenge occurred to me, it wasn't hard to find a technique to use that I haven't used in a while.

What about you? Are you a technique junkie, or do you pretty much stick with the same-ol'-same-ol' techniques? Whichever you are, I'll bet you can point to a technique that you've never used – or that you haven't used in a long while. That's our challenge this time around – pick a technique that's something you use infrequently – or not at all – and share it with us here at Stampin' Up! Only Challenges!

Our design team members have come up with some great examples of techniques they rarely or never use, and it's been a lot of fun for me to see what they can do with them. One thing's for sure, though. Even with different techniques, they each have their own style and it comes through beautifully no matter which techniques they use. I'm sure yours will, too!

Please remember, use ONLY Stampin' Up! products and share only something that you've made in response to this challenge. For a complete list of the guidelines for the SUO Challenges, please refer to our write-up down on the left.

Heidi Baks – Bleaching and Watercolor

Deb Hoekstra – Stamping on a Coffee Filter

Cindy Coutts – Using fabric cut with pinking shears, handmade rosettes, coloring pearls, coloring die-cuts

Cindy Elam – Emboss Resist

Jennifer Timko – Faux Delft Tile

Karen Barber – Paper Piecing and Fussy Cutting

Mary Brown – Marker Layering

Michelle Laycock – Tea Bag Dyeing

Pam Staples – Perpetual Card (Showing four "sides")

Robin Messenheimer – Watercolor

SUO Challenge 34, Merry and Happy and Everything Joyous!

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It's mid-December, and all around me I hear holiday greetings. The greetings I most frequently hear are, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays." But there are many other holiday greetings that we hear this time of year – Happy Hanukkah and Joyous Kwanzaa are just two more. Whatever the greeting, though, invariably they begin with Merry, Happy, or Joyous. And it's so much fun to make cards that express those bright, cheerful and joyous feeling of the holidays. So that's what our Design Team has done for our Stampin' Up! Only Challenge 34 – some card to inspire us to be happy with whatever we're celebrating this time of the year.

And we'd love to have you join in our fun! Just create a card to celebrate a December Holiday and add a link to it at the bottom of this post. I'm sure that there are quite a few of us and many of our readers will be thrilled to have some great ideas for last minute celebration cards!

Please remember, use ONLY Stampin' Up! products and share only something that you've made in response to this challenge. For a complete list of the guidelines for the SUO Challenges, please refer to our write-up down on the left.

SUO Challenge 32, Our Top Three

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The holiday season's just started and already I'm beginning to feel a bit frazzled! But I have so many people and projects for which to be thankful – including all of you who entered our last challenge, "Thankful," with your delightful projects which all of us on the design team thoroughly enjoyed!

But we try our best to pick a Top Three, reflecting a consensus of our Design Team members about whose projects did a special job of perking us up – although, as always, we love them all.

Kris Lynch. OK, we all want to know how people like Kris come up with these ideas! Just, wow! My favorite comment from our design team was, "I think what I like about the punch art turkey lady is that she's obviously FAT and cute and motherly!!" followed closely by, "You have got to be KIDDING!" This punch art is beyond cute and made us all smile (even a giggle) when we first saw it. After focusing on that, we were also impressed by the use of the DSP for the apron and gloves, and the Sizzix frame for the platter. Well, well done!

Denise Pustelniak. This is simply a delightful My Digital Studio gatefold card, with warm colors that made us feel, well, warm – and cozy. We especially like the diamond orientation of the front panel of the card. Just a nice card!

Lisa Martz. We definitely liked the whole layout of this card, and especially the flower that accents all the colors in the DSP so well. The use of the ribbon in the flower to accent the pieces of ribbon over on the side is so very artistic – a gorgeous card as yours always are!