SUO Challenge 33, My Favorite Holiday Colors

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I can't even imagine all the various colors that are around this time of year to help us all celebrate a time of the year when the great outdoors supplies so little color (at least in the Northern Hemisphere). I know that I just love to brighten up my home and my paper crafting with colors that sparkle. "Bright" is definitely a word that defines the December holidays for me.

That said, I'm sure that there are some of you who love to celebrate with more subtle colors, or darker regal colors. Hmmm. Those sound a lot like three of Stampin' Up!'s color families. Brights, Regals, Subtles – even Neutrals!- what are YOUR favorite colors for celebrating your favorite December holidays?

Our design team members have created some projects using their own personal favorite colors, and our challenge for you this time is to create a card or any other holiday project that shows off your favorite December holiday colors. Please share your project with us by adding it to our blog post using the link at the bottom of this post. We can hardly wait to see what you have to show off! If recent entries for the SU Only Challenge blog are any indication, there are going to be more than a few that I'm going to want to try myself!

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.

To help you get started, here is some inspiration from our talented Design Team members!

Cindy's Card

Mary's Card

Heidi's Card

Jennifer's Card

Michelle's Card

Pam's Card

Robin's Card

Deb's Card

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!

SUO Challenge 29: Leaves? Stampin’ Up! Has Them

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Fall is usually the time when the many of us who live in temperate climates think of leaves. Those on trees and shrubs go from changing colors to falling to the ground. Oh, those glorious colors! Oh, all the raking afterwards.

But Stampin' Up! features leaves all year 'round! Just this past year – from Nature Walk and Build a Blossom in the Occasions Mini to Fabulous Florets in the Summer Mini, not to mention all those gorgeous leaf stamps in the Idea Book and Catalog – Stampin' Up! has made sure that we know that Fall is not the only time to have fun with leaves. Of course there is that luscious new set, Gently Falling, in the current Holiday Mini. But there's so much more!

We "leave" it to you to find your favorite among the Stampin' Up! leaves – current or retired – and show us a project you've made with them! To get you started with some inspiration, here are projects from our Design Team. There's a place at the end of the post where you can share a link to YOUR project!

Deb's Card

Heidi's Card

Jennifer's Card

Karen's Card

Michelle's Card

Mary Brown's Card

Pam's Card

Cindy's Card

Robin's Card

Our "Fall Colors" Top 3!

Ann Craig with her gathered paper that so beautifully accented the nicely constructed layout. All the elements in the card worked fantastically well together!

Ulrike whose card’s layers made her whole layout seem 3-dimensional – we wanted to reach out and touch those flowers in her garden! We loved her use of Designer Series Papers and how she used the papers to enhance so many of the layers throughout her card.

Julie Gearinger, who offered two cards this week. The one with which we were especially impressed is the one with the medallion which carried the vintage feel of the embossing and coloring so well through her wonderfully-laid out card.

Please Read This!

This challenge was created for fans of Stampin' Up! products to get inspiration from and participate in challenges using Stampin' Up! products. Hence the name of the blog, Stampin' Up! Only Challenges. We ask that you respect this by using ONLY Stampin' Up! products. Retired Stampin' Up! products are welcome. Products from other manufacturers that compete with Stampin' Up! products should NOT be a part of any project entered in any of our challenges.

SUO Challenges is an advertising-free zone and is a challenge that is for fun only. Please do not enter into our challenge any project for which you are selling a tutorial or template.

Please respect these limitations and all of our guidelines set forth over to the left at the top of the blog. We will remove from the challenge entries any projects that fall outside the guidelines.

SUO Challenge 28, Fall Colors

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Fall is definitely in the air in a large part of Stampin' Up! land. And even though Spring must be springing down under, our challenge this time around is to make something with Fall Colors. What would they be? When I think Fall, I think of golds and oranges and rusts, with a tint of green and brown. But, as you can see from our Design Team samples, there are some of us whose thoughts lean towards blues and purples. What do you think of when you're asked to make something with Fall Colors? We'd love to know – and to see your creations using those colors!

Your challenge, then, is to make any kind of project, using Stampin' Up! products only, that show off your idea of Fall Colors. We can hardly wait to see your projects!

Pam's Card

Deb's Card

Mary's Card

Heidi's Card

Jennifer's Card

Karen's Card

Cindy's Card

Robin's Card

Ribbons and Bows – Our Top Three!

Thanks to everyone who played around with Stampin' Up!'s ribbon the last two weeks. We loved ALL your creations! Here are those that we selected as our Top Three for our last challenge!

Jade's absolutely stunning card with her amazing ribbon flower was our top choice. We all loved how the ribbon almost acts as a frame for part of the card, and how perfectly the background, embossed with the new Parlor Prints background stamp, enhanced the whole look of the card.

Madeline Morcelo's gorgeous Christmas ornament. With all the ribbons and the paper from the Holly Berry Bouquet suite this almost looks like a needlepointed creation. It will be a fabulous ornament on someone's tree!

Lisa Martz had two entries this week, but the Design Team was especially taken with the garter look of the striped ribbon that is her first card's main feature. It's the perfect enhancement for this lovely Thanksgiving card.

Congratulations to all three of you for being our picks this week!

A Gentle Reminder

This challenge was created for fans of Stampin' Up! products and demonstrators to participate in and draw inspiration from. Hence the name of the blog, Stampin' Up! Only Challenges, we ask that you respect this by using only Stampin' Up! products. Retired Stampin' Up! product is welcome, as well as any outside products that you would normally not see offered for sale in any Stampin' Up! catalogs or publications, such as sewing on your card, stick pins, and so forth.

SUO Challenges is an advertising-free zone and is a challenge that is for fun only. Please respect our guidelines set forth over to the left at the top of the blog.