SUO Challenge 32, Our Top Three

11 / 29 / 11

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

10 / 4 / 1110 / 3 / 11

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

9 / 20 / 119 / 26 / 11

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.

SUO Challenge 24, Get Well Cards

7 / 25 / 117 / 25 / 11

We love to have a selection of pre-made Get Well cards on hand and ready to send. You just never know when a co-worker or family member will be ill or hospitalized. That is why this week it is "Stock up your Get Well card Stash" week! Let's make some Get Well cards so that we are prepared when one is needed! Here are the cards our design team created! We encourage you to play along! Let us see what you come up with! Just upload your creation to your blog and link it below!

Here's a short reminder of the "rules": Stampin' Up! products only, a new creation in response to our challenge, and no links to posts that are selling anything. You can find all the finer details on the sidebar at the top left.

Winners of the "For the Kids!" Challenge!

Wow! We had so many wonderful creations submitted this week! The creativity was rampant! And the winners are…

Cristy Butzen – Such an adorable monster card! Great combination of stamp sets and fantastic layout!

Cindy Elam – Adorable Pop-Up Stage card with dinosaurs! What kid wouldn't LOVE to get this!!! Amazing.

Jill Yamada-Murota – Kids adore piggies! And so do we! Jill's stacked pig card was a huge hit with our team!

Thanks for participating, ladies! Please pick up your "I was in the Top 3" badge from the left side column! Congratulations!!