The Clue in the Crumbling Wall

Happy Saturday and welcome to another Nancy Drew challenge!  This week we're focusing on book 22, The Clue in the Crumbling Wall:

Both of these beautiful covers are by Rudy Nappi.  The OT is on the left and we have a thrilling action scene with Nancy removing a box from the titular crumbling wall while bad guys are chipping away at the other side (the real mystery is how the bad guys don't see the girls).  Once again I love Nancy's dress, which is my favorite shade of green, though Bess and George have made some lovely color choices as well.  Good job all around.

For the RT cover, we're still in the collage era of cover design.  We still have a bad guy (just one this time) chipping away at the wall and Nancy looking worried about it, but we get a bit more of a view of Heath Castle in the background which I love.  This one kinda has a similar feel to the RT cover of The Mystery of the Ivory Charm as it uses similar green tones for most of the cover, but thankfully this book is far superior to the hot mess that is Ivory Charm.

Let's take a peek inside:

Case file:  A female police officer who works with juvenile offenders asks for Nancy's help in finding missing dancer Florianna Johnson, who is to inherit the old estate of Heath Castle if she can be found in the next three weeks.  Florianna's niece Joan has been in trouble for stealing plants (including two rosebushes from Nancy's yard), and Joan's mother is not well, but Florianna has been missing for nearly 10 years.  Nancy, Bess, and George investigate Heath Castle and find that extensive damage has been done by men searching for something valuable in the walls of the castle.  Of course Nancy outwits the bad guys and locates Florianna, reuniting her with her family and saving the estate from further ruin.

Here's my card:

Since the book begins with Joan stealing Nancy's rosebushes, I decided to go with roses for this card and I had to use the Stacked Stone background stamp for the crumbling walls in the book.  There's a subplot involving river pearls, so I used pearls for my embellishments, and actually this is the first time I've used the Smoky Slate pearls, I quite like them.

I took Shaded Spruce from Nancy's dress and went with a combination of Groovy Guava, Calypso Coral, and Crushed Curry, inspired by Bess's outfit and hair.  Sorry George, I didn't use blue but you look good in that color.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  All Things Fabulous, Stacked Stone
Ink:  Groovy Guava, Calypso Coral, Crushed Curry, Shaded Spruce, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Smoky Slate, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Fabulous Florals dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Smoky Slate Pearls

On to the RT:

Case file:  This is one that follows the OT very closely, just a bit condensed, and a couple of the names have been changed; Florianna is now Juliana and some of the more minor characters have their names changed too.  The mystery itself plays out the same way as the OT.

Here's my card:

This time I wanted to feature Heath Castle on my card, and the closest I could get to that in my stamp collection was this collage-style stamp from Provençal.  I happened to find a small line-drawing rose image in the Dear Friend stamp set while I was looking for a greeting to put on here, which is just what I wanted for the background strip.  I used Marigold Morning cardstock for that piece with the roses, but used Peach Pie ink since I thought my Marigold Morning ink pad was probably dry--turns out those two colors are nearly identical.

Once again I used pearls as my accents on this one; I chose Marigold Morning as my supporting color because of--what else?--Nancy's hair.  We can only see the top of Nancy's shirt here but I kinda hope she's dressed just like Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Provençal, Dear Friend
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Pear Pizzazz, Peach Pie
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Shaded Spruce, Marigold Morning, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Word Window & Modern Label punches, Mini Dimensionals, Pearls

If you're inspired by Nancy's latest adventure, please leave me a comment so I can see what you make : )  Meanwhile, stay tuned for next Saturday when we listen for The Mystery of the Tolling Bell.  Cheers!

Happy Halloween!

Mornin' y'all!  I sent Ryan off to school this morning wearing his Iron Man costume and lugging our contributions to his class ice cream party.  This afternoon he's going to help me get Daphne dressed up in a costume and take a few pictures : )  We let her sniff the costumes this morning and I am 100% sure she is NOT going to cooperate for dressing up.

Since it IS Halloween today, I couldn't resist just one more Halloween card this year, especially since I hadn't used one of my favorite Halloween stamp sets yet--not sure how that's possible given how many Halloween cards I made this year!  But here it is:

Carved & Candlelit is one of my earliest stamp set acquisitions and I will never get rid of it : )  I had to pull it out for this week's Inspired By... challenge:

Which I paired with the CAS Colours & Sketches sketch:

But wait, there's more!  I really liked this sketch so I had to make another card with it:

Plus I couldn't pass up the Creative Colour Challenge this week:

The leaf stamps are from Lovely Leaves, another longtime member of my stamp collection and one I won't let go of, and the "hello" is from Love of Leaves because I was looking for a small hello and it was conveniently close to Lovely Leaves on my stamp shelves.

That's it for me today, peeps.  Daphne wants to go on her daily tour of the neighborhood : )  Hope you have a wonderful Halloween!  I get to debut my new Maleficent costume tonight!

Cheers!

Supplies, pumpkin card:
Stamps:  Carved & Candlelit, Spooky Cat
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie, Pecan Pie, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Basic Black, Thick Basic White, Shaded Spruce DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Sunny Day Iridescent Dots

Supplies, leaf card:
Stamps:  Lovely Leaves, Love of Leaves
Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Thick Basic White, Cajun Craze DSP
Accessories:  Banners Collection Framelits, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dot

All the Best Fiends

Midnight greetings, spooky friends!  I can't believe that we're already on the last night of this year's Halloween Hex-Travaganza, I hope you enjoyed it even half as much as I did because I finally feel like I got to play enough with my Halloween goodies this year.

Since tonight is the last night of the Hex-Travaganza, I had to pair my favorite Halloween stamp set with my favorite Halloween DSP and here's what I came up with:

It's Vlad, Agnes, and Frankie all on one card!  I had so much fun making this card!  Usually I only use one of the fiends at a time, but I couldn't help putting all three on tonight's card.  I did make it easy on myself with just stamping the images in Memento Tuxedo Black on different colors of cardstock instead of coloring them all in with Blends or colored pencils.  I embossed the greeting in white and then added some ribbon dots because the pattern makes me think of spiderwebs and I needed a bit more white on the card so the white Boo! didn't look out of place.

On behalf of Vlad, Agnes, Frankie, and all my other Halloween pals, thanks for sticking with us for the Hex-Travaganza!  I will definitely be doing this again next year (not least because I still have more cards I haven't shared yet!).

Stay spooky until next October, friends!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best Fiends
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark
Paper:  Basic Black, Perfect Plum, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Cast-a-Spell DSP
Accessories:  Tags & Labels Framelits, white EP, Ribbon Dots, Mini Dimensionals

Stargazing Foxes

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan brought home a recorder from school, do you remember learning how to play Hot Crossed Buns on the recorder in elementary school?  As I type this, he is tormenting poor Daphne who is Not A Fan of this new noisemaker.  Ryan is squeaking on the recorder, Daphne is barking at him, and I think I need to go get my noise-canceling headphones.  On the plus side, it will be time for Ryan to get ready for school in just a couple of minutes.

Anyway.  I made a scene for my card today.

I bought another Lawn Fawn set because I liked the images of stargazing animals, aren't these foxes adorable?  I chose a sky pattern from the Everyday Skies DSP Stack and then chose colors for everything else based on what I thought would look good--and that sky is pretty neutral so that made it easy.

I have three challenges for today, starting with Inkspirational:

This challenge has been percolating in my brain ever since it was posted.  Next up is the Inspire. Create. challenge:

I think this is my first Christmas card this year.  I do have some new SU! Christmas stamps to play with too so you'll start seeing more of those soon since I've finally gotten my fill of Halloween cards : )  (The last Hex-Travaganza card will be up at midnight tomorrow!)  Last up is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I'm pretty sure I physically recoiled when I saw it, wondering what the heck to do, but then my brain went to work and put it together with the other two challenges and my new stamp set : )

Okay, I think I need to go confiscate the recorder or Ryan is never going to get dressed for school.  Last night the hubs asked me how much my brother and I tortured our parents as kids, given that we were both in band from middle school through high school.  Yeah I think a piccolo and a trumpet would be worse than a recorder...but Ryan has recently expressed an interest in playing drums.  OY.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Winter Skies from Lawn Fawn
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Craft Whisper White, Balmy Blue, Stampin' Blends in Peach Pie, Timid Tiger, Balmy Blue, Bubble Bath, Shaded Spruce, Ivory
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Thick Basic White, Shimmery White, Everyday Skies DSP Stack
Accessories:  Winter Skies Lawn Cuts, Dimensionals

Dreary Halloween

Midnight greetings, spooky friends!  Tonight's card is designed to showcase yet another Halloween stamp set that I acquired this year, Dark & Dreary.  Here's my card:

The card base and images are all stamped on Basic Beige, it's showing up lighter in the photo than it really is.  Here's the CASE-ing Tuesday Sketch that I used on this card:

My Halloween card is a totally different feel from this springy card, isn't it?  Only one more Hex-Travaganza card to go...

Stay spooky, friends!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dark & Dreary
Ink:  Versamark, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Basic Beige, Hallows Night Magic DSP
Accessories:  Circles Collection Framelits, black EP, Faux Glass Dots, Mini Dimensionals

Poppy Thoughts

Gooood morning y'all!  I feel like I got a lot done in my craft room yesterday and today Ryan has STEM club after school so I get even MORE crafty time, woohoo!  I'm still getting back in the groove with the challenges I usually follow but today's card is for three challenges, so pretty good.  Here it is:

Anytime I see anything poppy-related, my brain immediately goes to Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West cackling about how "Poppies will put them to sleep!"  I was a big fan of The Wizard of Oz growing up (and it's still a classic, great movie), but I read the book Wicked when it came out and haaaaaaaaaated it so much that I refuse to go see the movies (or the Broadway show).  I'm the same way with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; I read the screenplay and haaaaaaaaaated it and you couldn't pay me money to go see it.  If you like either of those things, good for you, not trying to say you shouldn't, but I will give them a skip.

Tangent.  Okay, let's get to the challenges, starting with CASE-ing Tuesday:

I used the dies from the Fright Night bundle for the label shape on the sketch and maybe the SU! artists did for the original card too?  Next up is the Festive Friday Challenge:

I've got red, black, and poppies; one could argue that the background paper I used is watercolor, just not by me as that's how it was printed : )  Also I stamped the poppy and leaf outlines on some watercolor wash patterns in the same pack of DSP as the other patterns I used.  Last up is the Sunday Stamps challenge:

The colors in the Peaceful Poppies DSP happily coordinate with the colors in this challenge, so I used black, Poppy Parade, Pool Party, and Old Olive for my four colors from the challenge graphic.

That's it for now, peeps.  I think I might make a second cuppa tea before I take Daphne for her walk; it's quite cool out there now!  Yesterday I think I ended up drinking at least three XL mugs of tea before noon and I am not complaining about that.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Poppies, Peaceful Moments
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Pool Party, Old Olive, Peaceful Poppies DSP
Accessories:  Fright Night dies, Painted Labels dies, Dimensionals, Fine Sparkle Gems

Stack o' Jacks

Midnight greetings, spooky friends!  We are fast approaching Halloween night, but I still have a few more Hex-Travaganza cards up my sleeve : )  Here is tonight's card:

I am CASE-ing LeAnne's card for this week's Paper Players challenge because I loved it so much : )  I found a similar polka-dot pattern in my Halloween paper stash and her cute image made me think of this stack of jack-o-lanterns from Twick or Tweet.  I also loved the inspiration photo at Just Add Ink:

I worked in my best approximation of all the colors except the brown at the top, going with Pumpkin Pie, Very Vanilla (because it was in the DSP), Basic Gray, and Gorgeous Grape.  I don't have a good match for that beautiful purple color but I tried!

Stay spooky, friends!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Twick or Tweet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Gorgeous Grape, Basic Gray, Stampin' Blends in Pumpkin Pie and Highland Heather
Paper:  Gorgeous Grape, Very Vanilla, Spooky Night DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Purple Shimmer Gems, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella