The Haunted Carousel

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we're on a Halloween-appropriate book, The Haunted Carousel:

I think I've had the one on the right for the longest and that I got the other two after I started rereading my Drews last year, but I'm not 100% sure.  The one on the left has zero carousel horses on it and it gives me Wizard of Oz vibes, does anyone else see the Wicked Witch of the West in that shadow?  I actually quite like all three covers this time.

Case file:  A newspaper reporter dares Nancy to find out why the carousel in a local amusement park has started turning itself on late at night when the park is closed and no one is around.  At the same time, a girl named Joy Trent (who happens to own a horse that used to be part of the haunted carousel) approaches Nancy for help in solving a riddle that her father left her just before he died.  We get a lot of time in the amusement park and it's fun.

Okay, y'all.  It's Halloween, today's book has some fun spooky elements, and there was a LOT in the story to inspire cards so...it's a supersize Nancy Drew challenge!  I made TWO cards for each cover, one spooky and one not.  So let's get started!

Nancy chases a bad guy into a haunted house and gets knocked out for her trouble, so of course I have a haunted house card to start us off!

Pretty sure it's the scene inside the haunted house that inspired this cover.  Also, I heard on one of the Nancy Drew podcasts that I listen to (yeah, there's several) that Ruth Sanderson, the cover artist for this one, is actually known for painting horses, but the publisher wouldn't let her for this cover.  Weird call, but okay; obviously that changed for the two later editions.  My colors for this one are Real Red, Cloud Cover, Misty Moonlight, and Basic Gray.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tricks & Treats, Haunt Ya Later
Ink:  Basic Gray, Misty Moonlight
Paper:  Real Red, Misty Moonlight, Cloud Cover, Winter Meadow DSP, Cloud Cover DSP
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Tricks & Treats dies, Strawberries & Dots accents (the Misty Moonlight Dots)

And for my non-spooky card:

Joy's riddle involved Old Glory, which referred both to the American flag and to the name she gave her carousel horse, so a flag card it is!  I thought it would be fun to invert the arches and turn them into pennants for this one.

Also, Joy wants freedom from her overly strict guardian aunt, so the "Let Freedom Ring" greeting seemed appropriate.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Red, White & Blue, Simply Stars
Ink:  Real Red, Misty Moonlight, Bordering Blue (not sure where my Cloud Cover ink pad is hiding and it doesn't match the cardstock anyway)
Paper:  Real Red, Cloud Cover, Basic White
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Gold baker's twine

On to cover #2!

Joy's riddle also involves a frog and I can make frogs Halloweeny so that's just what I did.  I love the expression on his face, he is so done with these witchy shenanigans.

I used Tangerine Tango, Granny Apple Green, and Basic Black for my colors here.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Best Witches
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Granny Apple Green Stampin' Blends
Paper:  Tangerine Tango, Basic White, Howlstooth & Scaringbone DSP, Halloween Spells DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, Glitter Sequins

And for my non-Halloween card:

Yes, I bought the Carousel Birthday stamp set last year on eBay just for this book, and no one is even pretending to be surprised by that decision.  Fun fact:  one of our neighbors when we lived in England bought an antique carousel horse and had it displayed in her living room.

I still used Tangerine Tango for the card base, but pulled in Tahitian Tide and Daffodil Delight for my supporting colors.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Carousel Birthday
Ink:  Night of Navy, Stampin' Blends in Pumpkin Pie, Granny Apple Green, Tahitian Tide, Flirty Flamingo, Smoky Slate, Night of Navy
Paper:  Tangerine Tango, Basic White, Tahitian Tide DSP, Daffodil Delight DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, Candy Dots

And on to the third cover!

Two of the villains in this book have the absolutely spectacular criminal sobriquets of Baldy Krebs and Fingers Malone (love it), and they sneak into the amusement park at night while Ned and Nancy are surveilling the carousel.  Baldy is described as looking like an overgrown hippie at one point (savage) so he's Frankie here, and he even has a tool to tinker with the carousel.  Fingers the pickpocket is Drac : )

I used Blushing Bride, Perfect Plum, and Basic Black for my colors on this card.  I tried doing an ink blend background for my baddies, but then changed my mind and did a bit of Polished Stone instead.  I used the Branching Out dies for the ticket shape since we needed lots of tickets for the amusement park.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Handmade Monsters & Jeepers Creepers from Whimsy Stamps
Ink:  Blushing Bride, Perfect Plum, Versamark
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Glossy White, Cast-a-Spell DSP
Accessories:  Branching Out dies, black EP, Dimensionals, Low Profile Dots

And for my final card:

Another part of Joy's riddle has to do with irises; her mother's name was Iris and her father had decorated all over the house with fresh flowers and even iris wallpaper, which I really want to see even though I am generally very anti-wallpaper.  Another fun fact:  the first flowers my husband ever gave me were irises because he remembered me saying that roses were overdone and boring, ha!  Anyway, irises worked well with the colors on this book cover.

This time my colors are Blushing Bride, Highland Heather, Summer Splash, and Basic Gray.  I was never a fan of Blushing Bride when it was a current color for SU!, but I think it works surprisingly well with the other two colors here.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspiring Iris
Ink:  Basic Gray, Blushing Bride, Stampin' Blends in Highland Heather & Summer Splash
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Basic White, Blushing Bride & Highland Heather DSP
Accessories:  Branching Out dies, Dimensionals, In Color Resin Dots

I thought this book was a lot of fun.  Are there some plot elements that seem shoehorned in for no reason?  Yeah.  Does Chief McGinnis treat Nancy like she's a detective on his force and even let her plan and run a sting operation?  Uh-huh.  Is it absolutely unbelievable that he would share so much information with a teenager?  Absolutely.  Would Nancy have severe cognitive impairment due to how many times she's been knocked on the head over the course of the series?  Undoubtedly.  Is it fun anyway?  Yep!  Five stars, no notes.  If you're inspired to make a card based on the book or its covers, leave me a comment below!  Stay tuned next week when Nancy meets her Enemy Match.  Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Midnight greetings, ghoul friends!  And here we are at the final night of this year's Halloween Hex-Travaganza.  And I still have some Halloween goodies that I didn't get to use this year, so I suppose that will be for next year's Hex-Travaganza!

Here is my card for tonight:

Honestly I had something else planned but then I saw this week's Inspired By... Challenge and I had to do it:

I used Pretty in Pink, Highland Heather, Pool Party, and just a bit of Peach Pie for my pastel-oween colors because I couldn't resist having just a leetle bit of orange on there.  And hey, at least I got one last stamp set inked up for the Hex-Travaganza this year!  The stamps are from Gnome-o-ween from Unity.

Until next year, friends...stay spooky!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Gnome-o-ween from Unity
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Pool Party, Highland Heather, Pretty in Pink, Peach Pie, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Highland Heather, Basic White, Cutest Halloween DSP Stack
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals

Copper Leaves

Mornin' y'all!  I have a guest DT card for you today over at CAS on Friday, where the theme is embossed backgrounds.  Here's what I made:

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that copper embossing powder was the way to go, and I used it to emboss a background of small leaves on Night of Navy cardstock and then embossed the larger leaf on Cajun Craze.  One quick greeting on a die-cut banner and my card is done, what do you think?

Thanks to the CAS on Friday team for letting me play along!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Elegant Leaves
Ink:  Versamark, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Elegant Leaves dies, Stylish Shapes dies, copper EP, Dimenisonals

A Batty Elephant

Midnight greetings, ghoul friends!  It is already time for the penultimate Hex-Travaganza card for this year, and I pulled out an old stamp set but used a stamp that had never made its way onto a card before:

I couldn't resist saying "I'm Batman!" in a deep, gravelly voice once or twice while making this.  I also used some of this year's little adhesive bats though frankly I worry about how well they would do going through the mail, they stick up quite a bit but they were just perfect for this card.  I chose two patterns from an old pack of DSP and used a simple layout to show off my fancy dress elephant.

Stay spooky, friends!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Trick or Tweet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Smoky Slate, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight
Paper:  Basic Gray, Basic White, Ghostly Greetings DSP
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, Dimensionals, Bats Ghosts & Dots

Pheasant Feathers

Mornin' y'all!  How is your week going?  I didn't sleep well last night but I'm still in a good mood and ready to tackle the day--I think that getting back in my workout routine has been a real mental boost, I love it.  I'm still having to modify some exercises from where Daphne tried to take me out and I twisted my knee...most of the time I'm fine, but every once in a while I move it the wrong way and it screams at me.  So I try to keep it from screaming.

Anyway, I had a lovely productive afternoon in the warcraft room yesterday (so called because the hubs and the kid use it for playing war games, and I use it for paper crafting), and here's my card for today:

This note is actually not so little, that pheasant image is large enough that I made this card 5x7 instead of the standard size so I could use the Hand-Stamped Sentiments sketch:

Congrats to them on their five hundredth challenge, that's quite an achievement!  I did modify the sketch a little bit by making it a landscape card instead of portrait, and while my ratios aren't exactly the same as the sketch I think you'll see all the pieces are there.  Plus ribbon, because lately I want to use ribbon?  What even is happening.

Anyway, yesterday I saw a gorgeous card on Jan's blog and that's how I found the latest Color Inkspiration challenge featuring a different bird:

I only added Very Vanilla and some touches of gold for accents.  My bird theme was solidified by the As You See It challenge:

Not only does my pheasant have some lovely tail feathers, I used the Fine Feathers stamp set to stamp the Cajun Craze panel with more feathers, just to make sure the feather theme was obvious.  Feather feather feather.  I think I need to ink up my Cajun Craze ink pad though, it's not showing up very well but I promise feathers are present.

Another thing to be happy about?  Two stamp sets will be delivered today, one autumn-themed and the other one (you guessed it) Halloween.  And I took advantage of the Spellbinders sale yesterday and got some witchy dies, as if I don't have more than enough Halloween stuff in my stash as it is.  More stuff to show off for next year's Halloween Hex-Travaganza!

Time to take my bestest girl for a walk, she's giving me puppy dog eyes.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Pheasant, Fine Feathers
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Cajun Craze, Darling Duckling
Paper:  Pretty Peacock, Cajun Craze, Darling Duckling, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, Ornate Frames dies, Dimensionals, Brushed Metallic Dots, Pretty Peacock & Gold Metallic Ribbon

Cheers, Witch

Midnight greetings, ghoul friends!  I can hardly believe we only have a couple of nights left in this year's Hex-Travaganza, I still have lots of Halloween goodies I want to play with!  I really need to organize my Halloween goodies, they're piled all willy-nilly right now, but I pulled out a brand new stamp set for tonight's card:

Eyeball martini, anyone??  I used the sketch from AAA Cards Challenge:

I had been thinking about this challenge for days, trying to decide if I wanted to do bats or spiders, and then eyeball martini happened instead.  My colors are Lemon Lime Twist and Blackberry Bliss, which didn't really photograph true to life but what can you do.  I used some Transparent Dots in both colors as accents on my card.

Stay spooky, friends!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Spooky Spirits from Unity Stamps
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Blackberry Bliss, Lemon Lime Twist, Stampin' Blends in Lemon Lime Twist, Granny Apple Green, Smoky Slate, Pool Party
Paper:  Blackberry Bliss, Basic White
Accessories:  Textured Notes dies, Dimensionals, Transparent Dots

Pumpkin Pickin'

Mornin' y'all!  I think Ryan is getting back into his school routine, I got him out the door this morning without any drama.  Maybe because it's jammy day at school?  Anyway, I'll take it : )

Sooo...are you tired of pumpkins yet?  I hope not, because I have another pumpkin card to share today:

How did I make so many pumpkin and jack o' lantern cards earlier this month but I never inked up Pick of the Patch?  Well, its time came when I saw the Inkspirational challenge:

Love those warm colors.  I did have some leaves picked out, but they wouldn't fit with the Atlantic Hearts sketch that I wanted to use so I went back to pumpkins.

Yeah I didn't stray too far from the sketch, I even used pumpkins on my card.

That's it for now, peeps.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pick of the Patch
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Golden Glow, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Cinnamon Cider, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  pumpkin punch, Dimensionals, Tropical Layers dies for the border

Oops, I forgot to post my WIP Wednesday picture for this week!

I did all the black first on this block (except the outside border and the ghost's eyes and nose) and just started on the lighter colors last night.  While I am absolutely loving this project, I am going to switch on November first and start a leaf mandala pattern...and then a Christmas pattern on December first...and then next year I'm going to rotate through those three projects each month because that keeps me from getting tired of one project and also I just have a zillion pattern I want to make.  But I shall enjoy working on this one for a few more days.