The Secret in the Old Attic

Happy Saturday and welcome back (finally) to another Nancy Drew Challenge!  Recovering from a ruptured appendix is a long process and I am fighting hard to get back to normal around here, it's just slow going.  Anyway, I have a great book in the Nancy Drew series to share today, The Secret in the Old Attic, and I just had to highlight this spooky entry before the end of October!

The OT cover on the left is one of the most often used Nancy Drew covers when it comes to other Nancy paraphernalia, and I can see why--it's amazing.  First off, I would love to have Nancy's dress, it's gorgeous.  Second, it's just a great scene of Nancy exploring the titular attic with a candle, and you might not notice at first the super creepy face lurking behind the door to the left of her.  Most excellent.

The RT cover is also pretty good, definitely bringing the creep factor with the skeleton hand and a mysterious shadowy figure once again lit only by Nancy's candle.  I don't like this dress quite as well as the red one, but let's be real here, I'd still like this blue dress in my closet.  Not that I wear dresses very often, but maybe I would if they were excellent mid-century designs.

Both covers are great, but I think the OT cover is my favorite just because it's so iconic.  So let's take a look inside!

Case file:  Carson Drew is approached by the elderly Philip March, who says his deceased son Fipp's musical compositions have been stolen and there is supposed to be a clue to the music's whereabouts in the love letters between Fipp (Philip Jr.) and his (also deceased) wife Connie.  He wants the Drews to find the music so he can sell it to support his granddaughter Susan.  Carson is busy with another case involving industrial espionage, so he turns the letters over to Nancy, who spends a lot of time exploring Mr. March's attic looking for clues.  She also helps on Carson's case, where a fabric-making process involves spider silk and the bad guy is obsessed with black widow spiders.  Meanwhile, some hussy is trying to steal Ned away from Nancy, but of course that doesn't work.

Here's my card:

For this one, I wanted to highlight the musical mystery, so I pulled out two long-retired but new-to-me musically themed stamp sets, Musical Manuscript and Concerto.  I was actually looking for some music-themed DSP when I came across a pack called Love Letter, and I thought that was just perfect since Nancy starts the mystery by reading Fipp and Connie's love letters for clues as to where Fipp hid his music.  Side note:  Fipp is THE CUTEST nickname ever, I love it.  Anyway, the Love Letter DSP featured several lovely Riding Hood Red and Very Vanilla patterns, so I started there and built my card from that.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Musical Manuscript, Concerto
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Pecan Pie
Paper:  Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Love Letter DSP
Accessories:  Deckled Circles dies, Circles Collection Framelits, Dimensionals, Black Rhinestones

Next up is the RT:

Case file:  This one very closely follows the OT, but omits the boyfriend-stealing subplot and I think ups the spider content a little bit.  As I said, the bad guy (who has the glorious bad guy name Bushy Trott) is obsessed with black widows and sets one loose on Nancy, but Ned saves her.

Here's my card:

Obviously this time I was inspired by the skeleton hand on the cover and Bushy's spiders.  In the book, there's a skeleton hanging inside a wardrobe in the attic that gives Nancy a clue as to where to search for the music, and according to the Regular Nancy Drew podcast when this book was written (and revised, for that matter), plastic skeletons weren't a thing yet so the skeleton would have been REAL human bones (it was owned by a cousin who was a med student).  Which is an interesting fact and somehow ups the creepy factor here.  Anyway, one of my more recent retired Halloween stamp set purchases is Piece of Poison, which has both the skeleton and the spider image, so perfect for this card.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Piece of Poison, Wicked Cool
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Granny Apple Green, Azure Afternoon
Paper:  Granny Apple Green
Accessories:  Glitter & Clear Epoxy Stickers

I hope you enjoyed this rather spooky addition to the Drew-niverse, I love this one despite being rather arachnophobic myself.  If you're inspired to make a card based on either of the book covers or the story itself, please leave me a comment as I would love to see!  See you here next Saturday when we'll be searching for The Clue in the Crumbling Wall!