Mystery of the Winged Lion

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we're taking a look at Nancy's 65th adventure, Mystery of the Winged Lion:

On the first book cover, we have Nancy in a bright-yellow shirt and a totally vacant expression, not my favorite cover.  I do like her outfit on the middle cover and I'm trying to remember if my childhood library had the second one or the third one, or maybe they had both but I can't remember for sure.  The third one I think is my favorite, I like the arched shapes behind Nancy and George and the colors are the most fun out of the three options.

Case file:  Immediately following the events in Captive Witness, Nancy, Bess, and George are in Venice for a vacation from their vacation when they get the news that Ned, Burt, and Dave flew in to surprise them and landed in jail.  They're accused of stealing a glass horse figurine found in Ned's bag which the customs officials conveniently smashed to smithereens but the boys are in jail anyway.  And then a Venetian noblewoman contacts Nancy for help in finding her missing nephew so once again, Nancy misses out on a restful and uneventful vacation.

Here's my first card:

Weirdly, my stamp collection does not include a winged lion BUT I have this happy little guy from Inspiration Squad and the wings from Valentine Kisses, so I was able to give him wiiiiiings like a Red Bull.  Of course I had to incorporate the arch shape for the arch cover:

I thought it looked rather like a portico on a building, and I chose a pattern with birds on it because there are approximately eleventy-million birds in St. Mark's Square in Venice, at least all the times I've been there.  I used Shaded Spruce, Pool Party, Golden Glow, and Cinnamon Cider for my colors; I had pulled Cherry Cobbler to match the cover but was at a bit of a loss as to where to incorporate it, so the lion has some red highlights.  He enjoys going to the salon.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspiration Squad, Valentine Kisses
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Golden Glow, Cinnamon Cider, Cherry Cobbler, Pool Party
Paper:  Shaded Spruce, Pool Party, Basic White, Design a Daydream DSP
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Dimensionals, Rhinestones

On to the second cover:

This time I used the stamp set Travel Sketchbook and that image has a gondola, the duomo of a church, AND if you look in the upper left corner there is a winged lion on the pillar.  So I was incorrect, I DO have a winged lion stamp in my collection!

I used Basic Black, River Rock, and some hints of Soft Suede, Bashful Blue, and Marina Mist to color the image with Watercolor Wonder Crayons.  Anyone remember those from way before we had alcohol markers?  My set is a bit the worse for wear, some of the crayons have melted a bit as we've moved over the years, but they still work!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Travel Sketchbook
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Basic Black, River Rock, Very Vanilla, Brocade Backgrounds DSP
Accessories:  some kind of label punch, Dimensionals, Watercolor Wonder Crayons

And on to the third book cover:

Nancy comes up with a risky plan near the end of the book to go confront the bad guys with just Ned as backup, and when Bess and George are understandably reluctant to allow this due to perfectly valid safety concerns (they had all been kidnapped and held overnight against their will inside St. Mark's, for Pete's sake), Nancy flippantly says she'll send a seagull with a message if she gets in trouble.  So of course I had to get out Friendly Seagulls for this card.

I used Pacific Point, Summer Starfruit, Calypso Coral, and quite a lot of Pool Party on my card even though the book cover doesn't really have Pool Party on it, but I love that wave patterned paper so I had to use it.  Since Nancy said she'd send a message via seagull, I went with my Perennial Postage dies for this card.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Friendly Seagulls
Ink:  Night of Navy, Stampin' Blends in Smoky Slate, Wild Wheat, Pool Party
Paper:  Pacific Point, Summer Starfruit, Calypso Coral, Basic White, High Tide DSP
Accessories:  Perennial Postage dies, Dimentsionals, Blue Gems, Pacific Point Watercolor Wonder Crayon

In general I like the books where Nancy visits other countries, but I think this one reminds me more of Greek Symbol than the wacky hijinx of Captive Witness despite numerous callbacks to that one.  I do like the Venetian setting especially since I've gotten to visit Venice since the last time I read this book as a child, and that's always fun.  I just don't think the mystery was as engaging.  Fun fact:  at the end of Captive Witness, it says that Nancy's next adventure will be The Gondolier's Secret which is a really cool title but somewhere between that book and this one they changed it to Mystery of the Winged Lion, which is also a good title.  Anyway, I give this one two stars, maybe two and a half.  If you're inspired to make a card, leave me a comment below!  And I'll see you next week when Nancy has A Race Against Time.