The Secret of the Forgotten City

Hey y'all and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we're taking a look at Nancy's 52nd adventure, The Secret of the Forgotten City:

Oh hey look, *another* mostly brown cover (see Double Jinx, Crossword Cipher, and 99 Steps) but I suppose this one is different because it's a lighter, warmer brown than the others.  I do like the composition though, with the cool rock formation and silhouetted figures in the background.

Case file:  The Drew Crew surprises Nancy with an archaeological trip to Nevada at the same time as a First Nations woman approaches Nancy to see if she can solve the mystery of a bunch of stone tablets with carved petroglyphs on them.  Why don't my friends ever surprise me with archaeological expeditions?  On second thought, it's just as well they don't because outside is where the bugs live.  Anyway, Nancy desecrates yet another First Nations grave and finds yet another buried treasure.

Here's my card:

One of the bad guys (because there's always bad guys) puts a sidewinder snake in Nancy's car at one point of the book, and George grabs it with her bare hands and then calmly tells the others to drive her out of town so she can release it back into the wild.  Okay, George.  As it happens, I have a snake stamp in the Ancient Art stamp set, which I thought might be a nod to the petroglyph plot in the book, and I paired it with a weathered pattern from the Earthen Textures DSP.

I pondered what greeting to put on here before I decided to leave it without one and just do the snake in three shades of brown.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Ancient Art
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Copper Clay, Early Espresso
Paper:  Copper Clay, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, Earthen Textures DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Earthen Matte Dots

And I do have a second card for this book:

Before they leave on the expedition to Nevada, the entire Drew Crew comes over for dinner at Nancy's house and Hannah makes apple snow pudding with raspberry sauce for dessert, which is something I had never heard of before but now I want to try making it since I found recipes online.  For now I decided to make a sort of sepia-toned card with Apple Harvest.

I chose a patterned paper with metallic accents since Nancy is once again after a golden treasure.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Copper Clay, Ivory, various neutrals, Chalk pen
Paper:  Early Espresso, Creamy Caramel, Very Vanilla, All About Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Apple Harvest dies, Dimensionals, Brushed Metallic Dots

Okay y'all, I finally have a contender for Worst Nancy Drew Book Ever to compete with Ivory Charm.  This is the THIRD time that Nancy has dug up a First Nations grave (see the revised text of Hollow Oak and then Pine Hill) and somehow the treatment of First Nations culture gets progressively worse in each book.  Nancy and her friends unearth a skeleton in this book with no supervision from an actual accredited archaeologist, wire it together, then take it back to base camp that night and MAKE IT DANCE AROUND THE CAMPFIRE.  Zero respect.  Ned and his friends must change their college majors every other week to facilitate Nancy's cases, they were something biology-related for Spider Sapphire and then Ned was working with lasers in Glowing Eye, not to mention his interest in international business in Fire Dragon, and now they're pretend archaeologists.  And now Nancy can speak a more obscure Spanish dialect to talk to some gold prospectors who are looking in the wrong place, and she's able to figure out the story of the petroglyphs on the tablet despite having no knowledge of First Nations cultures that we've ever heard about.  Can you tell my favorite part of this book is the mention of apple snow pudding?  One half star for the pudding.  If you're inspired to make a card, please leave me a comment below!  And check back next week, when we take to the skies to investigate The Sky Phantom.

Another Apple Card

Hello again, y'all!  I got Ryan off to school and did the dishes while I made myself a cuppa, so now I can relax with my tea and a protein bar for breakfast.  And I have my second card to share today:

Apples again and I have to say that Apple Harvest is my favorite apple stamp set ever, I love it.  For this card, I turned to this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I read that as Real Red, Darling Duckling, and Granny Apple Green.  I tried it with Old Olive first but the background stripes looked too dull, so I switched to Granny Apple Green but I neglected to switch out my Blends so the leaves on my apple are Old Olive and Darling Duckling.  My Granny Apple Green pad is extra juicy right now so the greeting looks dark but I like it.

Halfway through my cuppa tea and I'm already contemplating making another one : ) Daphne thinks we should go for a walk first, but I think we'll wait a bit since it's supposed to start raining here shortly.  Maybe I can make another apple card while we wait...

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest, Heartfelt Hellos, Painted Stripes
Ink:  Early Espresso, Granny Apple Green, Stampin' Blends in Real Red, Darling Duckling, Old Olive, Bronze
Paper:  Real Red, Thick Basic White, Darling Duckling DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blossoms dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Iridescent Foil Gems

Apple Thanks

Mornin' y'all!  Did you have a good holiday weekend?  We flew out to Texas for the weekend, which was great until they canceled our flight back to Colorado on Monday.  Somehow our suitcase ended up flying out on Monday night, but we spent that night in a hotel and flew out yesterday morning and Ryan got to miss a day of school.  We're back to our regularly scheduled programming today and I got to spend the weekend with my parental units and I hit up four Half Price Books stores and came back with a rather tall stack o' books.  If I had bought any more, we would have had to get a second bag for them : )

Anyway, I got in my craft room for a little bit yesterday and made this:

My friend Toby gave me a book that's kinda like a Nancy Drew scrapbook, so I made this card to send to her.  I absolutely loooooove the inspo challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments:

An excellent excuse to break out my favorite retired apple stamp set, Apple Harvest, and also I would like to go to there, please.  Actually I'm planning to make apple cider muffins in the very near future (I got the new Sally's Baking 101 cookbook), I can easily make myself a cuppa tea, and I have a stack of new books to read so that will be very much like living in these inspo pics : )  

Next up is the follow my lead challenge at AAA Cards:

Which dovetails nicely with the TGIF Challenge:

I used one of the Everyday Arches dies as a mask to sponge ink on my card base, then floated my apple branch on top and added the greeting and a few sparkle dots.  I think I want to play along with all of these challenges again and Ryan has his cooking class after school today which means extra crafty time (after I wash dishes and start some laundry, anyway).

That's it for now, peeps, have a great day!  As soon as I get Ryan off to school, I'm going to make myself a cuppa.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Early Espresso, Darling Duckling, Wild Wheat, Stampin' Blends in Sweet Sorbet, Darling Duckling, Pecan Pie, Mossy Meadow, Ivory
Paper:  Basic Beige, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Apple Blossoms dies, Everyday Arches dies, Dimensionals, Opaque Sparkle Gems, Wink of Stella

Appley Sweet

Mornin' y'all!  Quiet morning here as both my boys are feeling a little under the weather, so I think we'll be taking it easy today.

I dusted off a retired stamp set for today's card:

A sweet, simple card for the Inspired By... challenge:

Mint Macaron might have been a closer color to the scale in the photo, but for some reason I still wanted to play with Soft Sea Foam so I went with that.  It looks a little more Sahara Sand in the photo than it does in real life; I took several pics on different days and I don't know why it won't show up as green but it is.  Next up is the Festive Friday challenge:

I used pink, ribbon, and words of kindness.  The apples are a blend of Real Red and Pretty in Pink (because Pink Lady apples are my favorite, I made apple crumble muffins this morning even) and I found some Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon in my stash.  I found some retired Soft Sea Foam DSP and the patterns are both sides of the same sheet of paper.  A few Opal Rounds finished it off.

I think I'm going to enjoy the quiet for a bit if Daphne will let me, and then I'll most likely take her for a walk in a little bit.  It's a pretty day outside so that will be lovely.  Have a great day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Pretty in Pink, Real Red, Pecan Pie, Old Olive, Ivory
Paper:  Soft Sea Foam, Basic White, Soft Sea Foam DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Perennial Postage dies, Pretty in Pink taffeta, Dimensionals, Opal Rounds

Golden Apples

Happy Halloween!  Not only does Ryan get to wear his costume to school today, tonight I'm taking him to my brother and SIL's house so he can go trick-or-treating with his cousins.  Should be a fun time!

Confession:  I did *not* make another Halloween and/or pumpkin card to share today.  Today it's all about the apples.  Golden apples!

Ryan and I are reading the Percy Jackson books at bedtime (just finished the fourth one last night, actually) and every time I hear the phrase "golden apples" it reminds me of the ancient Greek myth about the how goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena got into a fight over a golden apple addressed "to the fairest" and after one thing and another started the Trojan War.  (Personally I think that Athena, as goddess of wisdom, should have been smarter than that.)  There's also the myth of Hercules stealing a golden apple from the Hesperides, so anyway, lots of mythic stuff happening in my brain over this card.  This is the first time I've done golden apples with this stamp set, I always do red or pink.  So something different here!

Let's get to the challenges.  Alphabetically, Global Design Project is up first:

I chose the striped DSP for the background layer.  Next up is the Paper Players tic tac toe challenge:

I went across the middle, with patterned paper - die cut - enamel dots.  And finally is the Retro Rubber Challenge:

This inspo pic is why I chose apples for today's card, and I used all five colors (I used Lemon Lolly, Shaded Spruce, Pecan Pie, Azure Afternoon, and white).  I just checked my past blog posts and Apple Harvest is only one year old?! I thought it was at least two.  Regardless, it still counts as retro!  And I had fun doing a different apple color combo today.

I was very productive yesterday and cleaned the two downstairs bathrooms, so today I should probably tackle Ryan's bathroom upstairs.  I just finished baking some Halloween cookies to take with us tonight to my brother's house, ya know just in case trick or treating in a neighborhood where it's not unusual to get full-size candy bars doesn't result in enough of a sugar coma.  For reals though, I'm trying to familiarize myself with the ovens in this house before Thanksgiving.  I think next time I bake, I'm going to set the temperature to 25 degrees above what the recipe calls for, because today it definitely didn't get hot enough (I used an oven thermometer to check).  Gotta get all the experimentation done before the biggest eatin' holiday of the year, right?  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Lemon Lolly, Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Lemon Lolly, Old Olive, Shaded Spruce, Pecan Pie, Azure Afternoon
Paper:  Azure Afternoon, Lemon Lolly, Thick Basic White, Shaded Spruce DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Brushed Metallic Dots, Dimensionals

SUO Challenges: Back to School Blues and Bird

Happy Tuesday and hope you've got your backpack and books, 'cause it's time for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

Yep, we're doing back to school cards for this challenge!  And my kiddo starts school tomorrow, woohoo!  There are actually several great choices for this theme in the current catalog and of course you could use retired SU! stamps too.  Here's what I made:

One of my besties is starting a new teaching job this school year, after being a SAHM for several years and then substitute teaching for a while.  So this card is for her to wish her luck with her new 4th grade class!  I love that Apple Harvest has carried over from last year, I don't know why they didn't make the coordinating dies a permanent thing.  The dies were on the clearance rack for quite a while, don't know if they still are.

And I have a bonus card for today!  As luck would have it, my last SU! order before leaving Germany arrived right before I had to start packing up my craft room, and I made time to make one more card for this challenge because I fell in love with the Bird's Eye View stamp set.  Here it is:

The sentiment is from Rhino Ready, and the papers are from the Inked Botanicals DSP Stack.  In the same order, I got the Nested Essentials dies, so I had to give those a try too (the die around the bookish bird).  So glad I got to make this before everything got packed up.

So let's see your back to school cards!  Post 'em over on the SUO Challenges blog.  And have fun, this is art class : )

Supplies, all SU!, apple card:
Stamps:  Apple Harvest, Sending Smiles
Ink:  Night of Navy, Stampin' Blends in Sweet Sorbet & Soft Sea Foam
Paper:  Boho Blue, Thick Basic White, Countryside Inn DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blossoms dies, Sending dies, Dimensionals

Supplies, all SU!, bird card:
Stamps:  Bird's Eye View, Rhino Ready
Ink:  Night of Navy, Stampin' Blends in Petal Pink, Calypso Coral, Daffodil Delight, Pool Party, Lost Lagoon
Paper:  Petal Pink, Night of Navy, Pool Party, Thick Basic White, Inked Botanicals DSP
Accessories:  Nested Essentials dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Milky Dots

P.S.  This is what my craft room currently looks like:

And this is the loft area next door to the craft room, where the *rest* of my stuff currently is:

Okay, not quite all of it is craft room stuff, but a lot of it is.  So these two areas are my next area to tackle in the house; I've got the downstairs about 80% unpacked and organized (including the garage, even!), and I need to work on these two places next before I can figure out where I'm storing certain things from downstairs.  I'm hoping that my craft room might be workable by the end of the week.  With Ryan starting school tomorrow, I think I can do it.  Wish me luck!

Blackberry & Apples

Mornin' y'all!  Another super-quick post for me today, I have to get out the door for a mammogram.  Oh yay.  It was supposed to be next Monday but they called yesterday afternoon and rescheduled for today.

So here's the card I just made, hot off the craft table:

I was pondering the colors from CAS Colours & Sketches and noticed the Apple Harvest stamp set on my shelf, and it's carrying over to the Occasions catalog.  (Also I did a rather large order from the Occasions catalog yesterday because it's my birthday month and it's Sale-a-Bration and I do love me some new stamps and don't talk to me about the four stamp sets I haven't used yet from my last order.)  So here's the color palette:

I would have been tempted to go with cherries but Joanne got there first ; ) so apples it is! (Also that's a gorgeous card, Joanne!)  I stamped everything with Blackberry Bliss ink, which is lovely because it's a bit softer than using black ink, and then used my Blends to color in the image (except the flowers, which are very lightly watercolored with Blackberry Bliss).  When I was die-cutting the patterned paper, I accidentally got the die too close to the edge and ended up with one corner of the square snipped off, so I put the sentiment strip over it : ) No mistakes in crafting, just an opportunity for embellishment!  Also I have a lot of trouble getting those super long, skinny dies to cut straight if I do the stamping first, so I cut out the shape, adhered it to my grid paper with removable adhesive, and then stamped the sentiment.

Aaaaand there goes my timer.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss, Stampin' Blends in Cherry Cobbler, Granny Apple Green, Bronze, Ivory
Paper:  Blackberry Bliss, Thick Basic White, Blackberry Bliss DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blossoms dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Wink of Stella, Dimensionals

Guest DT: An Apple a Day

Hey hey!  I'm excited to be a guest designer today for the Color Throwdown!  This is one of my favorite challenges, I play along almost every week.  So check out the new challenge!

I read it as Blushing Bride, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, and Very Vanilla, and here's what I made:

Still loving the Apple Harvest bundle!  Hope you snagged the dies since they were only available in September.  I hadn't used the single big apple stamp yet so that's what I chose for today's card, and a trio of blossoms just because.  I also used the sketch from Fusion:

I have two friends who are undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and I send them both cards on a weekly basis so I'm always in need of more cards like this.  Very happy that I bought the DSP packs in allllll the color families, it's so great having patterns in every color!  And I like mixing and matching the patterns too.

Thanks, Color Throwdown team, for inviting me to be a guest designer this week!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest, Beauty of Friendship
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Stampin' Blends in Cherry Cobbler, Petal Pink, Mossy Meadow, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Thick Very Vanilla, Blushing Bride & Mossy Meadow DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, retiree Cherry Cobbler stitched satin ribbon

Sugar Apples

Mornin' y'all!  How's your day going?  I had just enough time on Monday (in between six loads of laundry) to make a card to share today.

Yeah I was so set to resist Apple Harvest and then the dies came out and it's all I want to use now ; )  Once again, I inked up the stamp with Versamark, then Early Espresso, stamped it and sprinkled clear EP on it.  Apparently I should have tapped off a bit more of the embossing powder because my apples look like they've got sugar on them.

For today's card, I started off with the Global Design Project challenge:

I traded the yellow/orange tones for greens but kept the layout and the main colors the same on my card.  I thought this paired nicely with the new Inspired By challenge:

Welcome back, Inspired By Challenges!  Nice to see y'all again.  I loved the gorgeous deep red color on the apples in this photo, so I used Cherry Cobbler to watercolor my apples.  Now I've done apples in Polished Pink, Sweet Sorbet, and Cherry Cobbler, but not the color that actually has the word "apple" in its name.  Ha!

Hope you have a great day, peeps.  I need to go pick up a bunch more apples that have fallen off the tree in our yard.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest, Nature's Prints
Ink:  Versamark, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Crumb Cake, Sahara Sand
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Dimensionals, Clear EP

Blackberry Apples

Mornin' y'all!  I loved this week's Paper Players challenge so much, I just had to make two cards : )

I was looking at the challenge graphic and thinking about how Pink Lady apples are my favorite, and that purple leaf in the bottom right caught my eye, and then this happened:

I actually made this before the one I posted on Sunday.  I stamped the image with Blackberry Bliss + Versamark, then embossed with clear EP so I could watercolor the image without the lines blurring.  I used Polished Pink for the apples.  When I was done, this card just seemed a bit formal for a "fall fun" challenge, which is why I switched up the colors and patterns and made the other card.  What do you think, do you have a favorite?  I had fun playing either way!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Blackberry Bliss, Polished Pink, Rich Razzleberry, Garden Green, Cinnamon Cider
Paper:  Blackberry Bliss, Thick Very Vanilla, watercolor paper, Blackberry Beauty DSP
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Deckled Rectangles dies, clear EP, Dimensionals

Picking Apples with the Paper Players

Hey hey, y'all!  It's time for a new challenge from the Paper Players!  Ann has a great theme for us this time around:

Fall is 100% my favorite season and I am so READY for cooler days, fall baking, and changing colors!  One of my favorite things we did last year was to go picking apples, so for this challenge I decided to ink up my brand new Apple Harvest stamp set.

And for this month only, you can get matching dies for it too, how cool is that?  I admit, I was all set to resist this stamp set up until they introduced the dies, and then I just had to have it : ) 

I just checked and apparently I never uploaded pictures from our apple-picking escapade to my other blog, so here's a pic of Ryan with our haul:

Oh yeah, I tried so many apple recipes last year!  We had apple pie, apple crisp, apple muffins, homemade apple sauce, and probably some other things I can't think of at the moment.

And there's Ryan enjoying the good life in a wheelbarrow at Appel Happel.  So we picked an entire crate of apples despite the fact that we have TWO apple trees IN OUR YARD.  But it was such a fun time for all of us that I think we'll have to do it again this year : )

Now it's your turn to make a fun fall card!  Don't forget to upload it to the Paper Players blog.  Enjoy!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Apple Harvest
Ink:  Versamark, Early Espresso, Sweet Sorbet, Parakeet Party, Cinnamon Cider, Petal Pink
Paper:  Balmy Blue, Thick Very Vanilla, watercolor paper, In Color DSP Stack
Accessories:  Apple Blooms dies, Deckled Rectangles dies, Early Espresso EP, Dimensionals

The Paper Players Design Team

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Claire Broadwater

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

Anne Marie Hile

Ann Schach

Cindy Beach

Christy Stanford <-- You are here : )

Jennie Maier