The Message in the Hollow Oak

Welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today's book is number twelve, The Message in the Hollow Oak.

This time, the revised text is completely different from the original and both of them are a trip.  This is where the revised text covers start going with more of a collage effect rather than a scene out of the book.  Let's take a look at them, starting with the original text.

Quick side note:  I love the horse playing peekaboo by Nancy's hip, I didn't notice him at first and now he makes me giggle every time I look at the cover.  Peekaboo!

Case file:  Nancy wins a radio contest and the prize is the deed to some land in a super remote part of Canada, so she, Bess, and George head for the border with an older lady to chaperone them.  They're involved in a pretty serious train accident but keep on going anyway, only to discover that unscrupulous men are digging for gold on Nancy's land.  She manages to trick the thieves and ends up with a bag of gold and along the way she saves a kidnap victim and reunites two people who had been separated by a misunderstanding years before.  Those two used the titular hollow oak as a letter drop to pass notes to each other.  Lots happening here.

Here's my card for the OT:

We have lots of big, burly lumberjack and gold prospector types in this book, but I was thinking of the one whom Nancy reunites with his long-lost sweetheart when I made this card.  And it was a great excuse to bust out my Wood You Be Mine stamp set!  I put some Cajun Craze Faux Glass Dots on there for accents but they kinda fade into the background. 

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Wood You Be Mine?
Ink:  Early Espresso, Old Olive, Stampin' Blends in Old Olive, Neutrals, Pretty in Pink, Cinnamon Cider, Cajun Craze, Crumb Cake, Gray Granite, Boho Blue
Paper:  Bumblebee, Old Olive, Boho Blue, Beauty of the Earth DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

Now let's look at the revised text:

Case file:  Aunt Eloise's PI friend dares Nancy to solve an old mystery that he and his buddies couldn't crack on their vacation--find a message left by a French missionary in a hollow oak tree and follow the clues to find a treasure.  She stays with Ned's cousin as part of a university archaeological dig and not only does she do some digging with them, she does find a series of hollow oak trees and finds the treasure despite another treasure hunter harassing her.  No gold prospectors in this one but it's still pretty wild.

Here's my card:

The cover of this one looks super spooky and Halloween-y, but the book isn't set around Halloween and the only skulls in it are the fragments that the archaeological dig find.  Still, I couldn't get the idea of a skull card out of my noggin so I made this one.  I did cover up the jack o' lantern on this stamp with a flower that's meant to represent Nancy on the cover.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  From the Crypt, Thoughtful Expressions
Ink:  Versamark, Island Indigo, Timid Tiger, Whisper White
Paper:  Island Indigo, Basic Beige, Beauty of the Earth DSP, Beautifully Penned DSP
Accessories:  Thoughtful Expressions dies, black EP,, Dimensionals

Since the book doesn't really have much to do with skulls despite the cover illustration, I made a second card:

Pretty sure that's Nancy's family motto right there.  I happened to see Textured Timber when I got out Thoughtful Expressions for the first card and I just had to use the tree images for a second card.  Still have orange flowers for Nancy though.

What's funny is that when I first sat down to make a card for this book many weeks ago, I hit a creative block and couldn't figure out what to do.  That's about when I snapped up the OT versions of the books and went back to reread from the start, gave it a few weeks and when I came back to this one I ended up with TWO cards for the book that was giving me a block.  Hooray!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Textured Timber, Thoughtful Expressions, Feathered Flight
Ink:  Early Espresso, Pecan Pie, Island Indigo, Stampin' Blends in Old Olive & Timid Tiger
Paper:  Island Indigo, Pecan Pie, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Basic Beige
Accessories:  Thankful Labels, Thoughtful Expressions dies, Dimensionals, In Color Flat Pearls

I'd be delighted to have you play along, just drop a link in the comments to your Nancy Drew inspired creation.  You can check out Hey, Nancy Drew for more chatter about the books, and stop by next week for lucky #13, The Mystery of the Ivory Charm!

SUO Challenges: The Highlander Challenge

 Mornin' y'all!  It's time again for a new challenge at SUO Challenges!

This particular challenge came from my diabolical brain...

I call it the Highlander challenge because there can be only ONE...stamp.  (Okay my knowledge of Highlander is limited to "There can be only one" and a mental image of Sean Connery with a sword.)  At least one other stamper on the design team was like WHAT how is that possible, but I think the easiest way to do this challenge is to pick a great DSP and add a sentiment.  BAM.

The Thoughtful Journey DSP was too gorgeous to not use the whole sheet though so I made two cards.

The stamp on this one is from Feathered Flight in the Online Exclusives.  Super, super simple with the gorgeous DSP, a die cut sentiment, and one Boho Blue gem.

For this one, I used a sentiment from Thoughtful Expressions and two In Color Shimmer Gems in Petunia Pop.  I thought this would be a nice sympathy card, and I like to make those when I don't need them so I have a couple on hand.

So there's two ideas from me and I could have done a lot more with different DSPs and let's be honest I probably will.  Hope you have as much fun with this as I did and don't forget to upload your cards to the SUO Challenges blog.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Feathered Flight, Thoughtful Expressions
Ink:  Mossy Meadow
Paper:  Boho Blue, Mossy Meadow, Petunia Pop, Thick Basic White, Thoughtful Journey DSP Stack
Accessories:  Countryside Corners dies, Thoughtful Expressions dies, Dimensionals, retired Solid Gems, In Color Shimmer Gems

Lavender Thoughts

Hey y'all, all of a sudden I'm having computer issues this morning--I uploaded two pictures from my phone onto my computer, then decided that I wanted to take another pic and now my phone can't find my computer to share pictures with.  The heck?  It could find the computer two minutes ago!  Urgh.  So anyway, here's the pic I have for today's card:

And I made this for the Festive Friday challenge:

Okay, the weirdness continues--my computer just spontaneously restarted.  Hope this chills out because I am not great with troubleshooting technology.  Anyway, from the list, I chose purple, pearls, and thinking of you.  I actually had put some purple gems on at first because I forgot I needed pearls from the list.  Also I borrowed the sketch from Mary Fish.

Anyway, I think I'm going to step away from the computer before anything else weird happens, and I have other things to do anyway.  Have a great Friday, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Painted Lavender, Feathered Flight
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather
Paper:  Highland Heather, Pretty Peacock, Shaded Spruce, Thick Basic White, Perennial Lavender DSP
Accessories:  Painted Lavender dies, Countryside Corners dies, linen thread, In Color pearls, Dimensionals

Duck Tales, Woo-Ooo

Mornin', y'all.  We got up very early this morning to take the hubs to the airport; we won't see him again for another 3 1/2 months, but next time we see him this deployment is over so that's good : )

I have another quick card I made on Thursday to share today:

I got Feathered Flight because ducks are my son's favorite animal.  Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I used Boho Blue, Smoky Slate, and Pecan Pie.  Do you ever have colors that you just don't like together?  For my mom it's navy blue and black; for me, it's gray and brown.  So this challenge was definitely a challenge for me.  And it's a challenge when house hunting too, I know we saw several houses where everything was gray (SO GRAY, gray everywhere) but the cabinets in the kitchen were brown.  Sometimes the cabinets were brown and the counters were gray and I just hate it.  There was one house that all three of us loved but we're not going to get it because of the school district and also it's huge.  And absolutely everything in there was gray--carpet, laminate floors, walls, even the ceilings.  I told my husband I would want to have the entire interior repainted like a pale blue.  I'm okay with gray, I just don't want everything to be gray.  Don't want to live inside a rain cloud.

Anyway, enough about my color ramblings.  Hope you have a good weekend, y'all.  Ryan goes back to school on Monday so he'd better enjoy his last couple days of spring break.  I have a feeling he'll be difficult to awaken on Monday morning...

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Feathered Flight, Textured Timber
Ink:  Boho Blue, Smoky Slate, Pecan Pie
Paper:  Boho Blue, Pecan Pie, Basic White
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Classic Matte Dots

Bear With Me

Hey y'all, happy Friday!  And it is a happy Friday, I got up and did a nice relaxation yoga routine this morning and here in a bit I'll be going to the Y to do a yoga class there too.  Time to get my stretch on : )  And this afternoon, Ryan and I will have our monthly ice cream date because as of today, we've conquered five months of the hubs' deployment.  Almost halfway there...

Anyway, apparently this is my week for rustic bear cards because I made another one.  Here it is:

It's a bit of a liberal take on this Try Stampin' on Tuesday sketch:

The trees (which are both one big stamp) are standing in for the two vertical strips, and the bear is the third panel.  I did have to add some ground for him to walk on because he looked weird just hovering there.  And I'm playing along in the new Retro Rubber challenge:

I went down the right side with trees, embossing (the bear is heat embossed with black EP, so he stands out a bit from the rest of the card), and your choice, and I chose BEAR.  'Cause I love bears.  The stamp set Pines (trees and bear) is at least two years old; I bought it used off of eBay when I was making my Maine scrapbook pages.  Wildlife Wonder (the ground) is coming up on two years old as well, but the sentiment stamp from Feathered Friends is brand new.  Had to get it when it showed up in the online exclusives because it's got a bunch of ducks and those are Ryan's favorite.

Okay I've gotta get moving if I want to make my yoga class on time.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pines, Wildlife Wonder, Feathered Flight
Ink:  Shaded Spruce, Crumb Cake, Versamark
Paper:  Crumb Cake
Accessories:  Black EP, Dimensionals, linen thread