The Clue of the Dancing Puppet

Hey y'all!  I know it's been quiet around here but it really is a pain to blog from the hubs' laptop and also I dorked up my wrist this week by doing too much cross stitching one day.  I've had problems with my right wrist for years, mostly it's just a minor annoyance but every once in a while I make it mad so that's where we are this week.  But it's Saturday and time for a new Nancy Drew challenge!  Today we are on #39, The Clue of the Dancing Puppet:

The flashlight edition on the left has been in my collection for years and I got the matte one on the right when I was in Texas for Labor Day weekend last year.  This is another cover by Rudy Nappi (I do love his Nancys) and Nancy is wearing a different light blue dress from what she wore on the cover of The Clue in the Old Stagecoach.

Case file:  Bess is stagestruck and has joined a local amateur theater company, the Footlighters, where Nancy finds her next mystery:  a life-size ballerina puppet dances across the lawn of the estate where the theater company is based and it's making people nervous, which is the plot for pretty much every episode of Scooby-Doo.  Nancy and George join the Footlighters undercover to investigate and find a diva actress, jewel thieves, and robotic puppets.  Creepy.

My matte copy comes with what might be the sweetest inscription out of any of my used books, take a look:

Isn't that great?  I love it.  And I love knowing a tiny piece of this book's history, and that it's older than I am, ha.  Anyway, for today's card, I was inspired partly by one of the interior illustrations:

We have four life-size puppets in this book and puppets are right up there with dolls and clowns for Creepy Things Christy Does Not Want.  But I decided to use the Pierrot puppet as my inspiration instead of the ballerina since I did ballerinas for The Scarlet Slipper Mystery.  Here's my card:

When I saw the illustration, I knew I was going to break out my very old and beloved Print Pattern for the background, and I layered it with Script inked up very lightly because that was the thing to do for a while, layering different background stamps together.  I still used colors from the book cover for my card, Pink Pirouette for the ballerina and Balmy Blue for Nancy's dress.  And the rose was left over from when I made this card, it is apropos of nothing for the book, I just liked it.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Print Pattern, Script, Fifth Avenue Floral, Suite Sentiments
Ink:  Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Pretty in Pink Shimmer Gems, Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet is not one of my favorites.  Puppets are creepy even when they're not life-sized, and one of the characters is a middle-aged Shakespearean actor windbag prone to spouting pretentious quotations at the drop of a hat *and* he's got a giant (unreciprocated) crush on the company's lead actress, who is half his age, and that is a whole different level of creepy.  I give this one two stars.  If you are inspired to make your own Nancy Drew card, leave me a comment below, I can't wait to see!  And come back next Saturday when Nancy takes on The Moonstone Castle Mystery.  Cheers!

Just a Rose

Mornin' y'all!  I started out strong this morning with a workout and running errands, and now it's 10:30 in the morning and I'm running out of steam.  And apparently poor Daphne has an upset tummy, but maybe a walk will make both of us feel better.

Anyway, once again I have chosen some long-retired stamps to play with instead of breaking in the new ones, but here we go:

We're feeling pink today because of the Inspired By... Challenge:

I looked through my entire stamp collection--twice--and just couldn't settle on anything related to hot chocolate or ice cream to go with this inspo pic, and then I settled on the giant rose from Fifth Avenue Floral because the petals remind me of the swirls in the whipped cream in the picture.

And since I'm using retro stamps, I'm entering this at Retro Rubber:

From some Google snooping, I think both the stamp sets I used today date back to 2013, so they're quite retro at 13 years old now.  I saw other Google hits dating to 2016, so they're *at least* ten years old.  Anyway, for the main flower image, I stamped it in Versamark + Early Espresso, heat embossed with clear powder, and then added some shading with Pretty in Pink (because the Pink Pirouette ink didn't show up enough on the Pink Pirouette cardstock).  A quick snippy-snip and a layer of old DSP, and here's a pretty pink rose card to send out to a friend.

Time for me to take Daphne out for her walk, she's a little extra stir-crazy because we didn't go yesterday so she deserves to go today.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Fifth Avenue Floral, A Dozen Thoughts
Ink:  Versamark, Early Espresso, Pretty in Pink
Paper:  Basic Beige, Early Espresso, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Pink Pirouette DSP
Accessories:  Clear EP, Dimensionals, In Color Flat Pearls

The Clue in the Old Album

Happy Saturday!  And welcome back to the Nancy Drew Challenge, I love these : )  Today we are on book #24, The Clue in the Old Album, and once again I have three different covers.

The first one is by Russell Tandy and features what could be one of several scenes of Nancy watching the happenings at a Romani campsite (the book says Gypsies, but I'm going to do my best to use the more correct and respectful terminology).  This time we have Nancy in a dark red skirt suit with matching headwear, looking pretty sharp.

The second cover is the same type of scene, but updated by Rudy Nappi so we have Nancy in a '60s-style yellow sheath dress with her signature flippy 'do, and if you look closely, her fingernails are painted.  The camp scene she's observing feels more menacing to me, with the man opening the tent and the woman sitting on the ground inside...is it just me?  Gives me the heebies a little bit.

For the third one, also a Nappi cover, we have Nancy in the foreground looking through a photo album, and behind her is the Romani violinist she's trying to find.  I like that Nancy is still in yellow, which looks great with her titian hair and makes for a nice contrast with the black and deep red of the background.  I think this is my favorite of the three, I like the moodiness.

So let's take a look inside.

Case file:  While at a violin concert, Nancy sees a man steal an elderly woman's purse, which is how she meets Mrs. Struthers.  The woman asks Nancy to find a specific doll for her, which her daughter had mentioned in her last words before expiring of an unexplained illness, and while she's doing that Nancy acts as her personal shopper to buy dolls at doll shows in different cities.  Mrs. Struthers also asks her to find Romano Pepito, estranged father of her granddaughter Rose, who is a Romani man and plays the violin (and apparently he is less important to her than the dolls).  Of course Nancy finds everything she's looking for and reunites the family.  And the dolls.  Don't forget the dolls.

Here's my card:

Musical Jamboree is the closest I could come to a violin in my collection, though in this context would it be a fiddle?  What's the difference, anyway?  Ah, Google says that the main difference is the style of music played rather than the structure of the instrument, but fiddlers will sometimes flatten the bridge of the strings so they can more easily play multiple strings at once.  Today I learned.

I thought my music-loving animals were a good parallel for the campfire scene on the book, and I used my new favorite Everyday Skies DSP for the background, embossing the greeting right on the sky.  Over the course of the book, Nancy encourages Mrs. Struthers to get her wild granddaughter Rose into music lessons, so I liked that sentiment for this card.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Musical Jamboree, Music from the Heart
Ink:  Misty Moonlight, Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark, Stampin' Blends in Pebbled Path, Ivory, Copper Clay, Pecan Pie, Petal Pink, Pumpkin Pie
Paper:  Misty Moonlight, Thick Basic White, Everyday Skies DSP Stack, Meandering Meadows DSP Stack
Accessories:  White EP

And the second OT cover:

Here's my card:

A large part of the book has to deal with Mrs. Struthers' doll collection; she sends Nancy on a couple of errands to go buy more dolls in other cities and a pair of nefarious Romani steal dolls from her and also kidnap her granddaughter Rose.  Anyway, dolls brought to mind the My Matryoshka stamp set...I like matryoshka dolls but most other types creep me out ; )  I think dolls were a bigger plot point than the titular old album.

I wanted to incorporate yellow for Nancy's dress on the cover, so I started with the Floral Delight DSP, then added Real Red from the book cover and a bit of Pool Party from the DSP.  Parts of the dolls are colored with the lighter Pool Party Blend but it's hard to see in the photo.  I went with the "Missing You" sentiment since Rose and her dad were missing each other until Nancy reunited them.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  My Matryoshka, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Daffodil Delight, Petal Pink, Pretty in Pink, Real Red, Pool Party, Old Olive
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Lemon Lolly, Thick Basic White, Floral Delight DSP
Accessories:  Stitched So Sweetly dies, Opaque Faceted Gems, Best Year Ever ribbon, Dimensionals

Now for the RT:

Case file:  This one closely follows the RT, omitting a subplot where Nancy, Bess, and George buy a sailboat and beat a snooty girl and her friends in a sailing race, which was pretty pointless anyway.

Here's my card:

Rose, the granddaughter, is a bit of a wild child and Mrs. Struthers initially doesn't want Rose to know about her Romani heritage (because...it will make her more wild?).  Rose loves music and dancing, so I chose Margarita Ketto from Stamping Bella to represent Rose, plus many multiple Romani women are described as wearing scarlet skirts.  I used a giant rose outline on the Cherry Cobbler paper and on the inside, I stamped the Katharine Hepburn quote "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun" which pretty much encapsulates Rose's attitude.

I took my colors directly from the cover on this one.  I wanted to put the Katharine Hepburn quote on the front, but that stamp is quite large so I put it on the inside instead and then forgot to take a picture of it.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Margarita Ketto & greetings from Stamping Bella, Fifth Avenue Floral
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Cherry Cobbler, Stampin' Blends in Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight, Petal Pink, Pretty in Pink
Paper:  Daffodil Delight, Cherry Cobbler, Basic Black, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Layering Ovals Framelits, Dimensionals, Daffodil Delight 3/8" taffeta ribbon

I do vaguely remember this one from childhood--as soon as it mentioned Mrs. Struthers' doll collection, I was like "Oh yes, the creepy dolls!"  Nancy even gets poisoned by one.  Anyway, this is a pretty solid installment but not one of my favorites; I give it three and a half stars.  If you are inspired to create a card, leave me a comment below as I would love to see!  Meanwhile, I will be back next Saturday to investigate The Ghost of Blackwood Hall.  Cheers!

Friday Flashback: Fifth Avenue Floral

It's time for another Friday Flashback!  Today's randomly-chosen stamp set is Fifth Avenue Floral, and yet again I'm surprised I don't have more stuff in my archives because this is a really pretty stamp set.  Let's take a look at what I've got, shall we?

I made this for a swap, probably right when Fifth Avenue Floral made its debut in the SU catalog.  Not hard to make a pretty card with this stamp set, amirite?  My only problem was I thought the DSP I used coordinated with Sahara Sand and then after I'd stamped all my floral pieces, I realized the DSP was actually Crumb Cake, so I had to re-stamp the whole set because my OCD wouldn't let me not be all matchy-matchy.  Oops.

But it all worked out because I used the Sahara Sand pieces to make cards to send out to my SU customers.  I just couldn't toss all those perfectly good stamped bits!

Some while later, I made this one for my friend Connie for her birthday.  I was in a hurry so I CASE'd those two earlier cards to make this one.  So that's it for the archives, but it's longer than last week's Friday Flashback ;)  I could have sworn I had used that one stripey flower for a scrapbook layout, but I went through my scrapbook pages three times and I couldn't find it on any of my pages.  At this point, given my week-long battle with insomnia, I may be delusional about that scrapbook page.

Anywhoo, how about a brand-new card!

Dang, that photo is slightly out of focus on the bottom.  Shoulda taken an extra shot for insurance but oh well, you get the gist.  I realized in looking at the archives that I'd never actually colored the flowers in (unless it was on that mythical scrapbook layout, snort) so today I pulled out an oldie from the technique files:  polished stone.  I'm sad that the glossy white cardstock is retiring because you have to have that to do polished stone, which is a technique I love.  The flower is done with Summer Starfruit and Primrose Petals ink refills, and then stamped with Raspberry Ripple for the outline and cut out.  Really fast way to color the flower and get a unique result every time!

Let's hear it for last week's Sketch Frenzy Friday sketch:

It's pretty layer-licious for my tastes but I just had to give it a go with that giant rose.  And the two strips behind the flower were a great way to use some more Print Poetry DSP, because I need to either a.) buy less DSP (yeah like that's gonna happen) or b.) use more of what I've got (I think I could actually do that one).

The color combo is from the hot-off-the-presses Fab Friday color challenge:

My challenge was working in the Soft Suede; if left to my own devices, I would have stamped the sentiment in Primrose Petals.  But I managed to hit all five colors on this challenge and didn't add any extras, can I get a whoop whoop!  :D  So given the stamp sent name and the challenges, this card is a Fab Frenzy Floral Flashback, bwahahahaa!

Thanks for joining me on today's Friday Flashback, have a fabby-dabby weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Fifth Avenue Floral, Elementary Elegance
Ink:  Raspberry Ripple & Soft Suede ink pads, Primrose Petals & Summer Starfruit ink refills
Paper:  Raspberry Ripple, Summer Starfruit, Glossy White, Print Poetry DSP, Neutrals DSP Stack (the vanilla piece is actually DSP with subtle stripes on it)
Accessories:  Modern Label punch