The Secret of Mirror Bay

Happy Saturday and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  This week, Nancy and her chums are off to rural New York State to investigate The Secret of Mirror Bay:

Okay, I think this cover is unique in Nancy Drew covers with the way Nancy is presented.  I can't think of a similar composition with Nancy's face so large (though partially covered).  We have totally embraced red hair (for now, anyway) and I do have to say this cover is eye-catching.

Case file:  Aunt Eloise (I love when she turns up) invites Nancy, Bess, and George to vacation with her at a cabin on Otsego Lake, where there's a woman who apparently walks on water and a mysterious green sorcerer trying to scare people out of the woods.  Eventually Ned, Burt, and Dave show up with an uncle who turns into a little romantic interest for Aunt Eloise, we learn a lot about fireflies, and they all go to the Baseball Hall of Fame though it has nothing to do with the mystery.  And as you can tell from the cover, Nancy unearths a treasure from the lake.  Wait, if it's in the water, does that count as unearthing it?  Okay, she recovers a treasure from the lake, how's that.

Here's my card:

I really wanted a leafy background for my card to match the leafy background on the book cover, and happily my new favorite Moonlit Flora DSP had exactly what I was looking for.  Since a lot of this mystery is about fireflies and trying to replicate their light effects, I had to go with Lighting the Way for my stamp and die set, and I looked up pictures of fireflies which are indeed brown and deep orange, though maybe not exactly as I have it on my card.

I'm always surprised when Basic Beige works well for something.  I like the idea of a pale neutral, but this one usually breaks into an unappealing green (especially if watercoloring).  This time it matches the cover of the book really well.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Lighting the Way
Ink:  Peaceful Pine
Paper:  Basic Beige, Evening Evergreen, Golden Glow, Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Moonlit Flora DSP
Accessories:  Lighting the Way dies, Stitched So Sweetly dies, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

And I have one more card:

The Drew Crew meet a girl working as a camp counselor nearby who is a college student studying bioluminescent fungi, so I had to make a mushroom card.  I used colored pencils for the image stamped in Early Espresso on Basic Beige cardstock.

Once again, I just love that Moonlit Flora DSP and I think this matches the mood of the book pretty well.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspirational Sketches, Fancy Flexible Phrases
Ink:  Early Espresso
Paper:  Cajun Craze, Basic Beige, Whisper White, Moonlit Flora DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels dies, Crayola colored pencils, Mini Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

This mystery is okay, but not one of my favorites--not terrible, but not super memorable for me either.  I give it three stars.  If you're inspired to make a card, please leave me a comment below!  And we'll see you next Saturday when Nancy takes on The Double Jinx Mystery.  Cheers!

Autumnal Tree Tops

Hey y'all, how's your day going?  We have a snow day today--both the hubs and Ryan are staying home today (well, except the hubs is currently out looking to buy a snowblower).  I think we've got like 12 to 18 inches of snow so far?  It's quite nice to look out through our big living room window at the wind whipping the snow around in our backyard and the open green space behind us while I'm nice and cozy and sipping my first cup of tea of the day.  And I have a Very Good Girl laying down next to me and being a little angel.

I found out yesterday that Daphne may turn out to be a good craft room companion; she was pretty good about chilling out in there while I was working on a few things yesterday.  So here's the maiden voyage for another stamp set I got like 6 weeks ago : )

The bundle is called Winterly Tree Tops but I made it autumnal.  Ironic, considering all the snow outside.  Here's the theme challenge from the Paper Players:

I found the grateful sentiment in Inspirational Sketches.  And here's the new sketch from Atlantic Hearts:

Thanks to LeAnne for introducing me to this challenge, I've been having fun with it.  Last up is the color challenge from TGIF Challenges:

I found wash patterns in both Cherry Cobbler and Crushed Curry in the Splendid Autumn DSP Stack and used Pecan Pie for layers in between.  That Cherry Cobbler wash is very dark but it really is Cherry Cobbler.

That's it for me today, peeps.  I think I need another cuppa tea.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Winterly Tree Tops, Inspirational Sketches
Ink:  Early Espresso, Crushed Curry, Stampin' Blends in Pecan Pie, Cherry Cobbler, Bronze, neutrals
Paper:  Pecan Pie, Thick Basic White, Splendid Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Winterly Tree Tops dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella, Festive Pearls

A Couple of Copper Cards

Mornin' y'all, and happy Saturday!  Our pre-Halloween snow is still sticking around in the backyard, though it was completely gone in the front yard by the time trick-or-treating started on Halloween night.  Just goes to show how much colder it is in constant shade!  But I'm all nice and toasty in my house and thinking about starting the kettle for my first cuppa tea today : )

But first, a couple of copper cards!

I have been having lots of fun playing with Copper Clay lately, love this color.  For this card, I paired it with Old Olive and a little bit of Peach Pie on the bird--I did regular masking and reverse masking to sponge Peach Pie on the bird and Old Olive on the background.  Then I used a marker to isolate just the single word from a greeting stamp (the whole thing says "Sending a bit of love your way") and added some retired Chocolate Chip ribbon.

Still having fun with this Atlantic Hearts sketch and the Sweet Days of Autumn DSP so I made another card:

I kinda wish the animals were all facing one direction on this paper, not gonna lie.  That deer looks a little past tense if you know what I mean ; )  Still, it's super cute paper and this time I used a greeting from Latte Love and some leaves from Autumn to Remember.  The ribbon is retired; I almost never buy ribbon anymore because I don't use it a whole lot, but lately I've been dipping into the retired ribbon stash.  Soft Suede taffeta worked pretty well on this card I thought.

Here's the Just Add Ink inspiration challenge that I started with:

I took the colors Old Olive, Copper Clay, and Peach Pie from the picture, plus the nature images and cozy feel and that's what I started with for my cards.  And like I said, I'm just having too much fun with the Atlantic Hearts sketch:

This time I tried to stay very close to the sketch instead of making it more CAS, so I've got lots of layers and patterns happening on both my cards.  Here they are together:

I do love me some fall cards : )  That's all I've got for today, peeps.  Have a great weekend!  I'm planning to make a chai spice swirl bundt cake today and call it coffee cake so we can have it for breakfast tomorrow.  Cheers!

Supplies, lovebird card:
Stamps:  Inspirational Sketches, Lovely & Sweet
Ink:  Copper Clay, Peach Pie, Old Olive, Early Espresso
Paper:  Copper Clay, Thick Very Vanilla, Sweet Days of Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Circles Collection dies, Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon, Speckled Dots

Supplies, hello fall card:
Stamps:  Latte Love, Autumn to Remember
Ink:  Copper Clay, Pecan Pie
Paper:  Copper Clay, Thick Very Vanilla, Sweet Days of Autumn DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Soft Suede taffeta ribbon, Speckled Dots, Dimensionals

Catty Inspiration with SUO Challenges

 Hey y'all, it's time already for a new challenge from SUO Challenges!

And here it is:

If you need it, here's a bigger pic, we're on page 66 of the SU! catalog:

My eye was immediately drawn to the Pretty Peacock card on the right, so I used that as a starting point and made this:

I do love the Inspiring Snapdragons bundle and I want to see more stuff made with it so that's why I chose it for my card.  Plus do snapdragons come in pink?  Doesn't matter if they do in nature because they do in my craft room!  I found the lovely Pretty Peacock wash in the Thoughtful Journey DSP Stack and used it for the background for my snapdragons.  I chose a sentiment from Inspirational Sketches just because it was smaller than the ones from the snapdragon set and I could cut it apart like the card in the catalog.  I used a few long-retired Noble Peacock Rhinestones for accents as well as a dragonfly because why not.

You have three lovely cards to choose from for this CASE the Catty challenge, so I hope you'll share over on the SUO Challenges blog.  Have fun!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspiring Snapdragons, Inspirational Sketches
Ink:  Pretty in Pink, Granny Apple Green, Pretty Peacock
Paper:  Pretty Peacock, Granny Apple Green, Thick Basic White, Thoughtful Journey DSP Stack
Accessories:  Inspiring Snapdragons dies, Mini Dimensionals, Noble Peacock Rhinestones

For Everything

Mornin' y'all!  It's Ryan's last day of school and they're supposed to have a water party so he's dressed in his swimsuit.  Gotta get him out the door in about 20 minutes and then I have to  make the most of the morning because he gets out at 11:55.  On the up side, he has karate camp all of next week for what is basically school hours : )

I have not one, but two cards for today!

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

It says olive, but that color looked more like Wild Wheat to me so that's what I went with, plus Pebbled Path.  I used a blender brush to add just a little Wild Wheat ink to my white cardstock but the white is on there too.  I must be honest, I was not a fan of this color combination; I mean, Wild Wheat is a bit of a hard sell for me in general, and I prefer brighter colors too.  But once I found that Wild Wheat pattern in the Thoughtful Journey DSP stack, and then decided on the Inspirational Sketches stamp set, I ended up with a second card:

I wanted to use the full image of the bird on this one and kept it very simple with the same supplies as the first card.  In fact, both cards use 3" pieces of the DSP so I only have some little scraps of that piece.  I finally cut into the Thoughtful Journey DSP!  : )

Yesterday was game day for Ryan at school, and when I picked him up, he said that one of the other kids had brought in Mexican train dominoes and he had really liked playing that.  My great-grandmother taught my brother and me how to play dominoes (just regular dominoes) when we were kids and I had liked it too, so we went out to Target yesterday and got a set for ourselves:

Don't let the face fool you, we played six rounds of dominoes last night and he loved it : ) He just also likes to make faces in pictures.  Maybe we can talk the hubs into playing dominoes with us when the deployment is over, though happily this is one game that works just fine with just two people.  Ryan and I both love lots of variations of Uno, but that usually works better with more than two people.  So I foresee a lot more rounds of dominoes for the next few weeks.

Okay, time to get the kiddo off to school for his last day.  He's not too excited about it because he likes his teacher so much, but I think the water day will help cheer him up.  Byeee!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspirational Sketches
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Wild Wheat
Paper:  Pebbled Path, Thick Basic White, Thoughtful Journey DSP Stack
Accessories:  Nested Essentials dies, Rustic Metallic Dots, Dimensionals

Daisy Bouquet

Mornin' y'all!  We had a bit of an adventure yesterday--I asked Ryan to take some cards out to the mailbox for me, and he announced that there was a dog wandering around the neighborhood.  Said doggo was a very large German Shepherd boy who quickly invited himself into our house.  He ended up staying with us for several hours until animal control came to pick him up at 8:30 last night; he does have a microchip, so I hope he will be reunited with his people today.  He was a pretty well-behaved doggo, though so large that he made Ryan a bit nervous (I would bet that dog weighs more than 100 pounds).  So that was our adventure yesterday!

Anyway, I have a sweet little card to share today with yet another new stamp set : )

Inspirational Sketches was an impulse buy, I think I used reward money on one of my recent orders to acquire it.  The other images include a lovely bird and some fungi, plus some nice sentiments, but I went with these daisies (?) for today's card.  Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And as usual, I paired their sketch with the Color Throwdown:

I used just a smidgen of Pale Papaya for the peach color, then Lemon Lolly and a mix of Lemon Lime Twist and Granny Apple Green for the green.  It wasn't too difficult to fussy cut my bouquet, and I found a couple of soft patterns in the Bright & Beautiful DSP Stack for my quilt-inspired layers.  Three shiny sequins and done!

Okay, it's time to get Ryan off to school.  Maybe this afternoon will be a bit calmer, though it was fun to have a doggo in the house again, even temporarily.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Inspirational Sketches
Ink:  Pebbled Path, Stampin' Blends in Pale Papaya, Lemon Lolly, Lemon Lime Twist, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Lemon Lolly, Pebbled Path, Thick Basic White, Bright & Beautiful DSP Stack
Accessories:  Shiny Sequins, Dimensionals