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!

Bye-Bye Oh So Eclectic

Heyyyy we're almost to Friday.  I'm excited about this weekend because hubs and I got a babysitter so we're going to see the new Avengers movie!  Woohoo!

In the meantime, how about a card with another retiring stamp set?

I wouldn't say Oh So Eclectic is one of my favoritest stamp sets ever, but I have enjoyed playing with it for the last couple of years.  I do like that cutout die I did on the background which is part of the coordinating Thinlits.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

See, that vertical strip made me think of the die right away.  And once I had this week's Color Throwdown colors in my head, the card came together very quickly:

I used So Saffron, Mango Melody, Night of Navy, and Granny Apple Green for my colors.  The flower is two stamps: for the solid stamp, I inked it up with So Saffron and then used a sponge dauber to apply some Mango Melody to the outside edges and the center of the stamp.  Then I just stamped the outline over the top with Mango Melody ink and die cut it.  I also put some Wink of Stella in the flower center but you can't see it in the photo. #typical

The Tropical Escape DSP stack once again came to my rescue when I wanted a pattern to go behind the die cut area; it's just some wavy Granny Apple Green lines that I thought coordinated well with the pattern on the leaves without drawing attention away from the focal point.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Today is my last barre class with the current instructor...she's 8+ months pregnant :) I hope they get someone to take over teaching the class, I do enjoy it a lot.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  So Saffron, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Whisper White
Paper:  So Saffron, Night of Navy, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP Stack
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Rocket Raccoon

Hey y'all, happy Friday!  I think I finally started succumbing to allergies yesterday...hardly a surprise as everything has a coat of yellow pollen.  When it rained on Tuesday all of the puddles were yellow!  But anyway, I persevered and made a card for today.

Soooooooooo I have a bunch of new stamp sets to play with and of course today I chose to use some stamps I've had for over a year at least!  Ah well, sometimes that's what happens.

Love this sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch:

And here's the theme challenge from Global Design Project:

Which dovetails nicely with the theme challenge from Cupcake Inspiration:

I, for one, would be delighted to come across a woodland creature on a walk through the park.  Generally I see squirrels and bunnies though, as opposed to foxes and raccoons, but I think the raccoon I made is pretty cute.  I hand-drew his little quirky smile to give him some character.

Okay kids, we've gotta get up and moving today.  Have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Gray Granite, Grapefruit Grove, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Gray Granite, Share What You Love Specialty DSP, Natures' Poem DSP
Accessories:  Fox Builder Punch, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals

Friendly Watercolor Sunflower

Hey y'all!  Despite having The Headache That Would Not Die (I swear, I've had this headache on and off since last Tuesday), I managed to make a card yesterday afternoon.  Here 'tis:

I sponged Soft Suede ink on the Post Script background stamp to give it a softer feel so it wouldn't compete with my sunflower from Painted Harvest.  I love Post Script so this was me reminding myself to use it more often :)  My card was inspired by the CASE the Designer challenge at Global Design Project:

And I paired that with the color challenge from the Paper Players:

Assuming that neutrals aren't counted as the extra color, I used Pear Pizzazz for the color of my choice because the sunflower needed some leaves.

That's it for me today, kids.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Post Script, Painted Harvest, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories:  Leaf Punch, Dimensionals, retired epoxy shapes, Wink of Stella pen

A Suite Combination

Hey kids!  We're still waiting for the flood waters to go back down here.  It's not a problem at my house, but there is a river here so a bunch of other places are having trouble.  I'm ready for everything to go back to normal!  Plus I need to go back to the gym because #hurricanebaking, haha.

In addition to baking (and eating), I made this card while the hurricane was here doing its thing on Thursday (hubs and I switched off every hour who was keeping the kid entertained, which was awesome for both of us).

I used a combination of two suites here, the Tropical Escape suite and the Eclectic suite (well, it was a suite in the last catalog--now it's just a coordinating stamp set and Thinlits).  First up I used the colors from the Fab Friday color challenge:

Can a color palette be jewel tone and pastel at the same time?  Because I feel like this one is.  I managed to work in all five colors and I *think* they all look like they're supposed to be there.  Whee!

I paired all those colors with the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch:

That grill-looking element on the bottom reminded me of the die in the Eclectic Thinlits.  I'd never used it before so I was happy to take this opportunity to bust it out.  I just adhered some DSP on the inside of the card; it doesn't bother me to see the other side of the pattern on the inside of the card, but you could cover it up with more white cardstock if it bothered you.

Wish me luck keeping Ryan entertained again today.  We went to Joann's yesterday and he had to touch All The Things but at least he wasn't pitching a major hissy fit like some other kid in the store was.  He's even pretty good about putting things back where he found them when I tell him to.  As long as he's behaving and not damaging things, I'm okay with chasing him around stores to let out some energy.  Because stores are more fun than the same old boring house you see all the time, right?

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Tropical Chic, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Gorgeous Grape, Highland Heather, Tranquil Tide, Balmy Blue, Powder Pink
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Tropical Thinlits, Dimensionals

Primary Colors

Happy Friday, y'all!  Man, Ryan must have it in for his mama--on Wednesday he screamed for an hour when I put him down for his nap.  Finally fell asleep an then 45 minutes later a noisy motorcycle woke him up and he started screaming again.  That's why no card yesterday.  Then yesterday he didn't want to sleep but mostly he just bounced around in his crib and sang to himself, so I just left him in there for some quiet time and finally got a card made!

Yup, those are some primary colors right there.  I'll get to that in a minute.  First up is this week's What Will You Stamp? challenge:

Turns out that Oh So Eclectic was the only stamp set I needed to make this card!  All the images, the background bit, and the sentiment are from this one stamp set.  Handy.

Next up is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I don't care much for making square cards, so I modified the sketch to a standard A2 size.

Finally, check out the Color Throwdown:

I used Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, and Pacific Point.  Today's blog post is brought to you by the letter P.

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, Pacific Point
Paper:  Pacific Point, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Eclectic Layers Thinlits, Stitched Shapes Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella because it's never not a good idea for a bit of sparkle

Missing You

Well, after all three of us being sick over the weekend, the hubs and the babe both seemed like they were feeling much better yesterday.  Now if only I could get rid of this ridiculous cough...whenever I cough, our dog Sadie gets up and looks real concerned and won't leave me alone for several minutes.  Which is cute, I'm glad she cares about me, but it makes it hard to do things when she's all up in my chili.  (I love my girl.)

Anyway, between coughing fits I did make a card yesterday.

This is the first time I've ever tried to pleat a ribbon like that and I'm not 100% sure I like it.  Plus I think maybe the ribbon should be lower and the sentiment higher but there were so many glue dots on the ribbon that there's no way it's moving.  Hmm.

I used the Sunday Stamps color challenge:

Basic Black, Lovely Lipstick, Lemon Lime Twist, Granny Apple Green, and Whisper White was how I interpreted the colors.  Granny Apple Green isn't really a good match, but it was the closest I could get in current SU! colors.

I also used the current sketch from Fab Friday:

And that's it for me today.  Ryan and I didn't go to the Y yesterday since he still had a bit of a runny nose, but I think we'll try to go today.  Which means I need to get him up and dressed and fed.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Lovely Lipstick, Lemon Lime Twist, Granny Apple Green
Paper:  Lemon Lime Twist, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Layering Circles Framelits, Up & Away Thinlits, LLT ombre ribbon, Dimensionals, glue dots

Eclectic Thanks On One Layer

Hey y'all!  During Ryan's naptimes yesterday, I managed to get some embroidery floss organized for my next ten projects (ten Pretty Little Cities patterns from Satsuma Street, yes I'm crazy but they're SO CUTE), got started on a new scrapbook layout, and I also managed to make a real fast one layer card. Yep, I'm maximizing naptime!

It's too bad the Just Add "O" challenge is over, because the two stamp sets I used both start with O--One Big Meaning and Oh So Eclectic.

Here's the sketch from Clean & Simple Stamping that made my card come together so fast:

And the color challenge from Color Throwdown:

I used Real Red, So Saffron, Smoky Slate (stamped off once), and just a hint of Mint Macaron on the flower stem on my white card base.

I'm also entering this in the Retro Rubber May Flowers challenge, but I can't get the challenge graphic to upload.  Sometimes Blogger does that, where it just flatly refuses to upload a picture, so I'll have to try again later.  I've had One Big Meaning since at least February of 2016, but Oh So Eclectic hasn't achieved retro status yet ;)

Okay, the kid is clamoring for attention so I'd better go see what he wants.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic, One Big Meaning
Ink:  Basic Gray, Smoky Slate,  Real Red, So Saffron, Mint Macaron
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Eclectic Catty Case

Mornin' y'all!  How's it going today?  Ryan is starting to wiggle around in his crib so I'd better type this fast and then I can get him up for breakfast.

Say hello to the first card of the new year!

I was actually having trouble getting my brain back in the card making game, but then I looked at the Stampin" Up! catalog cover and decided to CASE one of the cards on there.  I combined that with the last Freshly Made Sketch of 2017:

And I'm happy with what I came up with.  I'm not happy with my Soft Sky ink pad...I first tried stamping the Lemon Lime Twist blob with Soft Sky and it came out looking more like dirty dishwater.  I stamped the LLT right over it and it looks much better.  And this is why I miss Baja Breeze and would rather have it than Soft Sky.  Baja Breeze never looks like dishwater.

Okay, time to get Ryan up and get our day started.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Emerald Envy, Night of Navy
Paper:  Night of Navy, Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Whisper White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Iridescent Sequins, Dimensionals

Eclectic Friend

Mornin', y'all!  A week ago I was talking about how I hadn't used Flirty Flamingo too much, and it occurred to me yesterday that I hadn't dusted off Fresh Fig in a while either.  So I set out to make a figgy card.

I think Naturally Eclectic is the only DSP I have that features Fresh Fig, so I started with that.  I was surprised how much I like Fresh Fig + Lemon Lime Twist + Soft Sky.  Sure there are other colors in the stripey DSP, but I chose those three to work with on my stamped panel with the flowers.

I used this week's sketch from the Paper Players:

Usually, I just sketch out sketches on scratch paper and take that down to my craft room, and sometimes I get proportions a little bit off working from my own copy of the sketch.  Still, I think you can see where I started from here.

Well, I'm off to try a yoga class while Ryan hangs out in the gym day care.  Wheee!  (I don't think I'm going to like yoga but I'll try it anyway.)

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Fresh Fig, Lemon Lime Twist, Soft Sky
Paper:  Fresh Fig, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Whisper White, Naturally Eclectic DSP
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

P.S. Missing You

Happy Friday, y'all.  I have to say, with the hubs here on convalescent leave for his back surgery, it's kinda hard for me to keep track of the days sometimes.  It sorta feels like the weekend all the time because he's home :)  And I never want to clean house, because who wants to spend a Saturday mopping floors?  But one of these not-Saturdays I need to actually do that.

Well, yesterday we had a tough afternoon.  I was having severe lack of mojo, and Ryan started getting really fussy and we had two open-air accidents yesterday (the last one was when he was, like, three weeks old, so maybe I'd gotten complacent?) and by 4:00 I was just DONE.  But I cleaned up the baby, hubs cleaned up the mess, baby got to take a little nap and I finally managed to get a card made for today.  Not my favoritest ever, but at least I did something.

Given all our tinkle-based misadventures yesterday, I now find it funny that my card is mostly yellow.  Anyway, ever since I got Post Script, I've wanted to use it to make a "miss you" card, because if you're sending someone a letter it means you're not with them so you miss them, right?  I sponged Cajun Craze ink on the stamp, and then stamped it on a piece of ombre Crushed Curry paper from the Color Theory stack.  I figured Tranquil Tide would go well with the other colors (because Tranquil Tide plays nice with everyone), plus it's about the only current ribbon I have, so there you go.

I used this week's Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple:

That Post Script layer covers up an earlier attempt to use this sketch...seriously I probably spent more than a half hour trying to think of what to do and NOTHING.  This is a great sketch and it shouldn't have been so hard!  I was trying to combine it with a color challenge at it just wasn't working, so I tossed the color challenge.  Sometimes the stamping muse just doesn't want to cooperate.

Ryan is now trying to grab the hubs' breakfast bowl to get more oatmeal, but they ate it all :D  I've got more oatmeal baking in the oven for me, so I'll share a little with him when mine is ready.  It's funny, I typically don't like oatmeal unless it's in the form of cookies, but I tried this earlier this week and loved it.  Yay healthy breakfast?

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Post Script, Oh So Eclectic
Ink:  Cajun Craze, Tranquil Tide
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Tranquil Tide, Color Theory DSP
Accessories:  Tranquil Tide ribbon, Stitched Shapes & Layering Circles Framelits, Mini Dimensionals

Driftwood Anniversary

Happy Toooosday, y'all!  I've got a happy baby bouncing right next to me.  At least he can't reach the keyboard from where he is right now ;)

So here's today's card.  I'm in looooooove with Emerald Envy, what about you?  I had a good excuse to use it too, what with the current photo inspiration from Inkspirational:

Oooh pretty.  I don't have the new So Many Shells stamp set or I would have been tempted to use it today; instead I pulled out the brand-new-to-me Oh So Eclectic for the greenery on my card.  I tried using the matching Framelits to cut it out, but I discovered that the matching Framelit is not an exact match for this stamp, it works better with the *other* sprig of greenery.  So I ended up fussy cutting the two for my card to get the look I wanted.

I chose the sentiment to go along with this week's theme challenge from Global Design Project: 

So there you have it, that's my card for today.  Hope to get in some more stamping sometime later today once Ryan tires himself out in his bouncer :)  I literally have a bouncing baby boy.  Ha!

Cheers, y'all!  Happy stampin'!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Hardwood, Oh So Eclectic, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink:  Emerald Envy, Soft Suede, Whisper White
Paper:  Emerald Envy, Sahara Sand, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Mini Dimensionals