The Clue of the Tapping Heels

Welcome to the sixteenth Nancy Drew Challenge where we are listening for The Clue of the Tapping Heels!

This is another time when the original text (left) and revised text (right) are pretty different from each other.  Once again we have a scene from the book for the OT cover and the RTs continue the collage style and man, that is some outfit Nancy has on.  So 60s and I halfway expect her to be on roller skates.  Let's take a look, shall we?

Case file:  Nancy, Bess, and George befriend a retired actress named Miss Carter who owns and/or feeds over 20 cats, to the dismay of her neighbors.  Miss Carter had paid for Gus Woonton, a mentally challenged boy who had been in the care of her neighbor Fred Bunce, to be cared for at an institution, but receives a telegram that the boy has died.  Fred Bunce acts super suspiciously so Nancy investigates him and finds out that Gus isn't dead and Fred is a crook.  On his trail in New York City, Fred captures Nancy and traps her on a cruise ship bound for South America, but her tapping in Morse code leads her friends to find her.  Nancy also reunites Miss Carter with her former costar and they adopt Gus.

Here's my card for the OT:

There's a subplot in the book when Nancy and George are abducted by a man claiming to be an Egyptian fortune teller, but sadly I have ZERO Egyptian-themed stamps in my stash (unless you count a Halloween mummy or two), so I decided to go with Miss Carter's many cats for this card.  The cats and toy mouse are all fussy cut from the Playful Pets DSP, and I put them on a brick wall background to match the book cover.

In addition to the brick wall, I used Crushed Curry and Cherry Cobbler for my two main colors as a nod to Nancy's outfit on the cover.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Glad We're Friends, Ghoulish Grunge
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Cherry Cobbler
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Cherry Cobbler, Thick Basic White, Playful Pets DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Nested Essentials dies, Mini Dimensionals

Now let's look at the RT:

Case file:  Nancy is invited to the home of Miss Carter, a retired actress, to investigate mysterious tapping sounds in her house as well as the theft of several valuable Persian cats, which Miss Carter breeds as a source of income.  Because Miss Carter has a broken leg, Nancy, Bess, and George help take care of the cats while they search for the cause of the tapping.  This time around, Gus Woonton is more or less an escaped mental patient who used to live in the house Miss Carter now owns when he was a child, and he's hiding out in a secret room in her basement which is just super extra ridiculously creepy.  Fred Bunce is still the criminal, he had siphoned off Gus's inheritance when Gus's parents died in a car accident, but all the action takes place near River Heights and Nancy doesn't get trapped on a ship heading for South America.

Here's my card:

Again, I just had to go with the cats, but this time just one Persian.  The RT Miss Carter still has a lot of cats, but she breeds and sells them rather than adopting every stray in a 20-mile radius.  Anyway, I chose bright yellow Pineapple Punch with some pink accents to mimic the book cover.

Nancy's hair looks way darker on this cover than it usually does, you would think the artist would make her stand out from the cat a bit more.  Still digging that outfit which I would never ever wear...I gave up wearing white when I had two black doggos!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pampered Pets, Cool Cat
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Ivory & Bronze
Paper:  Pineapple Punch, Polished Pink, Pretty in Pink & Pineapple Punch DSP
Accessories:  Pets dies, Stitched Shapes dies, Rustic Metallic Dots, Mini Dimensionals

I think both versions of this book are a bit disjointed, I give them two and a half stars.  Don't forget you can check out my other blog at Hey, Nancy Drew for a deeper look at the books.  If you want to make your own Nancy Drew-inspired card(s), I would be delighted to see so just pop a comment on this post.  Next week we're looking into The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk!

Sorry for Your Loss

*sigh* I hate making sympathy cards in general, but I hate making sympathy cards for the loss of a furry family member even more.

At least the now-retired Dog Builder punch makes them really easy.  I used this week's sketch from Sunday Stamps:

I wanted my DSP rectangle to be larger, but I only had that one scrap of it so that's what I used.  Very quick card to make, it was ready to go in the mail in under 10 minutes.

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pampered Pets
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Basic Black, Sweet Sorbet, Thick Basic White, Crumb Cake DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, Dog Builder punch, Dimensionals

Stamping with Ryan

Mornin' y'all!  I've got a little bit of time before I'm due to leave for work today, so I thought I'd share a couple of cards that Ryan (4 years old) made for his cousins around the beginning of November.  Here are his creations:

Even though it was after Halloween, he insisted on using the ghost and Halloween greeting for the first card.  Ryan did all the stamping and die cutting, though I helped line up the dies before he cranked 'em through the Big Shot.  He chose the DSP scraps and I adhered them on the card fronts, and then he stuck on the other pieces (I just made sure they didn't overlap the card edges so we could still get them in envelopes when he finished).  Ryan also colored the dog in and somehow ended up with Camouflage Canine, haha!  I think he asked me to color in the dog's collar but he did all the rest.  Once he finished making the cards, he dictated messages for me to write to his cousins.

Ryan does like doing arts & crafts stuff; we have a tub of construction paper, pompoms, markers, and glitter glue that we play with, and if he sees me go in my craft room he always wants to "help".  Right now I have to supervise pretty closely (um, he put a 6-inch scratch on our dining room table with a pair of scissors when I went to the bathroom once) but it's still fun to see how his brain works when he creates things.

Have a great day, peeps!

Sympathy in Blues

Hey y'all!  I'm happy to report that I did *everything* on yesterday's to-do list.  I don't have a written list for today, but I'm still trucking along.  This morning I worked on unmounting about a dozen stamp sets; have to do that when the kiddo is in daycare since it involves a hot knife.  It took me THREE HOURS!!!  I've got nine more sets to do in the next batch (or I will have them to do whenever they arrive in my mailbox) and three of those are alphabet sets, so yeah that's going to take a while.

In the meantime, I have a card to share today.  I hate making sympathy cards.

My friend's dog died earlier this week (not entirely unexpected, as she was quite aged for a canine) so I made this for my friend.  I started with this week's Freshly Made Sketch, rotated 90 degrees to the right:

As luck would have it, Color Throwdown had this excellent muted palette this week, which I think is perfect for a sympathy card:

I used Misty Moonlight, Smoky Slate, and Seaside Spray and I just realized I left off white! Oops.  Coincidentally I used this same color combination on another sympathy card a couple of years ago.

Okay, looking at that inspo picture makes me realize I need another cuppa tea :)  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pampered Pets
Ink:  Misty Moonlight
Paper:  Seaside Spray, Smoky Slate, Pattern Party DSP, Smoky Slate DSP
Accessories:  dog punch, Rectangles Stitched dies, Dimensionals