The Twin Dilemma

Happy Saturday and welcome back to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today's book is #63, The Twin Dilemma, and this time we have FOUR covers:

For this one and the next book, Scholastic released an edition that was maybe for a book club or something?  I don't know, it's only those two books, and they're stylistically different from all the other Drews.  Anyway, I like the vibe of the arch cover on the left and the one on the far right has a magnificent 80s vibe, but in my opinion Nancy's hair is terrible across the board.  I'd probably pick the last one as my favorite just for that 80s prom dress that Nancy is wearing.

Case file:  Aunt Eloise invites Nancy, Bess, and George to NYC for a charity benefit fashion show, and when the main model disappears, Nancy gets on the runway because of course she does.  The model turns up quickly but says her brother has been kidnapped, so Nancy starts investigating that as well as stolen designs for a fashion designer with all the emotional regulation of a spoiled two-year-old at the end of a day at Disneyland.  Her main adversary isn't the bad guys but an investigative journalist who keeps trying to get her out of the way because he thinks he can do the job better.  It's very sexist.

All of my cards this week are dedicated to Bess Marvin, because she loves fashion and she deserves much better friends than Nancy and especially George, more on that later.  Here's my first card:

We're in New York and this book is all about fashion so you know I had to ink up this fancy dress from Haute Couture.  I don't think any of the dresses described in the book are this color, but I matched it to the colors on the cover and you can't see it but I covered it in Wink of Stella for some shimmer.

I used Cherry Cobbler, Crisp Cantaloupe, and Taken with Teal for my colors and of course I got the arch shape on there.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Haute Couture, Fabulous Flowers
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Crisp Cantaloupe, Calypso Coral, Cherry Cobbler, Coastal Cabana
Paper:  Cherry Cobbler, Crisp Cantaloupe, Basic White, Sweet Pea DSP Stack
Accessories:  Everyday Arches dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Glossy Garden Dots

Next up:

The spoiled man-child fashion designer practically attacks a photographer in the book, so I had to make a camera-centric card for this one.

I used Basic Black, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, and Pear Pizzazz for my card; I chose that chevron pattern because it matched the colors on the book cover pretty well and it's just a fun pattern.  Also it's odd that they added "Mystery" to the title of this one, especially when it says "Mystery Stories" right above that on the cover.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pun Intended
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark
Paper:  Basic Black, Real Red, Basic White, Greenhouse Gala DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Layering Circles dies, white EP, Dimensionals

On to card #3:

Nancy wears a lilac gown in the fashion show at the start of the book, so I managed to work that in for this card and I found a floral pattern with colors that reminded me of the fire on the cover:

I used Pebbled Path, Fresh Freesia, Daffodil Delight, and Pumpkin Pie for this one and somehow I still don't have any stamps of burning buildings.  Closest I've got is the campfire from Musical Jamboree.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  All Dressed Up, Simply Fabulous
Ink:  Fresh Freesia, Pebbled Path
Paper:  Pebbled Path, Basic White, Bloom Impressions DSP
Accessories:  Dress Up dies, Potted Succulents dies, Dimensionals, Opaque Gems

And here's my final card:

Bess gets a makeover in this book, and when she comes back to Aunt Eloise's apartment Nancy and George both laugh at her and George mocks her mercilessly.  Really, Bess deserves far better treatment from her supposed friends.  Anyway, you may be asking if I purchased the Dressed to Impress bundle on eBay specifically for this challenge, to which I say SHUSH.

I used Berry Burst, Night of Navy, and Balmy Blue for my colors and dang, I could have done a disco ball card but that thought only just now occurred to me and I like the bold lipstick statement on here anyway.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Dressed to Impress
Ink:  Night of Navy, Balmy Blue, Berry Burst
Paper:  Berry Burst, Basic White, Regency Park DSP Stack
Accessories:  All Dressed Up dies, Spotlight on Nature dies, Dimensionals, Purple Fine Shimmer Gems

Y'all, I don't like this book.  The fashion industry concept could have been a really cool backdrop for a mystery, but this book is chock-full of fat shaming and comments about how even super-slim and athletic George is too big for the couture clothes.  None of that has any place in a book marketed to tween girls!  I mean, there's always comments about Bess's weight (and in the illustrations, she's depicted as being pretty much the same size/shape as Nancy and George!) but this time around it's much worse, I hate it.  One half star because I did have fun making all my cards for this book and also Aunt Eloise is always awesome.  If you're inspired to make a card based on this book or any of the four covers, leave me a comment below!  And I'll see you here next week when Nancy investigates a Captive Witness.

August 2019

Scrappy Monday, y'all.  The hubs and kid are back to their regularly scheduled activities today and it's my last day of Covid quarantine, which I plan to spend resting (have I done anything else for the last five days?  Nope!).  I no longer feel like I was hit by a train, but I'm still tired.  My nap game has been strong the last several days.

Anyway, enough about that.  Today is August 1 and that means Ryan is starting school THIS MONTH!  I don't think he's excited about it, but that's because the poor kid doesn't deal well with change.  He had to go to a different classroom today at daycare and flipped his little lid, poor dude.  But for today's Scrappy Monday layout, let's take a look back to when Ryan was just two:

That's my cutie pie.  This is another one of my monthly catch-all layouts, random snapshots gathered together on one layout.  This time I put numbers on the pictures and then wrote about each one on the journaling.  I like these types of layouts because otherwise I wouldn't have recorded things like how Ryan liked to ride the elevator at the Y but he'd lay down on the floor to feel the vibrations as the elevator moved, or how he thought his Lightning McQueen light-up shoes made him run faster.

Today's color palette:  Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Real Red, So Saffron, Basic Gray, and Whisper White.  It was taken directly from the I Am Me DSP that I used as accents, I thought it worked really well with the pictures.

Aaaand now I think it's time to take a nap on the couch.  Maybe later I'll head up to my craft room, if I can be vertical for longer than an hour at a time...Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Pun Intended, My Paper Pumpkin, Calendar Alphabet & Numbers
Ink:  Real Red, Calypso Coral, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Pool Party, Basic Gray, So Saffron, Real Red, Calypso Coral, Whisper White, I Am Me DSP
Accessories:  Hippo & Friends dies, 1/2" circle punch

Unconventional Bees

Unconventional Bees is my next new band name, what do you think?  As it happens, I have two cards to share today with unconventional bees.

It irks me regularly that we don't have Coastal Cabana Stampin' Blends.  I know we have Bermuda Bay, but it is just not the same...I colored the bee's wings with a regular ol' marker and then I covered them with lots of Wink of Stella to draw attention away from how the marker coloring looked :p  I was inspired to ink up the long-retired Pun Intended stamp set thanks to the Paper Players theme challenge:

I like to check out a bunch of challenges at once and sometimes multiple challenges get stuck together in my head, which is how I ended up with a bee with colors not found in nature.  I found this combination in the Global Design Project color challenge:

I love these colors together and I thought they'd make a fun and different bee card.  This is actually the second card I made for these two challenges, but I wasn't sure how much I liked my first card:

For one thing, my Night of Navy ink pad is ridiculously juicy right now so these images weren't quite as crisp.  I still need more practice with the blending brushes, too.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Have a good 'un!

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  Pun Intended
Ink:  Night of Navy, Coastal Cabana, Polished Pink, Polished Pink Stampin' Blends
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Night of Navy, Thick Basic White, Coastal Cabana DSP
Accessories:  Hippo & Friends dies, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella

Supplies, second card:
Stamps:  Pun Intended
Ink:  Night of Navy, Coastal Cabana, Polished Pink Stampin' Blends
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Circle punch, Dimensionals