The Clue in the Crossword Cipher

Happy Saturday, y'all, and welcome to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today we are on the forty-fourth book in the series, The Clue in the Crossword Cipher:

This is two books in a row featuring a largely brown cover, both by Rudy Nappi.  This time Nancy has a most excellent dress on with a fun chevron pattern that I like, but I like 99 Steps better than this one.

Case file:  Nancy's new friend Carla Ponce invites Nancy, Bess, and George to Peru to see if they can figure out the mystery behind a wood carving that's been in her family for 300 years, featuring a monkey and a crossword cipher on it.  We get another travelogue story with sightseeing in Peru and the Argentine (when did we start calling it Argentina instead of the Argentine?) while Nancy matches wits with a mysterious criminal known only as El Gato, The Cat.  She eventually finds (yet another) buried treasure near the Nazca lines.

Here's my card:

Yep, I found a chevron patterned paper in my stash in a color that coordinates with the book cover, and I had to do a monkey stamp since the wooden plaque has a monkey on it.  I used the colors of Nancy's dress as supporting colors on my card.

I will admit that monkeys are another human-adjacent thing that I find kind of creepy (add it to the list of dolls, puppets, and clowns).  But this little guy from Fox & Friends is rather cute.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Fox & Friends, Really Retro
Ink:  Soft Suede, Versamark
Paper:  Tahitian Tide, Soft Suede, Thick Basic White, Park Lane DSP, Tahitian Tide & Parakeet Party DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, white EP, mini Dimensionals, Transparent Dots

Here's my second card:

There's a scene in a book where Bess is surprised by the sudden appearance of an alpaca in the window of a restaurant and thinks it's going to bite George (who, let's be honest, usually deserves it for the abominable way she treats Bess).  I don't have an alpaca stamp but I do have several llamas so I went with that and it just occurred to me that I could have used the extra long-necked llama from Long Time No See.  Dangit, missed opportunity!

I found another chevron patterned paper and used the colors of the book cover for the party streamers behind the llama.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Birthday Fiesta
Ink:  Early Espresso, Tahitian Tide, Versamark
Paper:  Tahitian Tide, Gumball Green, Peach Pie, Copper Clay, Night of Navy, Thick Basic White, Watercolor Wonder DSP
Accessories:  Fiesta Time dies, Tasteful Labels dies, white EP, Dimensionals, In Color Flat Pearls

This one isn't among my favorite Drews, perhaps because I still have yet to visit anywhere in South America, but it's an okay installment in the series so I give it three stars.  If you're inspired to make a card based on this book, please leave me a comment below and I hope you have fun with it!  Be sure to visit next week when Nancy takes on The Spider Sapphire Mystery.

Retro Owl

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ryan is back at school today and feelin' fine, so I'm home by myself and doing my best to be productive (...at least, after I spent some time randomly shopping for new pajamas for Ryan).  Got a new card hot off my craft table to share today.

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And the Color Throwdown:

I used Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, and Crushed Curry for my colors.  I have a pile of 1/2" wide scraps sitting on one of my bookshelves; Ryan likes to chop them up with my paper trimmer sometimes and I *always* have more from scrapbooking and card making.  I did have to cut a Pumpkin Pie scrap for this card though ;)  My owl is stamped in Soft Suede, but my ink pad is really, really, *really* juicy so he came out very dark even though I sponged some of the ink off the stamp before I stamped the image.  What can ya do.

Last up is the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge:

I suppose I could have linked up yesterday's card for this challenge, but I wanted to use a more whimsical owl, so I pulled out the old Check You Out stamp set (seriously, could we get more book-related stamps?) and Really Retro for the sentiment.  The retired glitter enamel dots are pretty retro too, I have a whole box of embellishments, many of which are retired and I don't really keep track since I'm just a hobby demo.  Which means I just buy what I want ; )

Have a great weekend, y'all!  The sun is shining today, hadn't seen that much this week...

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Check You Out, Really Retro
Ink:  Soft Suede
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Poppy Parade, Pumpkin Pie, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched with Whimsy dies, retired glitter enamel dots

Embossanova

Hey y'all, happy Friday!  Last night after kiddo went to bed, I had an idea for a card that I just HAD to get out on paper so I locked myself in my craft room for a bit and made this:

ALL THE COLORED EMBOSSING POWDER!!!  Stampin' Up! used to have a bunch of different colors of embossing powder.  I bought a lot of them and I'm pretty sure that before now I hadn't used Tempting Turquoise or Melon Mambo.  But I'm pretty tickled with how this turned out!

I had to have another go at this week's Color Throwdown:

The inspiration photo made me think of the shoes in Epic Celebrations, and like I said last time these colors just scream eighties to me so I leaned into that with my card.  Anyone else grow up in the '80s and have those weird background in your school photos that looked like lasers or something?  Just me?  Okay.  I wonder if I could dig that picture up...anyway, I used the Sanded background stamp with Tempting Turquoise EP to kinda mimic that feel and the bottom half of the ice cream punch gave me a great triangle shape for behind my sentiment stamp.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

It was fun once again doing a deep dive in my retired products for this one.  And of course I can't think of the '80s without thinking of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because my brother got the original movie on VHS for his birthday one year and watched it at least once a day over the entire Christmas break and I still have a lot of the dialog memorized.  I was trying to think of a title for this blog post last night and "Embossanova" popped in my head and really made me laugh so I have to share my word silliness with you :)

Have a great Friday!

Supplies, all SU! (some retired)
Stamps:  Epic Celebrations, Really Retro, Sanded
Ink:  Versamark
Paper:  Basic Black, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories:  Melon Mambo EP, Tempting Turquoise EP, White EP, Window Frames dies, Word Window punch, Ice Cream punch, Dimensionals

Friday Flashback: Sassy Stems

Happy Friday, y'all!  Welcome to the Friday Flashback.  This week's featured stamp set is one of my favorites, Sassy Stems.  There are just three stamps in the set but it's pretty awesome.  Let's take a trip back in time, shall we?

Also features Short & Sweet, Kindness jumbo wheel

I still miss Barely Banana sometimes.  It was a little brighter than So Saffron.

Also features Paisley, Warmest Regards

I used the old, old Color Coach (when it was an actual color wheel) for this color combination--Certainly Celery, Tempting Turquoise, and Cameo Coral.  And I put Iridescent Ice EP all over the main image panel so it sparkled.

Here's a more fall-ish take on Sassy Stems, and lots o' layers.

Also features Paisley

I made this one for a swap not long after they introduced Watercolor Wonder Crayons.  I shoulda made more of the watercolored background visible but oh well.  And also eyelets!  So glad I got rid of most of my eyelets, I never use them anymore.

Also features All-Year Cheer II

Huh, looks like this is the only time I used markers to color the stamp rather than stamping in black.  Anyway, it's time now to unveil the new card on the block:

Ta-daaaah!  The card base and the main image panel are Shimmery White cardstock, so the whole card has a bit of sparkle to it.  I am looking forward to getting my backordered Wink of Stella glitter pen, lemme tell you.  Anyway, I pulled out two retired In Colors, Coastal Cabana and Strawberry Slush, and paired them with the current In Color Cucumber Crush.  I like them as a combination.  I also used this week's Retro Sketch:

Obviously I used stamping for the long thin panel in the background, but I just really liked the idea of butterflies to go with my sassy flowers.

Well kids, that's all she wrote today.  We're going out to dinner tonight for Mexican food, woohoo!  See you back here tomorrow for a baby book layout.  Cheers, peeps, and happy Easter!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Sassy Stems, Beyond the Basics, Really Retro
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Cucumber Crush
Paper:  Shimmery White, Strawberry Slush, Cucumber Crush DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, rhinestones, hexagon punch to flag the ends of the banner