The Invisible Intruder

Happy Saturday, y'all, and welcome to the 46th Nancy Drew Challenge!  Today Nancy is squaring off with The Invisible Intruder.

This cover reminds me of 99 Steps and Crossword Cipher in that it's largely brown/neutral tones, and once again Nancy is in her signature color of pale blue.  This time we get Ned on the cover, which rarely happens, and we have a creepy backdrop of a stingray and some skulls.  I like it.  This is my childhood copy, I have my name written not once but twice inside the front cover.

Case file:  Nancy's friend Helen (who last appeared in #20, The Clue in the Jewel Box, and I think this might be her final appearance) organizes a ghost-hunting road trip to investigate odd happenings at five different locations, including a phantom canoe, a medium, and a ghost horse, so this is basically five Scooby-Doo episodes in one volume.  The book ends up at the home of an eccentric old man who collects rare shells and also human skulls, which is not my design aesthetic but rock on as long as the skulls and shells are ethically sourced, and Nancy captures the gang behind all of the haunts.

Here's my card:

We get some lectures on different kinds of shells over the course of the book, so I decided to pull out Stippled Shells for my first card.  I chose River Rock, Pebbled Path, and Basic Beige for neutral colors and put it all on a Balmy Blue card base for Nancy's dress.

I had done a mosaic card with Stippled Shells a long time ago so I kind of started with that as a jumping off point for this card.  Also, I made this one before the vintage traveler card I posted on Wednesday.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Shells, Weathered, Stepping Stones
Ink:  River Rock, Pebbled Path
Paper:  Balmy Blue, River Rock, Pebbled Path, Thick Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Layering Ovals Framelits, Dimensionals

And I have one more card:

The first location they road trip to has a self-propelling canoe, and while investigating it Nancy and Ned encounter a mechanical octopus which drags Ned away and that is straight out of a Scooby-Doo episode and it makes me laugh.  So I had to make an octopus card, using Nancy's hair and dress for my colors since the rest of the cover is pretty blah.

I did keep Gray Granite as my main color here, which matches the stingray pretty well.  I found my blue and gray patterns in the Otterly Adorable DSP, and I matted the Gray Granite pattern on some Gray Granite cardstock on which I colored the edges with a Blend marker to make it stand out against the Gray Granite card base, which is an easy way to get multiple values of a single color.  You know what, I miss Mango Melody.  It's a fun orange.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Message in a Bottle
Ink:  Gray Granite, Mango Melody, Gray Granite Stampin' Blend
Paper:  Gray Granite, Thick Basic White, Otterly Adorable DSP
Accessories:  Dimensionals, Sparkly Gems

Like The Scarlet Slipper Mystery, I think this one has too many characters as we have the regular Drew Crew (Nancy, Bess, George, Ned, Burt, and Dave), Helen and her husband, and three other couples whose names I could never remember and they're apparently only around so everyone can rag on the one married woman who believes in ESP and ghosts, which is unfortunate.  We have some goofy Scooby-Doo inspired moments, not up to the utterly bananas hijinks of Brass-Bound Trunk or Moss-Covered Mansion, but the five mini mysteries and road trip setup are fun, so I give this one three and a half stars.  If you're inspired to create a card based on this mystery, please leave me a comment below!  And I'll see you next time when Nancy investigates The Mysterious Mannequin.  Cheers!

Shells on a Shelf

Mornin' y'all!  Daphne dragged me out of bed at 5:30 this morning but I did (eventually) get to go to sleep for a while before she made me get up AGAIN, this time aided by Ryan who wanted me to get him breakfast.  How old does he have to be before he can get cereal for himself?  But we have a lazy day ahead of us except for Ryan's baseball game tonight.

For the past couple of days I haven't been super thrilled with what I've been making in my craft room, I just seem to be having a block when I sit down to stamp, but here's one of the things I made:

I got Earthen Textures (the vase on the right) when it hit the retirement list last year I think; Stippled Shells and All-Year Cheer have been in my collection since pretty close to the beginning of my stamping career.  I put them together for the challenge at The Card Concept:

This is the first time I've used Earthen Textures and I'm just not sure I'm pleased with it.  I wish I had put the "shelf" lower or...something.  I don't know.  Anyway, I think my card falls into the clean and layered category which is mostly where I live.

Instead of trying to force things to happen in my stamp room yesterday, I brought out a cross stitch work in progress and stitched on that for a while; maybe if I stitch for a few days my stampy mojo will reappear.  Worth a shot anyway.

Gotta go let Daphne outside for at least the tenth time this morning.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Earthen Textures, Stippled Shells, All-Year Cheer I
Ink:  Pecan Pie, Night of Navy, Wild Wheat, Boho Blue
Paper:  Pecan Pie, Very Vanilla, Timeless Plaid DSP Stack
Accessories:  Earthen Textures dies, Stylish Shapes dies

Nea Kameni (Redo)

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  Another busy week ahead--we've got a big work event for the hubs, Ryan finishes kindergarten on Wednesday, and on Wednesday afternoon we're taking off for Greece to spend a week in (on?) Crete before we head back to the States.  So I thought today was a good time to share a layout from the last time we went to Greece!

This is the last of the three "re-do" layouts I made earlier this year; you can see the first version here.  For the first one, I used my purple shirt as the jumping off point for my color combination, and it just didn't "feel" right for the layout.  What I remember about all of our ports in Greece (it was a cruise) was that they were super hot!  So I went with a much hotter color combination for today:

Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, Tahitian Tide, and Blueberry Bushel.  I think this color palette suits the photos better and conveys the mood of the pictures better.  Plus you can't go wrong with what I call the basic Superman color combination, red-yellow-blue : )

Have a great week, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet Upper, Stippled Shells
Ink:  Blueberry Bushel, Basic Gray
Paper:  Poppy Parade, Tahitian Tide, Blueberry Bushel, Daffodil Delight, Thick Basic White, Sweet Taffy DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches

Myrtle Beach

Scrappy Monday!  Dude, I need to take pictures of my more recent layouts.  I have 40+ draft posts of scrapbook pages, but most of those are either wintry or for Ryan's baby book, and I'm kinda waiting until I finish Ryan's baby book to start posting the pages from it.  But I did scrounge up a beach layout!

And I think these pictures were actually taken in October ;)  I let the postcard (top of the right page) work for my page title, and busted out some loooooong-retired stamps--I think I got Stippled Shells in my first year of stamping.  This was a pretty quick layout to put together but I think it turned out okay.  Pretty sure I made this not too long after the color refresh that introduced Balmy Blue!  I love that color, we need lots more DSP with it and if SU! released a pack of 12x12 Balmy Blue I would buy lotsssss.  I hate having to buy the family packs that only have two sheets of each color.  I'm currently out of Balmy Blue because I already used it for two layouts, so I'd have to buy another family pack to get more, and I have tons of lots of the other Subtles already.  Whaddya do.

Today's color palette includes Blushing Bride, which I don't use very often but it seemed to work here (I was inspired by the pinks and reds in the postcard), the aforementioned Balmy Blue, retired Pistachio Pudding, and Whisper White.

Hope your week is off to a great start, friends.  Try not to melt in the heat!  (Really, it's the humidity that makes me want to lay on the floor and have a tantrum!)

P.S.  HAPPY NEW SU! CATALOG DAY!  I probably won't do another SU! order for a couple of weeks, but I still have To A Wild Rose to play with.  And I'm working on FIVE layouts with the luscious Garden Lane DSP.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Shells
Ink:  Balmy Blue, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Blushing Bride, Pistachio Pudding, Whisper White, Tranquil Textures DSP
Accessories:  postcard

She Sells Copper Shells

Happy Saturday y'all!  Usually I don't post on Saturdays buuuuuut I had a few challenges I couldn't let pass me by so here's a card.

I used some long-retired stamps on this one, which I'll get to in a minute.  First challenge is this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And next up I *finally* got a beachy card done for the Retro Rubber Challenge:

Stippled Shells is a very, very retro stamp set--I've had it since at least 2006.  Maybe even earlier, but I started my Splitcoast gallery in 2006.  The sentiment is from It's Your Birthday, which is almost as old since I've had it since 2007.  Touches of Texture is the newbie here at just two years old.

Finally, here's the Color Throwdown:

I must confess I swapped out the white for Very Vanilla on my card, and I added Sahara Sand to the palette.  I beg the forgiveness of the challenge gods :)

Also, I first put the card together without the thin black mat on the vanilla layer, and it just didn't look quite finished to me so I peeled it apart to add the black.  But here's the before version:

Yep, better with the mat.  And also my copper embossing powder is so old it's from the FIRST time SU! had copper EP :D  So even my embossing powder is retro!

Have a great weekend, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Shells, It's Your Birthday, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Versamark, Sahara Sand, Basic Black
Paper:  Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla, Basic Black
Accessories:  Copper EP

Friday Flashback: Fintastic

Happy Friday, everyone!  Today's Friday Flashback is for the cute little set Fintastic.

Aaaand there you go, that's all of the Flashback.  I got this set after it retired and was happy to use it on my friend Sarah's baby book for her daughter, but that's the only time I've used it.  Until now!

I resisted the urge to color her in like Ariel :)  Side note:  have you ever noticed that Ariel is the only one of Triton's daughters whose shell bra doesn't match the color of her tail?  True story.

I thought this week's colors from ColourQ would be perfect for an underwater scene:

I did think about using the Tangerine Tango for her hair (like Ariel), but then I decided to make my mermaid a brunette.  I stamped the image with Versamark and Midnight Muse, then embossed with clear EP so that I could watercolor without the ink smudging.

I also used this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

I like sketches with tilty layers.  Maybe because I always seem to take pictures crooked :)

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Fintastic, Stippled Shells
Ink:  Versamark, Midnight Muse, Tangerine Tango, Melon Mambo, Coastal Cabana, Early Espresso, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Skintone Blendabilities
Paper:  Coastal Cabana, Midnight Muse, Tangerine Tango, Thick Whisper White, Tangerine Tango DSP
Accessories:  Circle punches, Dimensionals, Clear EP

2015 Scrapbook Showcase, Part 1

So the card showcase is already up, let's take a look back at the year's scrapbook layouts!  I'm very proud to say I made a whopping 154 scrapbook pages this year, not counting the ones I did for baby books.  I have enough draft scrapbook posts to do Scrappy Mondays through June.  So let's take a look, shall we?

January's pick is this hot layout from Greece.  It's funny, I don't really do a lot of pages with red or orange page bases, but half of my showcase picks feature just that.  Anyway, I love the Tangelo Twist base on this page because it reminds me how stinkin' hot it was in Olympia that day.

February's pick is this hot pink layout from our last days in Okinawa.  I need more Melon Mambo in my life.

My pick for March is this birthday layout, and that baby girl is now six.  Even more exciting is that my friend Tiana will be here in just a few days!!!

I just couldn't choose only one layout for April, so the first April pick is this comic-inspired layout from when my family accidentally got involved in a drug bust in London.  They seriously love telling that story, and props to Mom for taking the pictures of it so I could make this layout.

My second April pick is this layout from China, and is the genesis for a longstanding joke between me and the hubs and our friends.  I'm not in love with my fried egg embellishments on here, but I love the golden arches and the story behind this one.

For May's pick, I went with a Melon Mambo layout once again and these gorgeous pictures from Santorini, Greece.  This was the very first time I used Tip Top Taupe too.

And to cap off the first half of the scrapbook showcase, June's pick is from that same cruise and the island of Capri.  I think I've already scrapped about half of that cruise and I love looking at all the pictures (and I seriously want to go back to Greece).

Happy New Year, y'all!  Next week's Scrappy Monday will be the second half of the scrapbook showcase, and then we'll get the new year started with some new stampy projects.  Cheers!

Santorini

Mornin', y'all!  I spent the weekend in Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, getting bit by mosquitoes and taking pictures of alligators.  But for today I have a new scrapbook layout to share from Santorini, Greece.

See the original pics here and here.  This was actually the first thing I used any of the new In Colors on--the sea shells are stamped in Tip Top Taupe.  How 'bout a closeup of the title:

This is another layout from our Med cruise in 2013, and I used that same mix of alphabet stamps for the other Greece layouts so I'm being consistent here.  Thera (or Thira) is an older name for Santorini.

My very bright color combination:  Melon Mambo, Brilliant Blue (sometime soon I'm going to run out of this color and then I may cry), Daffodil Delight, Tip Top Taupe, and Whisper White.

It's Monday morning so it's time to get in my first run of the week.  Check ya later, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Empire Alphabet, Spencerian Alphabet, Stippled Shells
Ink:  Brilliant Blue, Melon Mambo, Tip Top Taupe, Night of Navy marker
Paper:  Melon Mambo, Brilliant Blue, Tip Top Taupe, Whisper White, Beyond the Garden DSP
Accessories:  circle & scallop circle punches

Trevi Fountain

I cranked out a lot of scrapbook pages in April and May, and I think today is a good day to share a layout from our first trip to Italy.

Legend has it that if you throw a penny over your shoulder into Trevi Fountain, you're destined to return to Rome (see the original pics here).  So there's the hubs pretending to throw his coin...he claims I almost beaned someone in the head with mine, but that's hardly my fault because a.) there were too many people crowded around there and b.) you throw the coin behind you so how was I to know and c.) apparently I throw like a girl.  Anyway, here's a detail shot for you:

Love me some alphabet stamps!  That one is Jayne's Type, and those dots under it are from Garden Greetings.  I tell you this because it took me over a half an hour to figure out what stamp set that line o' dots was in.  The shell is from the long-retired Stippled Shells...and this is why I don't get rid of my retired stamps, I used three retired sets on this one layout : )

Thanks for stopping by today.  Cheers, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Stippled Blossoms, Garden Greetings, Jayne's Type Alphabet
Ink:  Pacific Point, Cajun Craze, Peach Parfait, Soft Sky, Basic Gray
Paper:  Peach Parfait, Pacific Point, Smoky Slate, Whisper White, High Tide DSP
Accessories:  1" and 1 1/4" circle punches