The Secret of the Old Clock

Earlier this year, I randomly decided to reread my old Nancy Drew books while waiting in line to pick Ryan up from school every day--so I always have a book in the car and that's usually at least 30 minutes of reading time.  I've been having The Best Time Ever revisiting these books from my childhood and while I had insomnia a few nights ago I thought hey, what if I turned my Nancy Drew reread into a creative stamping challenge?  Maybe it was just 3am talking but I still think it sounds like loads of fun so here we are : )

My plan is to post a pic of a Nancy Drew book from my personal collection once a week, talk about the book and what I think (because it's my blog and I can nerd out about books if I want to),  and make a card inspired by the book.  Why?  Because it's fun.  If anyone else wants to join, I'd be delighted to see what you make--just post a comment below.  So let's get started!

The Secret of the Old Clock is the book that started it all!  My copy is pretty battered and well-loved and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  The books were originally written starting in the 1930s, then the earliest ones were rewritten and updated in the 1960s; I have the more updated versions (I've never read the originals, I think those would be highly collectible and thus expensive now).  I started collecting Nancy Drew books when I was around Ryan's age; I got several as gifts, I constantly checked others out of the public library, and when I got a little older I started scouring the used book stores for more in the series, so my collection is mismatched and unique and I love it that way.

Case file:  While tooling around River Heights in her dark blue convertible, Nancy meets several groups of poor but very kind people who all tell her (a perfect stranger) that the recently deceased Josiah Crowley had promised to leave them money in his will, and instead the snooty Topham family has inherited everything.  Nancy is soon convinced that this somewhat eccentric old dude she never met did write another will and sets out to find it.  In between visits to all these people she's just met and consulting with her father, famous attorney Carson Drew, Nancy goes out to Moon Lake to hang out with her friend Helen Corning and visits the Tophams' lake house, where she discovers a band of thieves have stolen all the furniture including the clock that she thinks holds the key to the mystery.  The thieves surprise her and lock her in a closet at the now-empty lake house, but she escapes, notifies the police, and then chases down the thieves on her own and snatches the clock out of their van while they're eating dinner.  She finds the will which does indeed leave money to all those nice deserving people and almost completely cuts out the snooty Tophams, so now the Topham daughters (who are basically like Cinderella's wicked stepsisters) will have to--gasp!--get JOBS.  To thank Nancy, the nice people decide that she should get Josiah's old clock as a memento of her first mystery.

Notes:  This book is a total nostalgia bomb for me, I don't even know how many times I've read it but this is the first time in probably at least twenty years.  It establishes the tropes that will run through the series--Nancy is a total Mary Sue who's good at everything, all the adults around her treat her like a peer and listen to her no matter what crazy story tells, and she always figures things out one way or another.  I don't think any 18-year-old girl even today would be given as much leeway as Nancy Drew gets, but it's escapist entertainment and fun anyway.  I can imagine it would have been even more fun to read during the Depression since Nancy has money and gets to travel to lots of cool places, first in her roadster and then updated to a convertible with the 60s editions.  Five stars.

So here's my card inspired by The Secret of the Old Clock:

I had to go with a clock theme, of course.  I like that quote too, I find it apropos considering how I love to sit back and relax with a good book on the regular, which definitely feels like wealth to me.

I chose the blue and green patterns to echo the blue of the night sky behind Nancy and her lime green dress on the cover, and my book is so battered that I had to grunge up my card to match.  And now I'm thinking I could have distressed the edges of my layers a bit to add to the grunge.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Sense of Time, Gorgeous Grunge
Ink:  Pecan Pie, Early Espresso
Paper:  Pecan Pie, Very Vanilla, Splendid Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangle dies, Dimensionals, Rustic Metallic Dots


And then I got so excited about this idea that I made another card for The Secret of the Old Clock.

So yeah, I have four clock-related stamp sets from which to choose for this challenge.  I kept the patterned papers the same but switched out Pecan Pie for Copper Clay for my pocketwatch.

And there it is with the book.

So there's my kickoff to my new personal Nancy Drew card challenge.  If it sounds like fun to you too, I invite you to play along and leave a comment below.  In the meantime, I'll be reading.  Up next:  The Hidden Staircase!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Clockworks, It's About Time
Ink:  Early Espresso, Copper Clay, Mossy Meadow, Azure Afternoon
Paper:  Copper Clay, Very Vanilla, Splendid Autumn DSP Stack
Accessories:  Deckled Circles dies, Deckled Rectangles dies, Dimensionals, Rustic Metallic Dot