Flamingo Flowers

Mornin' y'all!  How's your weekend going?

I've got a one-layer card to share today.

I kept this one very CAS for the Just Add Ink challenge:

The Thankful Garden masks are the only stencils I own, so that was an easy choice for this challenge, and I paired it with the CAS Colours & Sketches colors:

Lost Lagoon has been in a couple of color challenges lately and I am here for it.  I like these colors together, this was fun.

Have a great day, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Thankful Garden
Ink:  Flirty Flamingo, Pool Party, Lost Lagoon
Paper:  Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Thankful Garden masks

Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk

Hey hey, welcome to another Nancy Drew Challenge!  We're up to number 17, The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk.

Again, we have a very slight title change.  The OT on the left gets the colorful cover and a scene from the book; the RT right is another collage and I find it curious that the cover for a book that takes place almost entirely at sea is nearly devoid of sea colors.  Interesting artistic choice.

Case file:  Nancy, Bess, and George are planning to take a trip to South America with the students of a girls' school (which none of them attend), when a pretentious and rude lady appears and Nancy's house and insists that she can't go with them and that her darling daughter Nestrelda (what a name!) cannot associate with people like Nancy.  Meanwhile, Carson wants Nancy to talk to the daughter of a friend of his and convince her to marry the guy that her parents have picked out, which is super ick on Carson and the parents' part but at least Nancy isn't fond of this idea either.  The girls all do go on the trip and Nancy's trunk gets mixed up with Nestrelda's, which her crooked stepfather has been using as part of a jewelry smuggling operation.  Quite a bit of the book takes place in Buenos Aires, which was fun.  Also, Nancy gets struck by lightning in this one.  What?!

Here's my card:

At the start of the book, when Nancy is packing her stuff in her new trunk, we get a return of Effie from Password to Larkspur Lane though this time instead of just being flighty and hilarious she's actively stupid and packs Nancy's passport in the trunk, so Nancy is worried she won't get to go on the trip as the trunk got shipped to the port separately.  So I had to include a passport on my card for this one.  Also I think it's weird that Nancy is so keen to go on a trip to South America when she was nearly an unwilling passenger on a cruise ship heading there in the OT version of #16, The Clue of the Tapping Heels.

I wanted to use Nancy's smart blue skirt suit as the main color inspiration, so I went with Island Indigo for my card base with Pool Party for the sky, and just a touch of Sweet Sorbet to echo Bess's red jacket.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Next Destination, Post Script
Ink:  Island Indigo, Pebbled Path, Pool Party, Sweet Sorbet
Paper:  Island Indigo, Pool Party, Thick Basic White, Shades & Hues DSP Stack
Accessories:  Perennial Postage dies, Dimensionals, Sweet Sorbet pearls

Now let's take a look at the RT:

Case file:  Nancy, Bess, and George embark on a transatlantic cruise from Holland to New York and meet Nelda Detweiler, who shares their cabin.  Nancy's trunk goes missing while another similar one with the initials ND is delivered to the cabin in its place.  Nelda had been wrongly accused of stealing jewelry in South Africa; Nancy and the other girls open up this trunk that doesn't belong to them and discover that the trunk is being used to smuggle jewels; Nancy has the bad guys arrested as soon as they dock in New York.  And along the way there's a meteor and she and Nelda get thrown overboard, no big deal (by which I mean this is totally bananas).  Also, fun fact, this book was a gift to me from my cousins for Christmas 1989.

Here's my card:

I admit, I bought the Traveler stamp set on eBay specifically for this Nancy Drew challenge.  I had to do a monochromatic card to match the cover, and I included some antique pearls for the jewelry on the cover.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Traveler, Scenic Adventure, World Map
Ink:  Cinnamon Cider, Early Espresso
Paper:  Cinnamon Cider, Early Espresso, Very Vanilla
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Antique Pearls

But wait, there's more!  I couldn't resist making a second card for this book:

There's a costume contest during the cruise, and George dresses up as an old lady in a nightgown with mice embroidered on it and I could NOT let that opportunity pass me by so here's a mouse card!

I still kept the colors similar to the cover, though I worked in some of Nancy's orangey hues for the cheese.  Still got some jewels on there with the Frosted Iridescent Dots.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Mischievous Mice
Ink:  Early Espresso, Stampin' Blends in Cinnamon Cider, Daffodil Delight, Peach Pie, Pretty in Pink
Paper:  Cinnamon Cider, Bumblebee, Thick Basic White, A Flower For All Seasons DSP, Bumblebee DSP
Accessories:  Stylish Shapes dies, Mini Dimensionals, Frosted Iridescent Dots

Hope you enjoyed this peek at The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk and if you'd like to play along, write a comment here with a link to your card.  You can read more about Nancy's adventures on my other blog, Hey Nancy Drew, where my posts just keep getting longer and longer but I'm having fun.  Stay tuned for next week's adventure, The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion!

Dino-Mite Birthday

Mornin' y'all and happy Friday!  We have had a LOT of rain here for the last week or so, and last night I woke up at around 2am to quite the thunderstorm happening outside.  Lots of lightning and heavy rain.  Daphne likes finding all the puddles when we take our morning walks.

So, it's been a while since I made a dinosaur card and I have one for today:

Krissy, my dino-loving pal, has a birthday coming up so of course this is for her.  I used this week's Creative Colour Challenge:

I did sneak in a bit of Cloud Cover for some details, but that color reads as a neutral gray to me so I think it's allowable.  I also used the Atlantic Hearts sketch:

Easy peasy.  That's it for me today, peeps, hope you have a great holiday weekend.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Darling Dinos
Ink:  Secret Sea, Stampin' Blends in Darling Duckling, Strawberry Slush, Cloud Cover
Paper:  Darling Duckling, Secret Sea, Thick Basic White, Secret Sea & Strawberry Slush DSP
Accessories:  Darling Dinos dies, Textured Notes dies, In Color Flat Pearls, Dimensionals

Spooky CAS Bats

Mornin' y'all!  The closer we get to September, the more ready I am to get my spook on (she typed, while listening to the score from Casper) and once September 1 hits, that is the official start of Spook Season at least where I live : )  So we're in the pre-game show right now and I have spooky bats:

Mixing some old and new here, this year's Spooky Sweet Specialty DSP and the greeting from Fright Night, with my punched out bats from Spooky Sweets from 2018.  Really Spooky Sweets is such a little unassuming stamp set and I LOVE IT and I think it makes an appearance almost every year for Halloween cards.  Anyway, I turned this week's Freshly Made Sketch 90 degrees for my card:

You can see the sketch inspiration, right?  I added a few Shimmer Star foam stickers for accents and put some Wink of Stella on the bats, which of course doesn't show up.

I need to get my pal Krissy's birthday present ready to get shipped off and I have an appointment in a little while to be fitted for a bite guard, fun times, so I'd better vamoose.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Fright Night, Spooky Sweets
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Timid Tiger
Paper:  Petunia Pop, Thick Basic White, Spooky Sweet Specialty DSP
Accessories:  bat punch, Fright Night dies, Mini Dimensionals, Shimmer Stars

Leaves, Double Time

Mornin' y'all!  Today is the day that Ryan has extracurriculars after school so I get extra crafty (and laundry) time.  But first, I have a couple of cards to share today!

I love the new Gathering Together Specialty DSP and it's perfect for the speed stamping challenge at As You See It:

I planned out what I wanted to do and gathered up my supplies before I started my timer, and I ended up at:

Comfortably within the 10-minute time limit : )  I used the Sunday Stamps sketch:

I was starting to clear off my craft table from that card when I looked at the other paper scraps I have from that DSP and I looked at the jumbo leaf dies in the Gathering Moments bundle and wouldn't you know it, another card happened:

This one was even quicker:

Then I was side-eyeing the negative from the giant die-cut leaf but...I haven't made a third card yet : )

Guess it's time to take my naughty girl Daphne out for a walk.  While I was doing my workout this morning, she got into the craft room trash can and grabbed a piece of foam and rubber and ran back downstairs with it.  I knew she'd been trash surfing because she had a Dimensional backing piece stuck to her nose, and then she thought it would be superfun to play keep-away and not let me take the rubber away and she ate it.  So she's in trouble, but the weather is so beautiful today that it would be a punishment for ME to not go walk in it.  Grr.  That's it for now, peeps.  Cheers!

Supplies, first card:
Stamps:  Gathering Moments
Ink:  Early Espresso, Cajun Craze
Paper:  Early Espresso, Basic Beige, Gathering Together Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Gathering Moments dies, Dimensionals, Cajun Craze & Gold Dots

Supplies, second card:
Stamps:  Gathering Moments
Ink:  Early Espresso
Paper:  Crushed Curry, Basic Beige, Gathering Together Specialty DSP
Accessories:  Gathering Moments dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Cajun Craze & Gold Dots

Lagoon Thistle

Mornin' y'all!  Insomnia must be contagious, because last night I was the one who couldn't sleep.  Wide awake at 3am and then super sleepy at 6:30 when I had to be up and doing, ugh!  But I did drink lots of tea yesterday and that made me a functioning adult for most of the day, so I'm currently on my first cuppa today.

And I have a card to share, here 'tis:

I have been wanting to make a Beautiful Thistle card for probably months now and kept getting the stamp set out for various challenges and then putting it back up.  But its day has finally come thanks to the Paper Players sketch:

And the lovely color challenge from Just Add Ink:

YES PLEASE, I love these colors together!  This card came together super fast because I used a slightly off-cut stamped image that I had in the Beautiful Thistle stamp case.  Easy!

That's it for now, peeps.  Not sure if Daphne and I will go for our morning walk...it's super misty outside and I don't much fancy getting wet, and actually neither does Daph.  Something about her dainty paws.  We'll see if it clears up a bit in the next hour or so.  In the meantime, I have tea and a muffin so I'm good, and Daphne just made herself comfortable on the only piece of furniture she's allowed up on so she's good too.  Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Beautiful Thistle
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Blends in Lost Lagoon & Highland Heather
Paper:  Lost Lagoon, Thick Basic White, Perennial Lavender DSP, Highland Heather DSP
Accessories:  Beautiful Thistle dies, Stylish Shapes dies, Layering Ovals dies, Mini Dimensionals, Purple Shimmer Gems

Wengen

Scrappy Monday, y'all!  The hubs did NOT sleep last night so that means I didn't get much rest either, so that means I'll have to drink lots of tea today.  The high today is in the 60s here so that's tea weather as far as I'm concerned : )  Ryan has soccer practice this afternoon so I'll be taking a traveling mug with me for that.

Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day here in Colorado and for today's scrapbook layout I have a beautiful day in Switzerland!

This is finally the last of my Swiss-Capade pages as the picture on the bottom right is Ryan pulling a face on the train ride back to Germany.  The last thing we did on our last evening in Switzerland was take the train partway up a mountain to Wengen, which is an adorable little mountain town.  You can buy a wooden ball in town and then they have a bunch of Rube Goldberg machines all around to play with the ball, Ryan loved that.  I used gnomes as my page accents because why not?

Today's color palette:  So Saffron, Granny Apple Green, Starry Sky (love this color), Evening Evergreen, and Whisper White.

Time to go wake Ryan up to get ready for school...and then I'll be brewing my first cuppa : )  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Taffy Alphabet, Friendly Gnomes
Ink:  Starry Sky, Evening Evergreen marker, Stampin' Blends in So Saffron, Pretty in Pink, Cinnamon Cider, Pecan Pie, Orchid Oasis, Starry Sky, Granny Apple Green, neutrals
Paper:  So Saffron, Starry Sky, Evening Evergreen, Basic White, Celebrate Everything DSP
Accessories:  None

Witchy Kitty

Happy Sunday, y'all!  I just introduced the spawn to Toaster Strudel for the first time.  He was skeptical at first, but now he's on his second one so I think it's a hit with him : )

So anyway.  Have you ever seen a random color combination and thought, "I wonder if I can turn that into a Halloween card"?

Just me?

Well, I saw the Color Dare challenge:

It's not obviously Halloween-y, but my brain kept saying witch kitty and then this happened:

What do you think, does it work?  Miss Kitty herself is stamped with Pretty Peacock ink and then colored with blends, and I found Pretty Peacock glimmer paper in my stash from last year or the year before, and I got the layout from the CASE-ing Tuesday Sketch from a couple weeks ago:

The greeting stamp is  one long line, so I stamped it out and then snipped it in half.

That's it for now, peeps.  We're trying to figure out how to paint the very high reaches of our entryway today, so wish us luck.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Spooky Halloween
Ink:  Pretty Peacock, Stampin' Blends in Pretty Peacock, Flirty Flamingo, Smoky Slate, Crumb Cake
Paper:  Flirty Flamingo, Pretty Peacock, Thick Basic White, Pretty Peacock DSP & Glimmer Paper
Accessories:  Spooky Halloween dies, Textured Notes dies, Mini Dimensionals, Pretty Peacock Foiled Gems

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

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!

Leaf Thanks

Mornin' y'all and happy Friday!  I got some good time in my craft room yesterday, but the hubs took today off of work so we're going to paint while Ryan is at school.  But after today the downstairs will be totally DONE!  Then it will be time to start on the bedrooms and laundry room upstairs.

Anyway, here's my card for today:

I don't make square cards too often but this week's Freshly Made Sketch insisted:

Which I paired with this week's Color Throwdown:

I used Lost Lagoon, Real Red, and threw in some Basic Beige and Early Espresso.

That's it for now, peeps, have a great Friday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Gathering Moments
Ink:  Early Espresso, Lost Lagoon, Real Red
Paper:  Lost Lagoon, Early Espresso, Thick Basic White, Gathering Together DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Adhesive-Backed Sparkle Gems

Turtle Power

Mornin' y'all!  I'm currently brewing my second XL cuppa tea this morning so it's shaping up to be a good day : )  And I have a triple challenge card to share:

Actually this card base started out to be used for my Tranquil Tiger card, but I decided that the DSP strip was too wide after I had already glued it down so I made a whole 'nother card base.  It was still too wide for this card too, so I chopped an inch off the bottom of the card base and then glued on a scrap of Crumb Cake et voilà:  a narrower strip of DSP, and I still have that other piece for some other card on down the line.

So let's talk challenges!  Starting with the Paper Players:

Next up is the Inspire. Create. challenge:

And then the AAA Cards Challenge:

This one solidified my choice to make a turtle card, which I already had on the brain after seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the theater last weekend.  When I got up this morning, my husband asked if I slept well and I told him that I had a dream that we hatched eggs which turned out to be like armored turtles (like a cross between a turtle and an ankylosaur) and they were carnivorous and FAST so I was worried that they were going to eat Daphne.  He said I have weird dreams (true), and then I told him that there were four ankylosaurus turtle babies in my dream, so clearly that was related to TMNT.  But yeah, that dream was extra weird even by my standards.  The hubs once had a dream that I turned into a dragon and he had to fight me with a sword, so he's one to talk.  Hope I won that dream fight.

Anyway, that's it for now, peeps.  Have a great day!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Turtle Friends
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Shy Shamrock, Stampin' Blends in Shy Shamrock & Crumb Cake
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Thick Basic White, Shy Shamrock DSP
Accessories:  Turtle punch, Dimensionals

Shells & Stripes

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan has a cooking class after school today so that means I get extra crafty time.  So my plan is to do some housework this morning and then I can spend the rest of the day in my craft room or working on my stitching, woohoo!  I couldn't settle in to create anything in the craft room yesterday, so instead I worked on my current stitching project, which was nice because I haven't stitched much of late.  I'm on the home stretch for this project, too.

Anyway, here's my card for today and once again we're pulling out some old stamps:

I managed to hit three challenges with this card, so let's start with Retro Rubber:

I went down the left side with die cut (Stitched Rectangle die on the DSP), stripes (also on the DSP), and twine (across the DSP).  By the Seashore (the shells) is 13 years old, and Seaside Notions (greeting) is six years old.  This is not the first time I've paired those two stamp sets together either.

Next up is the Festive Friday challenge:

From the list, I have shades of blue (really easy with the stripey DSP I chose), pearls (in the centers of the shells, they're pretty subtle with the patterns on the shells), and shells.  And what brought it all together is the sketch from Atlantic Hearts:

I guess I rotated the sketch upside down since I put the sentiment at the top instead of the bottom, I was focusing on the stripes and I think when I copied the sketch down that I didn't put the sentiment on it at all.  Hopefully they won't send the Challenge Police after me : )

That's it for me today.  I'm going to take Ryan to school and then start vacuuming up all the Daphne hair upstairs.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  By the Seashore, Seaside Notions
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Dapper Denim
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Dapper Denim, Very Vanilla, Shades & Hues DSP
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangles dies, linen thread, pearls, Mini Dimensionals