Mystery of Crocodile Island

Happy Saturday and welcome back to the Nancy Drew Challenge!  I hated to miss last week on account of painting the craft room (and entire master suite), but we're back today for Nancy's 55th adventure, Mystery of Crocodile Island: 

Hooray, it's a green cover instead of brown!  I do like the black trees framing the scene in the middle, nice and creepy, and who knew we needed a book cover featuring Nancy holding a piece of raw meat.  It looks like Nancy is guest starring on an episode of Crocodile Hunter (rest in peace, Steve Irwin) and really that's not far off from the story.

Case file:  Carson sends Nancy, Bess, and George to Florida at the behest of a friend (client?) to investigate a possibly shady business that the friend/client invested in before he realized that it was not on the up and up.  The business raises and sells crocodiles from the obviously named Crocodile Island, so the girls spend a lot of time snooping around on boats and discover that the firm is a front for smuggling something that I can't remember because it only comes out in the very last two pages or something.

Here's my card:

I knew pretty much from when I started this challenge that I was going to use Oh Snap for this book because it's perfect.  I stamped the croc and his bird friend in Early Espresso + Versamark on watercolor paper and embossed with clear EP, then painted them and fussy cut.  I found a suitably tropical looking pattern for my background.

You can see here I acquired a matte cover of this book sometime in between when I took pics of my collection and when we got to this challenge, because the top picture is the flashlight edition but same artwork.  The colors on the flashlight edition are a bit more saturated but I still think my card matches both of them pretty well.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Oh Snap
Ink:  Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Cajun Craze, Bumblebee, Versamark
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz, watercolor paper, Botanical Gardens DSP
Accessories:  clear EP, Radiating Stitches dies, Spotlight on Nature dies, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

I had the croc card done and could have posted it last week, but I really wanted to make a second card and here it is:

Like in the revised Lilac Inn (way back at #4), the bad guys in this one have their own submarine and I will never turn down an opportunity to break out Submarine Life for a card.  I found a nice Old Olive ombre pattern in the Color Theory DSP Stack, and stamped a bit of seaweed and some fishes along with my greeting.  I made the submarine Calypso Coral to kinda match Nancy's hair but my Calypso Coral ink pad is extra juicy at the moment so it's a bit darker than I intended.  I think I should have added some darker seaweed on the bottom but what can you do.

A simple card with a torn edge for the top of the water and you know my brain was singing "sky of blue, sea of green...in my coral submarine!" while I was making it.  And this is the first card I made after I got the craft room put back together after painting it.  Have I mentioned how much I love the refreshed look?  No more greige!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Submarine Life
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Mossy Meadow, Old Olive, Basic Gray
Paper:  Mossy Meadow, Basic White, Color Theory DSP Stack
Accessories:  submarine punch, Dimensionals, Faux Glass Dots

This book does have some pretty wacky shenanigans; George buys what she thinks is a toy baby crocodile which turns out to be a real one and Togo tries to attack it, and then while visiting a private zoo, Nancy hops into an enclosure to feed a crocodile (told you she guest starred on Crocodile Hunter), and Carson's friend gets hit in the head by a high-speed golf ball.  This is Nancy's third visit to Florida (after the revised Moss-Covered Mansion and both versions of Black Keys), and this time she did some sightseeing at the real-life Cape Florida Light; an exhaustive minute and a half of Googling seems to indicate that the stories of the lighthouse in the book are actually historically accurate, which was interesting to me.  The girls also had time to rescue a child from drowning, find a message in a bottle, and dig up a few buried doubloons, so they were very busy even before the boys showed up near the end.  Anyway, I give this book four stars, I think it was pretty entertaining and you know I love bonkers things like crocodiles and crooks with submarines.  I didn't even mention the tree snakes yet, I told you there's a lot happening here.  If you're inspired to make something based on this book, leave me a comment!  And come back next Saturday (no delays this time) when Nancy searches for The Thirteenth Pearl.