The Mystery of the Ivory Charm

Welcome to a new Nancy Drew Challenge!  This time we're looking into The Mystery of the Ivory Charm, which is the thirteenth book in the series and definitely unlucky.

You can tell from the OT cover on the left that this time, we're going to the circus and I will be honest, this is my least favorite Nancy Drew book up to this point and by a wide margin.

Case file:  Nancy, Bess, and George see a circus unpacking while waiting for their train to River Heights and a circus worker named Rai, an Indian man, gives Nancy an ivory elephant charm for good luck.  The man's supposed son, Coya (who works with the elephants), stows away on the girls' train so Nancy just decides to keep him and let him do chores around the house (the HECK).  A weird lady comes to see Carson about selling some land she owns, and in the course of investigating where Coya came from and how he ended up with not-his-real-dad Rai, she discovers that the weird lady and Rai had colluded to rob Coya of his inheritance as a maharajah in India and installed someone else on the throne.  This one is just bizarre as well as being rife with racial stereotypes.  One star.

So here's my card for the OT version of The Mystery of the Ivory Charm:

And it's proof that I can make a card I really like that was inspired by a book I really dislike!  I decided on three simple blocks of color to mimic the colors on the book cover and of course I had to have an elephant.  At first I tried to do this as a vertical card, but the color blocks looked like a stoplight no matter what order I put them in.  I really like what I ended up with though.

Rai gives Nancy the ivory charm because she's brave and doesn't panic when an escaped circus snake (that's a thing, I guess?) drops out of a tree on her and tries to squeeze her to death.  I was tempted to make a snaky card but my stamp collection is pretty light on snake images, so I pulled out one of my elephants instead.  I chose that "hello" because the font makes me think of the circus, is that weird?

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Happy Greetings
Ink:  Versamark, Pebbled Path, Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Soft Sky, Poppy Parade, Garden Green, Crushed Curry, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  clear EP, Little Loves Framelits, Squares Collection Framelits, Dimensionals

On to the RT version!

Revised case file:  This one follows the plot of the OT fairly closely, except that the Indian boy is renamed Rishi and Nancy discovers that his biological father is living in River Heights; the dad had been told that Rishi was eaten by a tiger years earlier.  Usually they tried to tone down the racism when they revised the texts, but this time they took out a scene where Nancy is invited to the White House to have lunch with the First Lady and pretty much left in all the racist stereotypes.  One of my best friends growing up was Indian and I can only imagine what she would have thought of this book--I wish I could ask her, but she passed away of cancer over ten years ago.  I'm sure she would have hated this though.  Or laughed herself silly.  Perhaps both at the same time.

Here's my card:

I bought Balmy Breezes on eBay a while back and this is the first time I've used it and I love it.  Of course I picked it for the elephant image, and I tried to stick close to the colors of the book cover.  There weren't any palm trees in the book but they go with the elephant image, right?

I used the Deckled Rectangles dies and a generous amount of sponging to mimic the book cover, and this time I decided to ignore Nancy's bright hair and just went with the greens.  She gets to keep the ivory charm as a souvenir; she gets a lot of jewelry from solving mysteries.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Balmy Breezes
Ink:  Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz
Paper:  Basic Beige, Mossy Meadow, Pear Pizzazz
Accessories:  Deckled Rectangles dies, linen thread, Faux Glass Dots, Dimensionals

I'd love to see what you come up with for this book, drop me a comment below (no time limit).  Next up, we'll be investigating The Whispering Statue!  And if you want to deep dive into the books, check out my other blog at Hey, Nancy Drew.  Cheers!

Ryan: Eleven Months

Hey y'all!  Back with another baby book layout and the finish line is in sight, this is his 11-month photo shoot.  Lemme tell ya, Ryan's baby book is GIGUNDOR.

Here's another outfit that I just loved and picked specifically so it would be in his baby book.  Isn't it the cutest?  When I was a wee young lass, my favorite toy was a stuffed lion named Bravely who talked when you squeezed him, so for a while my mom was getting allllll the lion stuff for Ryan (whose favorite stuffy is a duck).  Ryan spent most of this photo shoot trying to escape (see the top left photo and two bottom right photos).  As he got more mobile, monthly photo shoots got more complicated.

The Coastal Cabana jacket is what drove the color palette here, I picked the patterned paper I wanted to use and then built the rest of the color palette around it:  Calypso Coral, Crushed Curry, Blueberry Bushel, Coastal Cabana, Soft Suede, and Whisper White.

Toodles, kids!

Supplies, mostly SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Altenew sentiment
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Blueberry Bushel, So Saffron & Soft Suede Blends, Calypso Coral & Early Espresso markers
Paper:  Calypso Coral, Blueberry Bushel, Crushed Curry, Whisper White, Best Year Ever DSP
Accessories:  None

National Zoo

Scrappy Monday y'all!  I didn't get as much scrapping done this weekend as I wanted to...I've got one layout that still needs journaling, and another one is about 75% done but I'm kinda stuck on it for accents.  I thought it was going to be a really quick one to finish, too.

But anyway!  Today I have two layouts from when we visited the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. when Ryan was tiny (I think he was 2 months old when we did this).

I think I bought the Animal Expedition DSP months before I got the Animal Outing stamp set and dies :)  But that paper was perfect for zoo pages!  I chose the Berry Burst background because my honorary niece Emma helpfully wore a bright pink sweater, and happily that's one of the colors in this particular pack of DSP.  It seems like I don't use the really bright, saturated pinks for page bases very often, so I'm excited when I do it and I like how it turns out.

So here's the color palette for the first layout:  Berry Burst, Call Me Clover, Pool Party, Crushed Curry, and Whisper White.

For the second layout, I used the same pack of DSP, but I swapped the Crushed Curry for Lemon Lime Twist (which I hope will make a reappearance in a few years when they do another color refresh, I love that color).  Honorary niece Abby helpfully wore a lime green shirt, so this really worked out perfectly for my scrapbook pages :)

And there's the second color palette:  Call Me Clover, Berry Burst, Lemon Lime Twist, Pool Party, and Whisper White.

Despite not making as much progress as I wanted to over the weekend, I still have a stack of 20+ layouts that I need to take pictures of so I can share on here.  Maybe I'll get that done before the next scrappy Monday...

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, first layout:
Stamps:  Calendar Alphabet & Numbers, Broadsheet Alphabet, A Little Wild
Ink:  Berry Burst, Call Me Clover, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Berry Burst, Pool Party, Crushed Curry, Thick Whisper White, Animal Expedition DSP
Accessories:  Hexagon punch, Lots of Labels Framelits

Supplies, second layout:
Stamps:  Tropical Chic
Ink:  Call Me Clover, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Pool Party, Lemon Lime Twist, Thick Whisper White, Animal Expedition DSP
Accessories:  Tropical Thinlits

We've Got Fun and Games

Hey, kids!  I'm typing this as fast as I can because the kidlet is making noise.  Thankfully he's not roaring yet...

AAAAAAHHHHHH I die of the cute.  I'm stuck on A Little Wild lately.  And also I can't wait to get more Stampin' Blends because that lion would look 500 times better colored with an alcohol marker.  Usually I watercolor, but for this card the lion needed to be a saturated color.

Anywha!  I used the Sunday Stamps sketch:

...I just realized that I tilted the DSP layer the opposite direction from the sketch.  Whoops!

I'm also entering this at SUO Challenges to make a card for babies or kids.  I think this would be adorable for a baby shower, what do you think?

Gotta run.  Cheers, folks!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Crushed Curry, Flirty Flamingo, retired Blendabilities Crumb Cake marker
Paper:  Granny Apple Green, Garden Green, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Tropical Escape DSP
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Tropical Thinlits, Dimensionals

Finally....A Pink Elephant

Mornin', y'all!  I mentioned last week that I reallyreallyreally wanted to do a pink elephant card and at long last, my friends, that day has come.

The Global Design Project color challenge this week features pink in the form of Flirty Flamingo, so I just had to make a pink elephant card.

I paired that with the Paper Players sketch challenge:

I made the Daffodil Delight strip 1" wide, the flower strip is 1 1/2" wide, and the bottom strip is 2" wide.  That "dirt" strip was way more trouble than it should have been, this was the third try to get something I liked.  I had wanted to stamp the sentiment on the card base with the peekaboo circle on the "dirt" strip, but somehow I got some fuzz in my ink or something and it didn't look right.  Luckily I had the circle I'd cut out of the strip so I just stamped the sentiment on that instead, but like I said, it was more trouble than it had to be.

Hope y'all have a good day, peeps!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Touches of Texture
Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Flirty Flamingo, Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Flirty Flamingo
Accessories:  Little Loves & Layering Circles Framelits, Dimensionals

Hello Baby Bear

Hey y'all!  I have a cute little card to share today.

With the way the sun was coming in the window while I took the picture, you can really tell that the bear and the bees are up on Dimensionals!  The inside of the card completes the sentiment with "Welcome to the world!"

Check out this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge:

I'm counting the three bees as one of the floral elements on the sketch.

I also played along with this week's color challenge from Just Us Girls:

I used Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, and Daffodil Delight as my colors, plus some Soft Suede for the bear.  I tried sponging on some color for the grass and it looked a mess so I redid it with just the grass stamp.  It looks a lot cleaner and much mo' bettah now.

And finally, here's the challenge from What Will You Stamp?

I'm really DYING to make a pink elephant card, but the bear just worked better for the sketch I chose so I went with him instead.  That elephant's time is coming, though.  I just know it.

Well, in a little bit I'll be off to try my first piyo class.  Wish me luck?

Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Baby Bear
Ink:  Granny Apple Green, Coastal Cabana, Memento Tuxedo Black, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Dimensionals, Wink of Stella on the bees' wings

Foxy Hello

Hey, kids.  Man, this week has been tough!  The hubs' work schedule has been kinda all over the place so I've been pretty much single parenting the kidbot.  I think most of the time I'm ready for bedtime a lot earlier than the kiddo is!

But enough about that, how about a card:

I chose Foxy Friends because I was thinking of entering this over at Retro Rubber, but I'm not sure this fits the theme exactly.  I think of animals being out and about in the summertime, and they did say a summer theme card, but they also have a lot of beachy stuff on there and I don't think foxes are beach babes.  They're more forest-y.  But anyway, I can enter this in the Paper Players sketch challenge!

I kind of made up my color combination on the spot.  I started with the Cajun Craze fox, and I wanted to use Call Me Clover, so I looked on the Stampin' Up! color combos list and Crushed Curry was in a combo with Call Me Clover so I thought hey, that works.  And a healthy dose of Crumb Cake.  We're all about the C's with this color combination.  Except for the black and white anyway.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Have a great Thursday!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Foxy Friends, Tree Rings, A Little Wild
Ink:  Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black marker
Paper:  Call Me Clover, Crumb Cake, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Everyday Label punch, Dimensionals

Bonus Buzz

I don't usually post on Saturdays, but I had an idea yesterday that I just *had* to commit to paper so...bonus card this week!

Even my pun-hating husband thought this was at least mildly amusing.  Try as I might, I could not color-correct the photo; my pictures are pretty bad if I take them later in the afternoon like I did this one, but kid would NOT go down for a nap yesterday until 5 p.m.  And that's after he got up an hour earlier than usual yesterday morning!  So anyway, the card is just a white card base with Crushed Curry bees.

I'm revisiting the Cupcake Inspiration color challenge because it's perfect for this card:

This idea started buzzing around in my brain when I saw the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch:

Once I got the kid to go down for a nap this card took almost no time to make.  And I think it's still fun.  Right?

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Labeler Alphabet, A Little Wild
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  None

Hi Sweetie

Hey y'all!  How's your Thursday going?  I've got a sweet card for today.

I love this stamp set (A Little Wild) but haven't used it too often so I was happy to bust it out for today's card.  At first I wanted to make the sentiment say "Hello Sweetie" like River Song on Doctor Who, but I thought the "Hi" fit better with my other card elements.  And none of my friends are Doctor Who fans so they wouldn't get it anyway.

I used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

And I paired it with the Color Throwdown:

I used Smoky Slate, So Saffron, and Soft Suede for my colors.  I'll let you in on a little secret:  I don't like gray and brown together.  My mom hates navy blue and black together, so I guess color combo aversions run in the family?  Whatever the case, I just don't like them together at all, so I wanted to try this challenge because it WAS a challenge for me to combine gray and brown in a way that didn't make my eye twitch.  My solution?  A little gray shadow for "ground" under the bear.  Heh.

That's it for me today, y'all.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild, Labeler Alphabet
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, So Saffron, Soft Suede, Smoky Slate
Paper:  Thick Whisper White, So Saffron
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Dimensionals

Wild Lion

Mornin', y'all!  How's it going today?

 I just got the stamp set A Little Wild with this super adorable lion, but I'll admit I'm not in love with this card.  I don't know why.  I didn't have time to ponder the problem or fix it though because Ryan woke up from his nap while I was working on it so I just had to call it done.  I mean, it's okay, but I hope I do other stuff with this lion that I like a lot better.

I used this week's Fall-To Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping:

Except I couldn't for the life of me figure out something to do for the dark stripe across the card, so I ended up doing nothing.

I also used this week's CASE the Designer challenge from the Global Design Project:

I know my card doesn't look very similar, but I used the same colors (or at least, what I thought they were)--Pool Party, Pear Pizzazz, and So Saffron (though I think the inspiration card looks more like Crushed Curry).  And I have my die-cut focal image on the lower left quadrant of the card.

So that's my card for today.  Here's a sneak peek at a layout that I'm almost done with now:

Sometimes I'll move photos around to try to find something I like, and I take pictures of possible ideas.  I didn't end up using this arrangement but the pages are all done now except for journaling.  Whee!  Oh, and Mom:  yesterday's layout was from Sapporo, Japan, not China.  I have just two pages left in the China books; I need to order a photo for one of them so it's on hold for the moment because I still have to go through some pictures and SOMEBODY was going to email me pics from Christmas in Texas.  Not naming names...

Cheers, y'all!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  A Little Wild
Ink:  Basic Black, So Saffron, Soft Suede, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party
Paper:  So Saffron, Basic Black, Whisper White, Whole Lot of Lovely DSP (I used a tiny scrap!  Yay!)
Accessories:  Little Loves Framelits, Dimensionals