The Clue of the Dancing Puppet

Hey y'all!  I know it's been quiet around here but it really is a pain to blog from the hubs' laptop and also I dorked up my wrist this week by doing too much cross stitching one day.  I've had problems with my right wrist for years, mostly it's just a minor annoyance but every once in a while I make it mad so that's where we are this week.  But it's Saturday and time for a new Nancy Drew challenge!  Today we are on #39, The Clue of the Dancing Puppet:

The flashlight edition on the left has been in my collection for years and I got the matte one on the right when I was in Texas for Labor Day weekend last year.  This is another cover by Rudy Nappi (I do love his Nancys) and Nancy is wearing a different light blue dress from what she wore on the cover of The Clue in the Old Stagecoach.

Case file:  Bess is stagestruck and has joined a local amateur theater company, the Footlighters, where Nancy finds her next mystery:  a life-size ballerina puppet dances across the lawn of the estate where the theater company is based and it's making people nervous, which is the plot for pretty much every episode of Scooby-Doo.  Nancy and George join the Footlighters undercover to investigate and find a diva actress, jewel thieves, and robotic puppets.  Creepy.

My matte copy comes with what might be the sweetest inscription out of any of my used books, take a look:

Isn't that great?  I love it.  And I love knowing a tiny piece of this book's history, and that it's older than I am, ha.  Anyway, for today's card, I was inspired partly by one of the interior illustrations:

We have four life-size puppets in this book and puppets are right up there with dolls and clowns for Creepy Things Christy Does Not Want.  But I decided to use the Pierrot puppet as my inspiration instead of the ballerina since I did ballerinas for The Scarlet Slipper Mystery.  Here's my card:

When I saw the illustration, I knew I was going to break out my very old and beloved Print Pattern for the background, and I layered it with Script inked up very lightly because that was the thing to do for a while, layering different background stamps together.  I still used colors from the book cover for my card, Pink Pirouette for the ballerina and Balmy Blue for Nancy's dress.  And the rose was left over from when I made this card, it is apropos of nothing for the book, I just liked it.

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Print Pattern, Script, Fifth Avenue Floral, Suite Sentiments
Ink:  Balmy Blue, Early Espresso
Paper:  Pink Pirouette, Thick Basic White
Accessories:  Stitched Shapes dies, Dimensionals, Pretty in Pink Shimmer Gems, Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon

The Clue of the Dancing Puppet is not one of my favorites.  Puppets are creepy even when they're not life-sized, and one of the characters is a middle-aged Shakespearean actor windbag prone to spouting pretentious quotations at the drop of a hat *and* he's got a giant (unreciprocated) crush on the company's lead actress, who is half his age, and that is a whole different level of creepy.  I give this one two stars.  If you are inspired to make your own Nancy Drew card, leave me a comment below, I can't wait to see!  And come back next Saturday when Nancy takes on The Moonstone Castle Mystery.  Cheers!

Friday Flashback: Ageless Adornment

It's Friday Flashback day!  Today's retired stamp set of choice is Ageless Adornment, which was a purple rubber hostess set way back when.  There are four images (butterfly, pear, holly, and calla lily) plus three fancy-font sentiments.  So let's take a look, shall we?

I know, this is the absolute *worst* picture, but the original card was pretty.  The background is polished stone (wish SU still carried glossy white cardstock just for this technique) and I colored the butterfly to match.

Also features Roses in Winter, Script, and Filigree

Here's the butterfly again, and this card is...less than successful.  Sadly the part I like the least is the Ageless Adornment butterfly :(  So since this card is disappointing, I tried to make something mo bettah today, and this is what I came up with:

I knew I wanted to use a stamp that wasn't the butterfly ;) but I didn't realize beforehand that I hadn't used *any* of the other images.  But the pear seemed like a good choice with this week's Color Throwdown combo:

I interpreted the colors as Lavender Lace (hoping for another purple when the new In Colors are introduced this summer), Summer Starfruit, Cool Caribbean, and Barely Banana, all of which are retired.  So today we're featuring retired stamps *and* retired colors, though happily for me, Chocolate Chip is still current.  Do NOT take away Christy's chocolate if you want to live.  I stamped the pear with Chocolate Chip craft ink (which is retired) and then embossed with clear EP so I could watercolor without smearing ink everywhere.  Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.

Anyway, I also used this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

I did a plain border around my circular element instead of the scallops as shown on the sketch, and I think my banners are a little fatter,  but I followed the sketch pretty closely.

So that's it for me this week, peeps.  Have a fantabulous day!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Ageless Adornment, Happy Harmony
Ink:  Chocolate Chip (craft and classic), Cool Caribbean, Lovely Lilac, Barely Banana, Summer Starfruit
Paper:  Cool Caribbean, Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana, Lovely Lilac, Whisper White, Summer Starfruit DSP scrap
Accessories:  Circle Framelits, clear EP (really, I didn't even use Dimensionals this time!)