…on Instagram!

Yup, you read that right.  I’ve joined Instagram!  I’m having some technical difficulties (my laptop doesn’t want to behave), but I want to share this news with you.

You can follow me at tracy.carrig and look for this lovely picture of moi 🙂

Wish me luck on this laptop nonsense. *grumble grumble*

Happy scrapping!

…channeling Mario and Lord of the Rings…

It started with the sticker machines at the grocery store.  Then he asked for a “soft” Yoshi (aka, a Yoshi plush).  He also knew that Mario and Luigi were part of the “family”.  So after managing to procure the last small Mario plush at the toy store, he needed Luigi.  Once he had Luigi, he carried around the group all the time.  He loved them!  Still does, but I borrowed a little from LOTR for my title of “his PRECIOUS.”  Hee hee.

Then there’s a lot of fussy cutting from patterned paper and journal cards.  I also added a metal clip holding some baker’s twine bits.  The background started as some Amy Tangerine Plus One paper (I mentioned this before, I love Amy Tangerine!).  Lots of people use white gesso before adding media, but I didn’t want to tone down the paper, just prep it for media.  So I went with some Matte Medium.

Then I added some swaths of color, as well as some green through a Dylusions stencil, the did some stamping.  The tiny stars are a pattern stamp from a past Studio Calico kit.  Other words came from Citrus Twist kits, and “I Love You” is from 3rd Eye (a Polish company that sadly closed down, but you can still find stuff at other online stores).  I used a Citrus Twist sketch for this layout.

Thanks for looking and happy scrapping!

…homing in…

…on an old photo.

Sharing this layout from a challenge that I missed, but still very important, and I’m sharing the site anyway.  Lasting Memories had interesting challenges this month since not everyone celebrates Christmas.  Being in a multi-faith home, this really resonated with me.  The first challenge dealt with have a roof over your head, so this is what I scrapped.

“Hello new house”

This isn’t my original background, but it worked out a lot better once I switched it.  Hubby and I moved back to New York after spending some time in Florida, and the muppet was still a baby, so we have this photo of hubby and monkey in front of our new home (with the in-laws).

Lots of stuff from my stash, along with my paint pens, pen work, and spray splash.  The photo mat I cut into strips to mimic steps.  ANd most of my embellishments have to do with love, family, being thankful, and saying hello.

The brackets are from some old alphas that I colored with my Moonlight pens and then black pen.

Happy scrapping!

…rockin the green…

…headphones, that is…

“Green Headphones”

Entering this for the Citrus Twist Dec. 13 Sketch challenge.  I was in Target, not really looking for them, but finding cheap headphones.  I chose the green (I’m Scotch Irish).  At the time I was working in the city, walking to and from Penn Station to get to my office.  And dealing the street salespeople.

It’s amazing seeing these people dressed for an office but standing in the street, so it’s obvious what they’re up to.  However, I don’t blast my music (hearing problems in the family, too), so I can still hear these people trying to get my attention, calling on my green headphones.  Blargh.

I drew by hand and fussy cut the “GREEN” for part of my title.

That’s a golden doily that I folded in half and sprayed with some Dylusions.  I also used some stickers and stamps from my stash.  A lot of my layers and embellishments deal with the work week (days of the week, “daily grind”), the nature of NYC (the globe), and my feelings about being singled out for my green headphones.  The smiley faces were great!

Happy scrapping!

…ending the year big…

With three (yep, you read right) layouts that I actualy finished earlier this month.

I’ve been quiet (looking for a job is so much fun 😦 blargh), but with one of the blogs I follow ending, and me wanting to do more scrapbooking, I went for it.

“Success at 6”

The weather’s been gray and rainy, which does not make for nice photos.  I took these on my craft table, where the light is bright (if fluorescent).

This is for Scrap Around the World‘s December 2015 (and final) moodboard.

I don’t normally go for glittery stuff, but I had some glitter stars from a past Citrus Twist kit that I thought worked great.  The background is also very different.  This month has had me start background, and try to make them work, and fail (at least for me).  And though December is time for the holidays, we’re multi-faith around here, and I wanted to use non-traditional colors for these photos.

The phrase “the future is bright” really resonated with me for these photos.  We’ve had issues in the past with Santa photos.  As a baby, my little guy was fine, but then he was most certainly not.  He’s also special in his own right, and the past few years I’ve let him watch other kids go up and see Santa before he did so he’d know what to do.  This year we couldn’t do that (they changed the layout at the place we normally go), and he was TOTALLY okay.  I was so proud of him, and not only did he tell Santa what he wanted, he gave him both a high five and a hug.  Fabulous!  I also liked the colors and circle theme, with a touch of glitter 🙂

Happy scrapping!

…catching up…

I’d like to get more active on my blog, for myself and for you lovelies.  A reminder to myself is also my word for this past year, which was: clear.  This also means clearing out my blog drafts, or at least all the ones that have been sitting around.  Starting fresh for the new year, right?

So I realized that in both of these older posts, peek-a-boo and where’s the mail?, I promised to show more photos of these layouts.  And that I never got around to it.  Get ready for some serious scrappy eye candy 😉

First up, “peek-a-boo”

And now, “where’s the mail?”

 

Happy scrapping!

…getting whimsical this winter…

So I’m taking a couple of online courses, one of which is based off an awesome book I have.  Joanne Sharpe has a terrific book called The Art of Whimisical Lettering, and I’m currently taking her class based off the book.  I don’t necessarily love my own handwriting, but that’s what the class is all about.  You get a composition notebook, glue every 2-3 pages together to make them a little sturdier, add some washi to the edge, and play with your handwriting.

Here’s a shot of my journal, the cover which I finially finished a short while ago:

And here’s my page for one of the first lessons in the online course called “Pump it Up”

Pretty cool, huh?  Do I love it?  Not quite, but it’s a work in progress.

I’m also taking a class by Dawn DeVries Sokol called Winter Wonder Full.  Being in a mult-faith household makes the winter holidays kinda crazy, but this is a great journal for me to document December and the holidays my way.

So these are my inside covers:

A combo of gesso and some Liquitex purple and Grumbacher blue.  I’m using a Canson watercolor spiral journal since it was the closest thing I could find to the journal that Dawn recommends, and since I’m not working, it’s easier than getting all the binding materials.

Anyhoo, I made a calendar page (I don’t celebrate Advent, but a calendar page to keep track of the holidays I do celebrate is very good).

The star is a magazine shape cutout, the black and white check is duck tape, and the tag is an old Jenni Bowlin tag that I covered and then scribbled on with paint pens.  Add some baker’s twine and a little thread, and awesome.  Also stamped some TH stars from his circus collection, and (after I took the photo) a “1” from a Dylusions numbers set.

I was also supposed to make some holiday doodles, and I’m not loving this page, but I’m not that practiced at doodling or I’m my own worst critic 😛

Another assignment was to doodle a menorah (which hubby’s family does celebrate).  Here I used Joanne Sharpe’s Pump it Up technique for my words, though they seem to have a definite Dylusions look, at least in my opinion.

Anyway, thanks for looking and happy scrapping!

…recycling…

So I planned on entering this for the Kraft + November challenge, which was to be inspired by P!nk, the musician, not the color 😛

Now using kraft is a challenge for me, but I’ve seen some awesome interpretations, and I love P!nk, so I thought I’d give it a go.  Loving mixed media the way that I do, I had to art up my kraft background.

I also tried to do a die-cut background, which forced me to cut my kraft paper in half to run them through my Cuttlebug.

Unfortunately, with the holiday, and me trying to do too many things at once, I missed the deadline.

However, I combined that challenge with the Off the Rails November moodboard.

I really liked the color scheme, and the recycling aspect, as I’ve always been into being green (I was super excited when they finally introduced paper recycling in my hometown :P)

So my recycling on this layout comes from a clothing tag that I arted up.  I kept the word in keeping with the P!nk song “So What?”

The main point of the layout is the number.  I started doing a local walk(Sounds of Silence, hence: SOS) to raise money and awareness about postpartum mood disorders (which I dealt with and in some senses, still do).

When you register, the computer generates a random race number for you to wear.  You get your race number the day of the walk.  Now some people would probably get upset at the number that I ended up getting.  However, I’m not of that persuasion and simply found it hilarious (I’m weird like that).  And so thus the title of my layout, hee hee.

Happy scrapping!

…looking fabulous…

I was trying to work out my background a few different times.  I’m pretty happy with how this turned out.

I used the main November kit from Citrus Twist along with some thing from my stash.  My mother-in-law gets her nails done regularly.  I can imagine so many people saying that being around girls makes my son girly.

Well, for one, I’m not girly.  For two, the boys outnumber the girls in our house.  So Grandma came back wth her nails done and little guy decided he needed his nails done.  Fingers and toes.  Oh yes.

I used gesso through a stencil that is all about being who you are, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

I also used some orange paint through a Dylusions number jumble stencil, as well as the “BORN TO STAND OUT” stamp from the kit.

All the stamp and ink is Tim Holtz (distress stain, distress ink, archival ink) except the red, which is Liquitex liquid red ink.

I used my TCW Cloud stencil and a Dylusions stencil to cut clouds and the number “10” from some of the patterned paper.

I grabbed some journal cards from my stash, along with a manila tag sprayed with Dylusions through Dina Wakley’s dot stencil, and a planner divider from BoBunny’s Zip-a-Dee-Doodle collection (LOVE that collection).

Entering his for Citrus Twist’s Nov. 8th sketch.

Thanks for looking and happy scrapping!

…saying hello to kitty…

…Hello Kitty that is.

I love October, and Halloween.  Seeing the Gauche Alchemy moodboard this month was awesome, and so many thing I could do.  When I saw the dark lips, I immediately thought of Dr. Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror.  And in a weird twist, my son got the girl’s toy with his meal, which happened to be a Hello Kitty metal container with stickers.  Now I’ve always been kinda neutral on Hello Kitty, who apparently is a cat “shaped” girl or something.  Not a girl, but not a cat.  Aaanyway, in my head, the Hello Kitty as said by Dr. Frank-N-Furter sounds like “hello kittay.”

So I altered the Hello Kitty tin.  Hee hee.

Happy scrapping!