Janice Daquila-Pardo

Awesome titles: Free digital cut file

April 17, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Do you like the brush-lettered titles trend in scrapbooking? I do too! So I have created a cut file for all you Silhouette users! It’s a combo pack that allows you to mix your own titles around the hand-painted central theme word: AWESOME.

With this kit you can create three titles:

Be awesome
This is awesome
Awesome sauce

Just click on the preview image above to download the cut file. And PLEASE come back and leave a quick message to let me know if you use my kit on a project. I’d love to take a peek. 🙂

Drool

April 13, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I walked in and found our sweet Oliver snoozing in the office, and as I stopped for a moment to take in his beauty and the peaceful feeling you get when you watch someone deep in slumber, I noticed these three little drops of drool on his whiskers. So I assume he was having sweet dreams.

Product/technique notes

Square punches were my friend for this design, which just frames my close-up photo with bursts of color. Most of the patterns came from the Pebbles “Walnut Grove” 6×6 paper pad. I created and cut my title on the Silhouette Cameo and added some hand stitching for a bit of texture.

Piano recital

April 9, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

I was fortunate as a girl to be given piano lessons. Our church’s organist, Ms. Shimmels, would come to our house weekly and patiently work with me on theory and technique. I’ll admit that I loved it and hated it. I really wanted to be better at playing, but daily practice sessions were so hard to get excited about. It’s the age-old conundrum of the wannabe.

I loved to perform, though, so I did get excited about recitals. I practiced the heck out of my recital music, learning it so well that I would get to the end of the piece and not remember the details of having played it (like when you drive a familiar route on auto pilot).

Each year Ms. Shimmels’ students came together to perform for their families at the Fine Arts Association in Willoughby, and these photos are from our recital in the summer of 1978.

It was a really big deal to me, and my family treated it that way, too. My mom made this sweet yellow dress for the occasion (as she often did for my recitals over the years). And two of my aunts (Mary Lou and Rose) drove from Pennsylvania to be there for it.

I remember quite a lot about this special day, considering it was almost 37 years ago, and I’m grateful for everyone who worked together to make it happen.

Product/technique notes

I followed this Let’s Get Sketchy January sketch quite closely:

Most of the patterns I used are from Jillibean Soup’s “Chilled Cucumber Soup” collection. I designed the title and cut it on my Silhouette.

Queen Klutz

March 30, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

I’m klutzy. It goes beyond klutzy, really. In fact, I have always been so accident prone that my father used to call me Grace…because I had none.

And I’ve realized that this is a trait I’m just not going to outgrow. So I guess I may as well own it. I was recently telling my mom about my latest mishap (a full body slam to the tile floor of our entry way), and she suggested that I really should have kept a diary of my accidents over the years because I find such inventive ways of hurting myself. Yes, she expressed concern for my aches and pains, but in the end it’s a bit of a funny family fact: Jan is creatively clumsy.

I once closed my ear in the car door.
I smacked my face so hard into our dining room light fixture that I gave myself a black eye and vertigo.
I fell all the way down a set of carpeted stairs and bounced into the living room.

So, now you know.

Product/technique notes

I followed this My Scraps & More sketch #102 very closely because I liked it so much. Most of the patterned papers on this are from Little Yellow Bicycle’s “Fern & Forest Girl” 6×6 pad.

Eggsperts

March 26, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Two influences conspired to make me create this page:

I am participating in the Paper Issues online crop, and one of the challenges is to alter a cut file with color (adding mists, using patterned paper, etc.).
I recently stared dopily at the beauty of this layout by Paige Evans and made a mental note to try it myself. Isn’t it gorgeous?

I had this simple, classic photo of Phil and me dyeing Easter eggs at the kitchen table in 1976. I thought it deserved some special treatment, so I “dyed” my background daisies (water colored them with Tim Holtz distress inks) and then backed that with a colorful (old) patterned paper from K&Co. I also cut the title on the Silhouette and then added a few random tidbits around the photo.

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