Janice Daquila-Pardo

To lead a better life

May 5, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

The first sketch challenge has been posted at the new SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along for fame and prizes. 😉

The challenges on this blog will involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. This first sketch came with the song “Here, there and everywhere” by the Beatles. To remind you, here are the lyrics:

To lead a better life,
I need my love to be here.
Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there.
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there.
I want her everywhere
and if she’s beside me I know I need never care.
But to love her is to need her
Everywhere, knowing that love is to share
each one believing that love never dies
watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there.
I want her everywhere
and if she’s beside me I know I need never care.
But to love her is to need her.
Everywhere, knowing that love is to share
each one believing that love never dies
watching her eyes and hoping I’m always there.
I will be there, and everywhere.
Here, there and everywhere.

I chose to focus on the very first line of the lyrics, “To lead a better life,” because it made me think of how Matt and I really do believe that we can and must make our own lives better. So, each December we spend a good deal of time talking about and setting our goals and plans for the coming new year.

In the past two years my brother, Phil, has come to visit us during the week after Christmas and into the new year, and he now looks forward to working on his goals with us! The photos on my layout are of the three of us working on our lists together this past December.

Phil, Matt and I had just finished lunch at a local Indian restaurant that we love and then pulled out our goals notebook to start working on our lists again. You can see that I was acting as scribe for the group!

Product/technique notes:
Of course, I used sketch #1 provided at the Sketch & Music blog to create my page. The patterned papers from the K&Company “Americana” theme seemed to work well with both the colors of our clothes and the theme (stars and freedom). And that cool cut-and-folded border strip in the middle there was made using a cut file from the Silhouette store. Isn’t it cool how it shows off both sides of the patterned paper? I then created the title treatment in the Silhouette software and cut it with my Cameo as well. The “he said” and “she said” stamps are by Studio Calico, and the “Good things take time” sticker is from BasicGrey’s “Clippings” line.

I heart trying new recipes

May 4, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 6 Comments

I cooked this crazy-good Moroccan chickpea, kale and couscous recipe when Phil was in town last December.

I really love the process of reading through recipes, imagining the ingredients coming together to make flavors and textures and then choosing and making one. It’s quite gratifying for me to finish cooking something new. And I love hearing feedback from those I serve it to (usually just Matt, but on the day represented in these photos my baby bro was in town, too).

In fact, I like this process so much that I hardly ever follow a recipe twice. Sure, we have our standby meals that we make over and over. But the ones I try from a recipe book are usually one-timers, even if we love them, because there are just so many out there to try!

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout using this cool sketch from the Paper Bakery blog, and I’m entering in their sketch contest. The patterned papers are from We R Memory Keepers.

Labor Day 1974

April 28, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, Phil and me in our backyard on Labor Day in 1974

On this layout is a photo of a very rare occurrence: both sets of my grandparents are visiting us at the same time. We lived in Ohio; Nana and Papa, Dad’s parents (on the left), lived in Pennsylvania; and Grandma and Grandpa, Mom’s parents (on the right) lived in California. So there were not a lot of opportunities to be together.

I’m assuming that Grandma and Grandpa were in town for a few weeks to visit, and then Nana and Papa drove in the two hours from PA to visit for Labor Day. Very cool. I love this photo.

Do I even have to point out the 1974 fashions Phil and I are sporting?

Product/technique notes:
I created this layout with patterned papers from Little Yellow Bicycle’s beautiful “Elizabeth Park” collection. I did a good bit of fussy cutting around the perimeter of my center area so that I could pop up the profusion of flowers over it around the edges. And in the bottom right quadrant I debossed the cardstock to add texture without adding a patterned paper that would compete with the flowers from the background paper.

Willoughby PAL Program

April 25, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 3 Comments

My mom is an excellent teacher, and you can see in this photo how the children are responding to her reading them a story. I'm so happy to have photos like this of her in action.

Today my last layout as guest designer for Artful Delight is live. I’ve really enjoyed using their April kit. Because I’ve never subscribed to a kit club before, I’m not accustomed to using the same set of products more than once in quick succession. But being AD’s guest designer for the month forced me to do that, and I liked the challenge that posed for me. I came out of it with three layouts that I’m quite happy with, and I had to dig a little deeper into my creative brain to find ways to make them with only the elements that came in the kit. It was a good exercise for me!

Thank you to Artful Delight for having me as their guest!

The journaling on this page: Mom opened her own pre-school program in March 1987 and called it Play and Learn (PAL). She taught four-year olds for two hours twice per week in a classroom in Browning School. The only reason she finally closed the program in June 1994 was because she and Daddy had decided to move to North Carolina. Mom says, “The PAL Program was really special to me. I loved the children, had wonderful rapport with the parents and loved every minute of what I was doing.”

Product/technique notes:
Obviously, I used the products from the Artful Delight April kit for this page, but I also used an older sketch of theirs from April 2012:
Sketch from last April from Artful Delight

Note: I’m submitting this to the Paper Issues “Chalk it Up to Your Own Style” link party.

New challenge blog: Scrap & Music

April 21, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

I’m exited to announce that I will be a sketch designer for the brand-new Scrap & Music challenge blog, which just launched today! The site will offer two sketch + music/lyric challenges per month and promises to be loads of fun. I hope you’ll go check out this new blog and participate in the first challenge, which will go live on May 5th. The winner will receive a prize as well as be asked to guest design in the following month.

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