Janice Daquila-Pardo

Wanted: A few good votes

May 22, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

There are quite a lot of scrapbook sketch sites on the Web, and many of them offer very good sketches to inspire us and challenges to motivate us. But there are a special few that I hold in really high esteem. Creative Scrappers is one of those.

In early May Creative Scrappers put out a call for a new sketch designer for their team, and I just had to try out for it. Well, I’ve just heard from Kristine Davidson, coordinator for the site, that I am one of four finalists! I am so stoked!

Creative Scrappers has decided to turn this into the readers’ choice, so they have set up a poll on their site. Voting is open only until midnight on Wednesday (EST). I will be grateful to you forever if you’ll take 30 seconds to visit the Creative Scrappers blog and vote for me. Be sure to bypass the top poll, which is no longer working (even if it appears to) and use Poll 2.

My sketch samples up for vote on the Creative Scrappers site
When it’s all over, I’ll let you know if I’m on the team. Thank you so much!

Feeding the budgies

May 11, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

In April Matt and I went to the Poteet Strawberry Festival, which advertises itself as one of the oldest, most popular events in Texas. It was a real surprise to us how big this event was! Honestly, it was a little too big (and hot and sweaty) for me to tell you it was awesome. Oh well. But one thing we did enjoy was feeding the budgies. You buy a Popsicle stick covered in birdseed and enter their cage, where they descend upon you to eat. It was great to see them up so close.

We took turns feeding the birds so we could each take photos of the other. The bright colors made me want to break out the American Crafts Amy Tangerine Sketchbook papers and die cuts and make a page.

Got Sketch is celebrating its 5th anniversary and is holding an anniversary challenge that includes using: their 5-photo sketch (#142), 5 patterned papers and 5 clustered embellishments. Here’s what I’ve done with it:

Happy 5th anniversary Got Sketch!

You know I read it in a magazine

May 7, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

These photos were taken at Ohio University in 1989.

Not only did my younger brother, Phil, and I start school in the same year, which led to us travelling through grade school and high school together as though we were twins, but also we elected to go to the same university for the same major! Yessir, we both packed up our things and went to Ohio University for journalism degrees. And once we had been there long enough to figure out which kind of journalism we wanted to specialize in, we both chose the magazine track.

So after studying the principles and ethics of journalism for four years, we were thrilled to have a course in our senior year that ~~allowed~~ forced us to craft our own magazines. Each student had to come up with a concept for a magazine that didn’t already exist, write the business plan for it and then create a prototype of the premiere issue. What a dream project for a couple of magazinophiles.

Phil’s magazine for billiards enthusiasts was called “Blue Chalk.” My magazine for comedians was called “Stand-Up.” We had to mock up articles, ads…the whole magazine experience. It was hard work and exhilarating. But we both felt quite proud of our final projects. In fact, Phil’s book won a contest with a cash award from Writer’s Digest and Folio Magazine!

These photos were taken just after the ceremony where Phil received his award. And the bottom photo is of Phil and our friend, Rich, who was listed in “Blue Chalk” as publisher.

Here is the PageMaps sketch I followed for this layout, and I’m entering it into their sketch contest:

Product/technique notes: All the papers and stickers I used on this layout are from Echo Park’s Note To Self collection. I should also give credit where it’s due: Phil suggested the title I used on this page. 🙂

Warrior Dash 2012

May 6, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I created the Warrior Dash title and Viking helmet on my Silhouette.

Back in March Matt participated in his first obstacle/mud run, the Warrior Dash. It was a beautiful day, and we gathered with thousands of others in Splendora, Texas, for a 3.21-mile run peppered with 12 obstacles. While Matt did the hard work, I stood on the sidelines and shot photos of him with a telephoto lens.

I asked Matt to write the journaling for this one, and here’s what he said:
“Warrior Dash started out as a curiosity for me. Jeff, our personal trainer at the time, told us about two obstacle races he planned on running: Warrior Dash and Tough Mudder. It sounded interesting to me. A year later, I decided to fulfill a lifelong desire to be a runner. After training for several months, I decided to sign up for the Tough Mudder but couldn’t participate because of an injury. A few months later I signed up for the Warrior Dash. I started training for it fairly seriously by running a lot more. I felt pretty confident about the running portion of Warrior Dash, and in the end I did OK. My training for my next event, The Spartan Race in May, is much more serious and involves more strength-building exercises. These races are a blast, and I will probably do them all multiple times.”

I was fortunate to have had a beautiful day for capturing photos of the event. Of all the great shots I took, my favorite is the one of muddy, smiling Matt right after the race (in the upper right corner of the layout). Doesn’t he look happy? That’s the sign of a day well spent.

For the title treatment on this page I decided to create a Viking-style helmet (like in the Warrior Dash logo) on my Silhouette. And I’m making this cut file (in .studio format) available to anyone who thinks they could also use it (click on the image below to begin the download). If you download this file, I would love it if you’d leave me a comment to let me know.

Together in PJs

May 4, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Journaling: These darling shots of Phil and me are from 1972 (L-May; R-March). I remember that I loved wearing my square-dancing nightgown.

Here's a close-up shot on the pinwheel embellishment and title tag.

If you read the title of my post (and my layout) and heard strains of Neil Diamond’s “Forever in blue jeans,” you’re my kind of person! When I was working on this page about my baby bro and me in these sweet, random 1972 photos of us in our pajamas, that’s what popped into my head…so I went with it.

Sometimes when I get to the titling part of the scrapping process, I falter. It’s not always easy to come up with clever, pithy titles that are understandable without being too obvious/boring. It’s a tall order! So, while I’m talking to myself in my scrap room (oh, please don’t try to tell me you never do that), I start hearing song lyrics, movie quotes and lines from books that I might bend to my purpose.

And that’s how “Forever in blue jeans” became “Together in PJs.”

The hope is, of course, that even without benefit of this type of explanation, people who see this layout will either “hear” my intention on their own when they read the title, or the title will be strong enough to stand on its own even if nobody “hears” the melody with me.

How do you come up with titles for your pages? I would love to have more strategies at hand for this task. Won’t you leave me a comment with your tips?

I created this page with the help of this lovely sketch from PageMaps and am entering it in their sketch challenge.

Product/technique notes: Did you notice the man-in-the-moon image in these patterned papers from We R Memory Keepers Anthologie line? It made this the perfect choice for vintage photos about children and bedtime.

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