Janice Daquila-Pardo

The significance of stories in our lives

April 13, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Twisted Sketches launches its 96th sketch today, and the twist this time is “card.” The sketch and the design team’s interpretations are awaiting you at Twisted Sketches’ site…and here is my design team contribution using the new sketch:

When we found this 1886 copy of "Sense and Sensibility" at a used book store we had to buy it!

I started with the “twist” when deciding what to scrap for this one. “Card” gave me a little trouble, I don’t mind telling you. Then it hit me—library card! So I took photos of the front pages of this wonderful old book Matt and I recently purchased at a used book store and told its story on my layout. (Notice the patterned paper with the bonnets and top hats on my layout. I couldn’t wait to pull that out and use it for this theme.)

The story

Matt and I met in Chapel Hill, NC, in February 1996. Our first date included a lovely dinner at Aurora (a restaurant that sadly is no more) and then a movie at the old Carolina Theater (also sadly gone and converted into a Gap store—surely the world needed another of those rather than a 63-year-old treasure of a theater!).

We had such an evening. Sigh.

The movie we saw that night was “Sense and Sensibility.” It was very romantic. I was already a Jane Austen fan at that point in my life, but Matt was unsurprisingly unaware of her gifts. In my experience men tend to need an introduction to Miss Austen by a female who either already matters to them or to whom they want to matter. 😉 Let me just say that if you have a romantic bone in your body and you haven’t yet see this one, please do yourself the favor.

Fast forward 15 years, and Matt and I were recently perusing the rare book room at one of the Half Price Books locations in Austin when I spied an old copy of “Sense and Sensibility” on the shelf! It’s an 1886 copy—125 years old—and in rather good shape. Of course we bought it. I think we can be said to have just enough sense and sensibility to know when to grab up something with that kind of significance!

My Fortress of Scraptitude

April 12, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

I was scrapping this weekend and decided to take a photo of the project/mess on my craft table and turn it into a layout. I’ll admit that I was nudged into doing this because of Kristina Werner’s cute post a while back, 90% of real crafters make real messes, where she challenged crafters to “own” the messes we make. (My layout is based on one of Shimelle’s recent sketches.)

Welcome to my Fortress of Scraptitude. 🙂

I make a pretty big mess when I scrap, as do most of us I think. But I’ve realized that I don’t have much of a pattern about clean-up. When I read others’ blogs about this subject they seem to fall into one or the other category:

The crafter who makes a mess and then cleans everything up before starting on the next project OR
The crafter who makes a mess and keeps on working until there are so many scraps and tossed aside tools in the way that she can’t see her layout or card any more

I’m a little different (big news, I know). I certainly don’t clean after each project. Sounds nice but takes too much time away from my creative flow. I also never let things get so bad (on my desk) that I clean only because I can’t work any more. No, I spread out…a lot. Matt calls me a “stacker.” I have little stacks everywhere. My craft desk came with a chair, but I hardly ever use it; it’s too convenient a place to stash the things I want out of the way but within reach. My craft room doubles as our guest bedroom, which is awesome because the bed is just to the right of my desk and a perfect place to stack more crap. It’s the perfect setup…for a while.

I eventually get overwhelmed by this stack-heavy environment and realize that it’s affecting my creative mojo. That’s the perfect time to clean! It means I’m motivated, which is the best we can ever ask for when it comes to cleaning, right?

Here are a few more photos of my creative space, in the interest of full disclosure. 😉 Why don’t you tell me a little about how/when you clean your scrap dominion?

Here is a shot of command central in my Fortress of Scraptitude.

Stacks surround me, along with a glass of red wine for inspiration.

My craft closet is sort of organized. Aren't you proud of me?

This is the only photo I have of my paternal grandfather

March 30, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

"Pater familias" is Latin for "father of the family"

Today the Twisted Sketches site launches its 94th sketch, and it’s a good one! The sketch as well as the design team’s interpretations are all waiting to inspire you.

This is my rendition of the sketch. It highlights the only photo I have of my father’s childhood that also includes his father. I never met my grandfather, as he passed away in my dad’s teenage years, so I adore this photo. This portrait was taken in 1944, making my dad 11 years old.

I chose the Latin “pater familias” as my title because it means “father of the family.” In fact, the term pater familias had specific legal meaning in Roman times, when the head of the family was expected to be a good citizen to his own familia as well as to the broader community. In theory at least, he held powers of life and death over every member of his extended familia through ancient right.

It’s quite interesting to read about, but honestly the first time I ever heard the term was in the 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Such a good movie. Here’s the clip:

I don’t know about you, but I really love creating a layout where just about every product used is from a different company. It feels like a little more of an accomplishment to me than creating a page using all products from the same line. In this design the patterned papers are from Crate Paper, Webster’s Pages, My Mind’s Eye and Making Memories. The trims are from Making Memories and Hobby Lobby, and the rub on is from K&Company. Now that’s just good, clean scrapping fun!

The Twitter effect

March 29, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 3 Comments

PROMPT SIX FOR “BLOGGING FOR SCRAPBOOKERS” CLASS:
Setting goals and taking journeys

I love setting goals, long-term and short. Every day presents you with a fresh opportunity to work on the goal and feel that you’re changing your life.

Can getting more Twitter followers change my life? Your reaction might be an immediate “Of course not!”

But give me a moment to change your mind.

Have you ever read about the butterfly effect? Wikipedia defines it this way: “The butterfly effect is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory; namely, a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. Although this may appear to be an esoteric and unusual behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems.”

In popular culture terms the concept of the butterfly effect is frequently referred to through the novelty of a minor change in circumstances causing a large change in outcome.

So, how do I tie this back to growing my Twitter following? Simply by conceiving of the possibility that by interacting with more people who have similar interests and goals I have a better chance of running into a person who can benefit from what I have to give or who knows the very person I should meet. Because every action has an effect on other probabilities, all it takes is one, right?

So that’s my newest short-term goal: To grow my newly established Twitter account from my current 28 followers (blush) to 100 by May 1st (without following lots of random people just to get follows back). I think it’s doable, and I’ll pop in periodically to let you know how I’m progressing.

If any of you have suggestions for good ways to make this happen, I would certainly appreciate a quick comment with your wisdom.

Oh, and won’t you please follow me on Twitter? 😉

May I interest anyone in a sketch?

March 24, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

Hello, hello! Today I hope to inspire you with pointers to some great sketches I found online, all of them current and several of them with contests attached. If you want to visit the sites from which they came, just click on the sketch images. Happy scrapping!