12x12 layouts using 6x6 paper

May the road rise up to meet you…

March 16, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Sketch #92 on the Twisted Sketches site is available today! The sketch is for one vertical photo, and the twist this time is “brads.” Following is my contribution to the design team layouts that go up for inspiration:

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

The sketch included a place for a long-ish title, and because this week we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day I thought of using part of an Irish blessing for mine. This is a photo of my baby bro in Central Park when he took a Christmas trip to NYC this past December. I liked the effect of combining this Irish blessing for him with the idea of the road and travel.

To create the patterned paper highlight area behind the photo I cut small strips of travel-themed paper (Wander by BasicGrey) and punched some of them with a postage stamp border punch (Fiskars) and then layered them randomly. The last line of the Irish blessing is written on the ticket to the left of the picture.

I hope the design team’s interpretations of sketch #92 inspire you to use it for one of your photos.

Go green: Recycling your designs is good for creativity

February 23, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Once you’ve created a layout would you consider it a crime to reuse that design? Are you a one and done kind of scrapper?

Let me show you why I believe designs should be a reusable resource in your scrap stash.

Just below is a layout I completed a while ago. It’s a portrait of my husband and his siblings when he was in high school. It’s a rather simple design that relies on good old-fashioned color blocking and a few embellishments.

This layout follows a simple color-blocked design.

Now here is another layout of Matt’s family, taken years later. I used the same design as the first; in fact, I didn’t even flip the side on which the photo is situated. Because the photo, patterned papers and embellishments are different the resulting designs really don’t resemble each other that much. In fact, I believe that unless I pointed out to someone looking at the family album that these two layouts share the same structure, they would be very unlikely to see that on their own. Even when held next to each other it’s the differences that take the viewer’s focus.

This layout follows the same color-blocked design but uses different papers and embellishments.

When you find a design you like, I say “reuse, recycle, re-imagine.”

Have a Coke and a purr: One-photo layout

February 11, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

Today’s layout is one I have been wanting to complete for some time. This photo is from 2003, which means it was taken with one of the early digital cameras. Do you remember the ones that took 16×12-inch photos in 72dpi? That’s a small low-resolution photo, which means that in order to print it and retain good resolution I had to make it 4×3 inches.

So, the question was how to take a darling but small photo (in relation to the 12×12 page) and keep the focus on it without sacrificing the fun of design. Simplicity was my answer. By mirroring the size and shape of the photo with one patterned paper and underlining it with a border sticker from the same line, I satisfied my need to use patterned paper (my weakness) without overdoing it. Then I finished off the look by using my Silhouette to cut the title from a free Coke font I found online.

I really love complex, layered designs. But sometimes simplicity leads to a more dramatic result.

Our cat, Oliver, caught on camera sniffing around my drink

Chunky monkey: two-photo layout

January 30, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Here is another great sketch from PageMaps. I scanned and cleaned up these photos from my childhood so I could enter their contest.

In these photos my beautiful mom was 27 years old; I was under a year old and a chunky monkey. Getting a bath in the kitchen sink; does it get any cuter than that?

By the way, this is a another design that lends itself well to using 6×6 paper pads, as I’ve done here:

Mom giving me a bath in the kitchen sink in the spring of 1967

PageMaps sketch I used for this layout

White water: one-photo layout

January 26, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

There’s a great sketch (#85) over at the Twisted Sketches site, and the twist is “white.” Here is my interpretation. I used layered strips of patterned paper cut with border punches to create an abstract wave effect (which takes the place of the circle in the sketch).

I just love the feeling in this photo of my parents white water rafting. They’re the two at the back of the raft, right in front of the guide, with huge smiles lighting up their faces. I could just stare at their smiles for ages. I love having a photo of them looking like care-free kids.

Mom and Dad on a white water rafting trip in 1998

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