My scrapbook layouts

You don’t know you’re beautiful

October 22, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

We just love when Jake's lip gets caught on his gums and it gives him this crooked smile look.

The 13th sketch challenge has been posted at the SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch, which I’m proud to have designed, and play along. This 13th sketch came with the song “What makes you beautiful” by One Direction.

My layout

When we rescued Jake several years back he was injured and living as part of a feral cat colony a few miles from our house. His left arm had been injured badly, and the vet said it appeared he had been living with it that way for several months. So to save his life his arm had to be amputated. I know it’s sad to see anyone living without a limb, but the truth is that Jake has done really well adjusting to balancing on three legs instead of four. In fact he’s a speed demon on his way to the kitchen at feeding time, he’s a really good “hockey” player (he just rears up on his legs and uses his good arm) and he has the most delightful, loving personality. He just seems thrilled to be alive.

Jake has also had to have his front teeth removed, so he sports this adorable little crooked “smile” when his lip gets hung up on his gums. Despite all that (or perhaps because of it), our Jake is so beautiful, inside and out. This is why I used the “You don’t know you’re beautiful” line from the assigned song for this challenge.

Product/technique notes

The majority of the patterned papers on this page are from American Crafts’ “Ready, set, go” collection. The flag and flair are from BasicGrey. I designed the title in Silhouette Studio and cut it on my Cameo.

The challenge

The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. Below I’ve included the video as well as the lyrics for this song:

“What makes you beautiful” by One Direction
You’re insecure, don’t know what for
You’re turning heads when you walk through the door
Don’t need make-up, to cover up
Being the way that you are is enough

Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else but you

Baby you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed
But when you smile at the ground it ain’t hard to tell
You don’t know oh oh
You don’t know you’re beautiful

If only you saw what I can see
You’ll understand why I want you so desperately
Right now I’m looking at you and I can’t believe
You don’t know oh oh
You don’t know you’re beautiful oh oh
But that’s what makes you beautiful

So come on, you got it wrong
To prove I’m right I put it in the song
I don’t know why, you’re being shy
And turn away when I look into your eyes

Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else but you

Na-na-na-na-na-naaa-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na-naaa-na-na
Na-na-na-na-na

If only you saw what I can see
You’ll understand why I want you so desperately
Right now I’m looking at you and I can’t believe
You don’t know oh oh
You don’t know you’re beautiful oh oh
You don’t know oh oh
That’s what makes you beautiful

Fork in the road

October 19, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Sometimes it's the quickest decisions that make us the happiest. Like when I met Matt while working in this building and blurted out an invitation for a date!

Some jobs in life are just a means to a paycheck. But not this one!

I was recently visiting my family in North Carolina, and while we were walking UNC’s campus I asked my bro to take a few photos of me in front of the building in which I used to work. Manning Hall houses, among a few other smaller programs, the School of Information and Library Science. I was the Director of Communication there in 1995-97. It was my first professional position after finishing grad school, so it was quite exciting and important to me when I took it on. I gained a lot of experience and worked with rich, interesting people.

But what ends up being the most notable part of my time there is that it’s where I met Matt.

Matt was a graduate student (same age as me) in the info science program, and he was assigned to work with me on a web project. We hit it off right away, as you might imagine. And after about a week of meetings with him to talk and work on all things web, I did the unthinkable. Without knowing I was going to say it, I asked him out!

I’m not going to lie; there were bumps in the road to our dating. Like the fact that Matt had a girlfriend whom he hadn’t mentioned. Gulp. But the short version of the story is that everything worked out nicely. He broke things off with the girlfriend, we dated, he proposed (no, I didn’t have to do that!) and we married. And have been married for 16 years this month.

So Manning Hall holds a special place on my résumé and in my heart!

Product/technique notes

I used papers from the new Fancy Pants “Happy-go-lucky!” collection. Just look how well they go with my photos! I stamped the heart at the top and the leaves that serve as embellishment at the bottom. And I designed the title in Silhouette Studio and cut it with the Cameo.

There’s always room for ice cream

October 9, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I know it's hard to believe, but I actually do love these two more than ice cream.

I thought I would share a Silhouette technique today. I had a lot of fun concocting this layout in my head, then in my Silhouette Studio software and finally in physical form.

I completed this look by building the page as much from the back as from the front. Here’s how:

I was looking for a novel way of highlighting my main photo, so I started surfing my Silhouette library for ideas. When I saw this “Folded Sunburst Card” shape, the light bulb went on. Why not cut the sunburst aperture from my background paper and put the photo behind it?
the Silhouette shape I used to highlight my main photo

So I opened the file and deleted all the card bits, leaving only the sunburst. I re-sized the shape to be a little smaller than a 4 x 4 photo and dragged it to the top third of a full 12 x 12 page in Silhouette Studio.

To add to the building from beneath theme, I set up my title to cut from the background paper as well. So that I would be sure to leave enough room between the sunburst and the title for the other photos I planned to use, I added those to the design in Silhouette Studio but I set them to “no cut.” Like this:
How my file looked before cutting

So that’s it. I laid down my patterned paper (from My Mind’s Eye “Cut and Paste: Flair” collection), cut this out all at once, backed it with white card stock and then built my page on top of it. And now I have a layout that has lots of depth and texture without lots of bulk.

Oh, and the photos are from a stop we made at a neat little ice cream place in North Carolina while I was home visiting Mom and Phil this August.

We’ll be together again

October 6, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

In this 10-year-old photo, Daddy and I are saying our goodbyes before heading to the Austin airport for him to return home. We had a wonderful time when he came to visit that spring.

The 12th sketch challenge has been posted at the SCRAP & MUSIC challenge blog! Head over to the site to grab the sketch and play along. This 12th sketch came with the song “Stop!” by Erasure.

My layout

Today would have been my father’s 80th birthday, so I decided to celebrate with a page about us. The photo on my layout is of Daddy and me in 2003, when he came to Austin from NC to stay for the week. He and Matt and I had such a great visit. We took this pic together in the back yard right before heading to the airport for Dad to return home. I used the challenge song’s first line, “We’ll be together again,” as my title because I look so forward to being reunited with my dear dad when I eventually make my way to Heaven. Happy birthday, Pops! I love you and miss you always.

Product/technique notes

I had a great time combining papers from Authentique, Crate Paper, Fancy Pants and My Mind’s Eye on this page.

The challenge

The challenges on this blog involve following the sketch and using a title on your layout with a line from the provided music. Below I’ve included the video as well as the lyrics for this song:

“Stop!” by Erasure
We’ll be together again
I’ve been waiting for a long time
We’re gonna be, we’re gonna be together again
I’ll be connected to the right line
We’ll be together
And nobody ain’t never gonna
Disconnect us
Or ever separate us
Or say to us you’ve got to
Stop!

Stand there where you are
Before you go too far
Before you make a fool out of love
Stop!
Don’t jump before you look
Get hung up on a hook
Before you make a fool out of love

We’ll be together again
I’ve been waiting for a long time
We’re gonna be, we’re gonna be together again
I’ll be connected to the right line
We’ll be together
And nobody ain’t never gonna
Disconnect us
Or ever separate us
Or say to us you’ve got to
Stop!

Stand there where you are
Before you go too far
Before you make a fool out of love
Stop!
Don’t jump before you look
Get hung up on a hook
Before you make a fool out of love

We’ll be together
And nobody ain’t never gonna
Disconnect us
Or ever separate us
Or say to us you’ve got to
Stop!

Stand there where you are
Before you go too far
Before you make a fool out of love
Stop!
Don’t jump before you look
Get hung up on a hook
Before you make a fool out of love
Stop!

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?

October 3, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Oliver's face just melts my animal-loving heart.

This is National Poetry Day in England, but I’m going to celebrate it, too. The Web is international, after all. The theme for this year is “water, water everywhere.” I think I can work with that.

When I looked at this photo of our precious Oliver, the words from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus popped into my noggin:
“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell for heaven is in those lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.”

OK, so I didn’t think that whole paragraph, just the first line. But I wanted to give you a little poetic context to my title. This is a reference by the main character to the mythological figure Helen of Troy. Her abduction by Paris was said to be the reason for a fleet of a thousand ships to be launched into battle, initiating the Trojan Wars. My reference to it is actually similar. You see, Oliver was the first cat we ever rescued together (back in 2001). And we blame his being such a wonderful beast for our subsequent foray into animal rescue (our personal war)!

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “Hey Jan, I thought you were gonna use the ‘water, water everywhere’ theme in honor of National Poetry Day.” I did mention ships, didn’t I?

Product/technique notes

I created this bubbles frame in the Silhouette Studio Designer Edition with the plan to back each circle cutout with patterned paper. All the patterned paper is from BasicGrey’s “Max and Whiskers” collection. Then I designed the title to fit right within the space below the photo. This was a really fun project to design.

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