My scrapbook layouts

Using non-traditional colors in a Christmas layout

December 18, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

Color plays such an important part in our layouts. It gives our viewer a quick insight into its theme. It sets the mood for the story we want to tell. It brings all the elements together into a cohesive whole. It highlights the portions of the photos that are most important to us.

How do you choose colors for your layouts?

Do you pick a color from the main photo and build from there?
Do you choose colors that are traditional to the theme you’re covering (as in pink for a baby girl page)?
Do you first choose papers with colors that you want to work with and then select photos to go with them?

I generally start with colors from my photos rather than those that are traditional to the event/season. For instance, in my Christmas layout below I could have chosen red or green as my base color. But I decided that the strongest colors from these 1990 photos were the hot pink in my mother’s skirt and the gold of our family room walls. I felt that these colors should not be ignored, lest they distract from the final look and feel by clashing with a traditional Christmas color scheme. Lucky for me, I had a few sheets of Christmas-themed paper form KI Memories that included hot pink and gold! How great is it when that happens?

The result is a layout that has what I would call a “groovy traditional” feel. In other words, it still looks like a Christmas layout, but the hot pink, gold, brown, green and green-blue color scheme shakes things up a bit. So the layout stays true to the photos.

My college best friend, Jim, visited my family for Christmas 1990

Try scrapping some of your seasonal photos using colors that are not the norm. It can give your designs the freshness of new-fallen snow. 🙂

Vintage Christmas layout

December 16, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

A vintage Christmas layout of my dear dad in Santa garb in 1976

Vintage photos are such a joy to scrapbook. They evoke strong memories and give us an opportunity to tell stories that might otherwise be lost in time. They hold the key to who we were and who we become. They preserve forever the favorite fashions and activities of days gone by.

I used to be a bit afraid of doing layouts with my vintage photos. Of course I scan them in and save the originals, so there wasn’t fear of damaging precious photos. But I was concerned about doing them justice. They seemed more important to “do well” than the everyday photos of our lives right now. But then I gave it a try and scrapped a vintage photo from my husband’s family (I know, I took the safe route by trying it with a memory not as close to my heart). But I loved working with the combination of old photos and new products. So I tried some more. I now find myself turning to older photos quite often when I have time to scrap. It really makes me happy to have completed another vintage layout (about my husband’s family or my own).

So this post is meant to be a nudge to those of you who have bins, boxes and albums full of old family photos that you’re nervous to start scrapping. Just give it a try. Pick one photo or set of photos of an event from your past that was fun but not a pivotal, life-changing moment. Keep it light. Scan the originals and either color correct them before printing or don’t. I personally like to get rid of scratches and pump up the color a bit, but I know other scrapbookers who prefer to leave them aged looking. I think any way you use a vintage photo looks great!

And my advice is don’t feel that you have to use only products that look vintage-y or heritage-y. Use products that are bright and fun and relevant to your story and that you love.

In case it’s too difficult to read the journaling on my layout above, here it is:

This photo is so precious to me. As was our custom, we were in Beaver Falls visiting Daddy’s side of the family on the day after Christmas. We were at Aunt Doo Doo and Uncle Ron Schollaert’s house, and everyone was probably there: the Duffys, Aunt Rose Weber, the DeAngelises and many more.

I clearly remember that pine cone wreath and trio of singing nuns. I can even remember wearing that plaid shirt, corduroy pants and scratchy wool sweater.

Someone had brought the Santa costume, and Daddy agreed to put it on to humor us. Thank goodness someone also snapped this Polaroid photo so we can always remember our Santa Daddy.

You cannot win if you do not play

November 23, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

For a long time I’ve been a lurker online. I read blogs and shook my head, laughing at the funny things other crafters said. But I didn’t comment. I read product reviews and agreed or disagreed with the analysis. But I didn’t drop the reviewer a line about my opinion. I learned about scrapbook and card challenges and toyed with the idea of participating. But I didn’t send in my layouts for consideration.

However, with the start of this blog I decided that had to change. I had to stop lurking and start speaking up. And I admit that’s challenging for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned to my husband, Matt, at his computer and told him what I thought of things I had read online. And after patiently (usually) listening to my diatribe, he would often say, “You should be blogging this stuff. Or at the very least you should comment on that person’s post.” At the mention of sharing my thoughts publicly I usually just turned back to my computer to read more of what others had written.

When it comes to the challenges and contests I really just haven’t thought I could compete with all the talent out there in the world. There are so many amazing layouts being posted every single day! But that was just a lame excuse for not having to expose myself to critique—or worse, to ridicule.

So I’ve ended that by starting to throw my hat into the ring every so often. It has been so motivating and much more fun than I expected it to be! I’ve even won a few times. Yay! But even more than the winning, I’m enjoying knowing that others are looking at my art. I just hadn’t realized how much that was missing from my process. I’m accustomed to finishing a layout, showing Matt for his approval, and then putting it in the appropriate album. Sort of a letdown, you know?

Well, last night I took the next step in this journey of making my crafting process more public and social. I submitted my work for consideration for a design team. Gulp.

The assignment was fun because it involved working with sketches, which I really love anyway. I liked the sketches, and I’m proud of my resulting layouts. So I feel like I won even if I’m not chosen for the team. Here are my submissions:

Baptized

Sunset cruise

Scrapbook PageMaps 2 sketch contest

November 14, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I love, love, love to scrapbook using sketches. I visit sketch sites online for ideas. I sketch my own ideas and follow them. And I use every nice book of sketches that I can get my hands on.

So, of course, I love Becky Fleck’s PageMaps sketches. She puts out new sketches on pagemaps.com at the first of each month, and she also publishes books of her work. I purchased her first book when it came out a few years ago, and I love it! Now her second book is out, and she’s holding a layout contest with her new book as the prize. Just try to keep me from playing along with that!

Here is the sketch:

PageMaps contest sketch

And here is my layout based on it:

First days

I really enjoyed using this sketch, and even if I don’t win the prize I’m thrilled to have completed another layout about my childhood to add to my album.

Note: I’m submitting this to the Paper Issues “You rule the school” link party.

I’m a new Scrapbook Trends subscriber

November 12, 2010 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

I recently became a fan of Scrapbook Trends magazine’s FaceBook page, and I entered a contest they held called “I’m Grateful.” They posted three layouts about gratitude from their November issue and asked fans to contribute layouts inspired by one of them.

Although my layout isn’t about gratitude, I was inspired by the structure of the “So very thankful” page, which had photos over a collage of tickets. So I used a photo of the Halloween banner I had up on our mantel and wove a photo mat out of strips of the same paper I had used to make the banner. I was quite happy with the result … and I won the contest! I am sooo excited. They just announced today that my layout was the winner. And the prize is a year’s subscription to their magazine! I can tell you I’m a very happy scrapper tonight.

Quoth the raven ... Nevermore

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