Sketches

Your life is an occasion

April 1, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

I created sketch #4 for Sketches With a Twist, on which this layout is based.

The April Sketches With a Twist sketch and design team sample layouts are now live on the blog. I am very proud to have created the sketch and really love all the design team’s samples based on it! Here’s a little peek at my new sketch:

The Sketches With a Twist April sketch

You know when you hear a line in a movie that makes you suck in a sharp breath? That’s what happened to me when I was watching Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium a few years ago and heard Dustin Hoffman say to Natalie Portman, “Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.” I love this simple twist on an old saying. It has stayed with me and inspired me when life feels like…less than an occasion.

The twist this month is to use some kind of mesh on your page, and I’ll admit that this one stumped me at first. I had never used mesh before, and I couldn’t imagine where I was going to incorporate it. But once I had cut the red mesh from our bag of oranges and started playing with it, it just came together. When I tucked it under the top scalloped edge it created a bit of an awning look, and I like it! And isn’t that new BasicGrey patterned paper (from the Konnichiwa collection) darling?

Please head to the blog to get the printable version of the sketch and play along (there are two prizes available each month).

Research

March 31, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

This layout is based on a sketch from http://www.rockpaperscrapbook.blogspot.com.

This layout features a photo that my bro, Phil, took when he was visiting us in January. He and Matt and I decided to spend a little time at Barnes & Noble one afternoon, drinking specialty coffees and perusing whatever books and magazines caught our fancies. I decided to scrap this one because it represents something that Matt and I like to do together to relax. We like to call it “research.” 😉

When creating this page I followed a sketch that I found at Designs by Ashley Rock. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn of this sketch contest until the day it was due, but I still liked the sketch enough to use it here.

Designs by Ashley Rock sketch

My page uses the brand new chevron paper from Echo Park’s new Sunshine mini theme, along with some older products and a doily cut on my Silhouette.

Hippity hoppity

March 29, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Easter morning 1968.

For this layout I used photos from Easter morning in 1968. I am still in my jammies and just discovering the big basket of goodies the Easter Bunny left me at my grandparents’ house!

I used the 200th sketch from Creative Scrappers blog to create this layout, and I’m entering it in their challenge.

Hush little baby

March 27, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I gathered up all my baby dolls one day and created beds for the whole lot.

The photo in this layout makes me laugh because it reveals a little bit about what I was like as a child. My parents had bought something that had packing material in it, and seeing its potential I used it to “build” beds for all my baby dolls. I’m sure I felt very pleased with myself once I had worked out all the necessary design decisions and finally had everyone tucked in for a nap.

Isn’t it wonderful that my mom snapped a shot of this? Thanks Mom!

I used this great sketch provided at the Artful Delight blog to inspire my layout:

Artful Delight sketch

The Mayflower

March 25, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

Our family vacation in 1977 was to tour the New England states in our car.

In the summer of 1977 our family took a car trip through several of the New England states. It was a great vacation, with lots of stops along the way for sight seeing and family bonding time.

I did make the trip a little more difficult on the family than it had to be, though. On the day before we were to get on the road, I went to a school friend’s birthday party. We engaged in a lot of the usual birthday party activities, but then the birthday girl’s older brother suggested that we all play touch football. Huh? A group of 10-year-old girls playing touch football in their bare feet in the near dark? Kind of weird, but we inexplicably decided it was a good idea. The problem is that touch quickly turned to tackle, and I found myself on the ground under the weight of the older brother. When my dad came to pick me up that evening at the end of the party I couldn’t put back on my shoe because my foot had swollen so.

Oh no.

The next morning we left on our trip, but I was in pain. And that pain grew over the next days. My parents finally decided that my foot needed medical attention. So when we reached Poughkeepsie, NY, we spent the day in the hospital emergency room. And I spent the rest of our journey on crutches. That made logistics more interesting, but we got through it and had a great time despite it.

I remember key moments along the trip, like seeing the replica of the Mayflower in Plymouth and visiting Mystic Seaport in Connecticut (where Dad had to hoist me on his shoulders to carry me to the car when a torrential rain started). But one of my best memories on that trip was when we were driving along one day and heard people squealing with delight while playing in a cold stream along the side of the road. We convinced Dad to stop and let us slip and slide around for a little while. It was wonderful, impromptu fun…a perfect childhood moment.

I created my layout above with October Afternoon patterned papers from the Farmhouse collection, followed this great sketch from PageMaps and am entering my page in the PageMaps sketch challenge.

PageMaps sketch

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