American Crafts

Love story and guest designing for Artful Delight

April 11, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

I created this page using part of the April Artful Delight kit.

Today I am honored to be guest designing for Artful Delight! Using their April kit and sketch, I’ve created the layout above. It’s a photo of my parents on their honeymoon in the Pocono Mountains in June 1965. Aren’t they darling together?

I wanted to create a look reminiscent of 1960s decor, so I designed a simple linked-circles background that I cut out of wood grain paper (using my trusty Silhouette Cameo) and then tucked everything in and around it. I also sprinkled those tiny hearts—the ones left over from punching the top border strip—across the page diagonally, which put a sunny finishing touch on this fun page about part of my parents’ love story.

Thank you to Artful Delight for asking me to be their April guest designer. I look forward to sharing a few more projects throughout the month using their beautiful April kit.

Artful Delight's April sketch

You make my heart sing

March 17, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

Just chillin' with Daddy in front of the television, March 1967.

This is one of those photos that I can just sit and stare into. It’s quite imperfect, as far as photos go—with the bad lighting, crooked angles and muddy colors. But it’s a beautiful photo to me.

It allows me a glimpse into Mom and Dad’s apartment before they bought the house I grew up in. In fact, some of that decor (the round table, tan chair, lamp, pocket watch under a dome and afghan) stayed with us for a very long time.

In it I get to see my dad as a 33-year-old new father, obviously pretty comfortable with the whole new baby thing. “Ain’t no big deal.”

And I really love that Daddy is acting as a human recliner for me as we watch TV together. Just look how well I fit in the circle formed by his legs and how he has me tipped back at the perfect angle for maximum viewing enjoyment. Speaking of that, what could we be watching, I wonder? I mean, it looks equally riveting to both a four-month old and a grown man. It must be something on PBS!

Product/technique notes:
I created this page following the sketch below from Artful Delight and products from American Crafts, BasicGrey, K&Company, My Mind’s Eye and October Afternoon.

The accidental selfie

March 5, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

My mom likes to have photos of people, places and events, but she doesn’t really like to take photos. She has just never learned much over the years about any of the cameras she and Dad owned, so she isn’t comfortable with one in her hand.

And once her film camera started acting up a few years ago, she insisted that she would not replace it with a digital camera. No way. She wouldn’t even consider it. “But Mom, digital cameras are great, and that’s just about all you can find these days.” It didn’t matter what Phil and I said, Mom wasn’t budging.

Until 2011, when she had a trip all planned to Germany, and her old-timey film camera shuddered…and shuttered no more. Then she asked for help in picking out a new camera, and guess what she came home with. You guessed right, I’m sure. She had stepped into the digital age.

Phil and I took a great deal of time to teach her how to use it and take her on outings for practice so that she would be assured of getting some nice shots on her European adventure. And we coached her about taking lots of photos because she and Dad had always taken just a few shots of most occasions because of the price of film and developing. She was nervous about all of it, but she packed up her Canon in its spiffy new case (making sure to take lots of extra batteries) and headed to Deutschland.

Now, being fair to her, she did bring home a number of nice photos from that trip. It really was an all-around good first effort for a new digital photographer. But I think you’ll understand why it’s this shot that is my absolute favorite.

Product/technique notes:
I was inspired by this great PageMaps sketch and used patterned paper from the My Mind’s Eye “My Favorite Things” 6×6 pad. The camera die cut is from American Crafts/Amy Tangerine.

So grateful for you

November 16, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have from Thanksgiving 1990.

Sometimes you have only one photo from a whole day of celebration. And sometimes that’s actually all you need to be able to tell the most important story of the day.

When Phil and I were growing up, our family always made the two-hour drive to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with the extended family from my Dad’s half of the union. Those were good times: at least four generations of family all piled into Aunt Doo Doo and Uncle Ron’s house to catch up with one another and eat obscene amounts of delicious food. But then cousins started getting married and having their own children, and the families that made up that big group started breaking off to celebrate Thanksgiving in smaller units.

So in 1990 our family stayed home and had a cozy turkey day on our own. We no doubt started the day by going to Mass and then came home to spend hours cooking “the fixins.” Here, everything is ready to go—Dad even carved the turkey before this photo was snapped—and we’re about to dig into the feast. Seeing as the importance of this day is to recognize what’s most dear to you and count them as blessings, I think this one photo summed up the day perfectly!

Oh, snap!

September 10, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

We have a winner!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog this week for the Creative Scrappers blog hop. Out of all the sweet comments that were left, Nancy’s was the winning message. Congratulations, Nancy! You have won a copy of the Creative Scrappers Creating with Sketches book. I will be sending you an email soon about this.

Creative Scrappers Creating with Sketches book

And now, here is my latest layout:

We were having ice cream at Dairy Queen when we "took" these photos.

The funny little story that this page documents happened in July. When Matt and I went to Dairy Queen one weekend, I took along our new little point-and-shoot camera. I asked Matt to pose with me for a quick self-portrait before we started eating. We smiled and I took the photo. Then, while I was still holding the camera, it started clicking off more rapid-fire shots, even though my finger was no longer on the shutter release button! It took a few shots before I could figure out what was happening.

Well, earlier that day I had been fiddling with the camera settings and then promptly forgotten that one of the selections I made was for something called “smile detection” (whatever that was). We figured it out pretty quickly because every time we laughed at what was happening, it snapped more photos.

It was just a funny little moment…but worth recording (especially since we had so many photos of it!).

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