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New millennium: DT layout for Stuck?! Sketches

January 1, 2016 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

Today Stuck?! Sketches launches our first challenge of 2016! Grab the sketch and play along for some great prizes from Wycinanka and ScrapMuch.

My photos are from the night of December 31, 1999. Matt and I started our celebration at Mom and Dad’s house for drinks, snacks and photos with party hats. After that we went to the New Year’s Eve wedding of our friend and the COO of our company, Lisa, and her fiancé, Bruce.

It is nearly unfathomable to me that this was already 16 years ago. How can that be?

Well, I wish you all a very happy new year, full of all good things. Let’s make the most of every day because it certainly passes quickly.

Product/technique notes

I used patterned papers from the Echo Park Wintertime collection. The silver alphas are American Crafts’ Thickers.

Season’s greetings

December 28, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 8 Comments

At the start of the Christmas season in 1977, we got it into our heads to paint a holiday scene on our house’s big front window. Mom and Dad helped us get all set up with tempera paints and brushes, and we all brainstormed what the image should be. Once we settled on a snow couple, Phil and I set to work painting together. What a great project for an almost-10- and 11-year-old!

I think it took a couple days to finish because we were painting on all the little panes of glass, but once it was completed we were all thrilled with the results.

We enjoyed this project so much that we painted a different scene each year after that, mostly recreating images from Christmas cards we had received. After our first year, Dad added to our curb appeal by setting up spotlights in the front yard to shine on our artwork.

It was a special Daquila-family Christmas tradition, and I treasure the memory of how excited I felt each year to create the new design.

Product/technique notes

I followed the Scrap Much December sketch below and used papers from the Crate Paper Bundle Up collection. The three bling snowflakes are by The Paper Studio.

Don’t quit your day job

December 5, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

I come from a family of highly talented gift wrappers. I would go so far as to call them gift-wrap artists. My mom and my dad each had their preferred way of measuring, creasing, taping and decorating the package, and my brother and I studied these methods at their elbows throughout our childhood years. We have always taken pride in the finished product and usually spent part of the gift-opening process on Christmas morning oohing and ahhing at each other’s efforts.

Then I married Matt. I would describe his gift-wrap aesthetic and skill as those of an angry spider monkey. There is no measuring, only guessing. There is no creasing, only crushing. There is no judicious use of tape to make it appear as if the wrapping is hanging together by magic, no strategic placement. And there is certainly no decorating of packages. Bows are thoroughly disdained in the Pardo tradition.

I am convinced at this point in our years together that Matt strives to make his packages look even worse than they have to, just to irk me. We laugh about it every Christmas, so I suppose it’s now one of our holiday traditions.

#santasmessyhelper

Product/technique notes

I wanted to include the blue and green from my photo in my color palette, but I didn’t want to be limited to only those two. So I ended up using these old patterned papers from The Paper Studio and K&Co. The chipboard elements are also from K&Co. I cut the lettering on my Silhouette and added a silver sequin to each Christmas tree and a few of the snowflakes in the paper.

Note: I’m submitting this to the Paper Issues Owl I Want for Christmas link party.

Styling

November 18, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

While I was staying with Mom to help out after her knee-replacement surgery this summer, I washed and styled her hair (in a different way than she usually does it). She seemed to enjoy being pampered, and we really liked how her ‘do turned out.

Another little life moment captured.

Product/technique notes

I was inspired by the Paper Camellia November sketch and the Paper Issues mood board below. I used patterned papers from My Mind’s Eye Paper Cottage Collection and frames from We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer collection. It might be hard to tell in the photo, but I adhered gold sequins to the center of every doily in the patterned paper.

Everything still turns to gold: DT layout for Stuck?! Sketches

November 15, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 6 Comments

Today Stuck?! Sketches launches our second challenge of November. The sketch is beautiful, and the prizes from 7 Dots Studio and Freckled Fawn are great. Why not play along with us?

For this challenge we are partnering up with Scrap it with a Song, and they have chosen Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin as their inspiration song. You can find out all the details about how to play along with their challenge over on their blog.

I had another listen to Stairway to Heaven so that I could decide how to use its inspiration on a layout. And when I got to the line “Everything still turns to gold” it made me think of autumn leaves. So I pulled out this photo I took two years ago on a trip to see the fall colors up in Lost Maples State Natural Area in Texas. Isn’t that spider web glorious against the colors of the turning leaves?

Product/technique notes

The background paper on my layout is from American Crafts. I loved it for this page because it imitates the structure of a cobweb. The rest of the patterns are from a BasicGrey Indian Summer 6×6 pad. The die cuts are from Crate Paper, and the Feels like fall fabric sticker is from My Little Bicycle. The circle built of leaves is a cut file from the Silhouette store, and I designed and cut the title on the Silhouette as well.

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