hand stitching

Swing your partner round and round

May 22, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

During the early 1970s my parents took square dancing lessons with their friends, Bob and Peg Young. Mom tells me that they had taken 18 of the weekly 26-lesson course when my father had his heart attack (yes, he was quite young), which meant that they had to miss the rest of the lessons. However, they both loved square dancing, so whenever the church held a dance they would go promenade, allemande and do-si-do with the best of them.

In this February 1973 photo, taken by one of us kids, Mom and Dad are gussied up and ready to head to a dance at our church. Mom made that dress specifically to wear to square dances.

Product/technique notes

All the patterns on this page are from the Chickaniddy Crafts “Date Night” collection. I was inspired by this sketch from Let’s Capture our Memories. Because of the “round and round” title that I wanted to use, I added a circle of patterned paper so I could shape the title around it.

Date night

May 2, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Sometimes it’s just fun to capture a few selfies while you’re out on a date. Am I right?

Although when I jumped over to Matt’s side of the table for the shot of the two of us, an older man at a nearby table gave me a dirty look. I wanted to yell over, “At least I’m not too old to have fun, you grump!” But you’ll be proud of me; I was good and just smiled at him.

Product/technique notes

Most of the elements on my page are from Simple Stories “Snap Life” collection, and the paper bag is from Jillibean Soup. I decided I wanted an arrow to connect the title to the “good stuff” card, so I doodled a quick guide and stitched away. I like how it brought it all together.

Drool

April 13, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I walked in and found our sweet Oliver snoozing in the office, and as I stopped for a moment to take in his beauty and the peaceful feeling you get when you watch someone deep in slumber, I noticed these three little drops of drool on his whiskers. So I assume he was having sweet dreams.

Product/technique notes

Square punches were my friend for this design, which just frames my close-up photo with bursts of color. Most of the patterns came from the Pebbles “Walnut Grove” 6×6 paper pad. I created and cut my title on the Silhouette Cameo and added some hand stitching for a bit of texture.

Queen Klutz

March 30, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

I’m klutzy. It goes beyond klutzy, really. In fact, I have always been so accident prone that my father used to call me Grace…because I had none.

And I’ve realized that this is a trait I’m just not going to outgrow. So I guess I may as well own it. I was recently telling my mom about my latest mishap (a full body slam to the tile floor of our entry way), and she suggested that I really should have kept a diary of my accidents over the years because I find such inventive ways of hurting myself. Yes, she expressed concern for my aches and pains, but in the end it’s a bit of a funny family fact: Jan is creatively clumsy.

I once closed my ear in the car door.
I smacked my face so hard into our dining room light fixture that I gave myself a black eye and vertigo.
I fell all the way down a set of carpeted stairs and bounced into the living room.

So, now you know.

Product/technique notes

I followed this My Scraps & More sketch #102 very closely because I liked it so much. Most of the patterned papers on this are from Little Yellow Bicycle’s “Fern & Forest Girl” 6×6 pad.

A Sunday in March

March 21, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 5 Comments

I asked Mom if there was any special reason that Dad took this photo of us in March 1969. She told me that it was a Sunday, we had just come home from church and Daddy wanted to capture a shot of his sweet girls. She added, “I also remember that it was too chilly that day for me not to be wearing a sweater!”

Product/technique notes

I created this layout with patterned papers and embellishments from Chickaniddy Crafts’ “Twirly Girl” collection and this sketch from Stuck?! Sketches:

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