Hero Arts

Waving hello modern florals card

October 19, 2023 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

The story

I created this card as part of the Celebrate World Card Making Day with Pinkfresh Studio “Anything Goes” challenge. My intention was to use fall colors with non-seasonal stamps to create an autumnal-ish card!

Product/technique notes

I stamped the Pinkfresh Studio “Modern Layered Florals” set with Distress Oxide Inks and die cut them. Then I ink blended complementary oxide ink colors on white cardstock and used the Floral Tiles coverplate die to create the background. I ran another ink blended piece of cardstock through the die cutting machine with the Hero Arts “Woodgrain Texture Fancy Die” before cutting it into a frame shape. I finished the design with a sentiment from Honeybee Stamps and a few sequins.

Hello fancy floral print card

October 19, 2023 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

The story

I created this card as part of the Celebrate World Card Making Day with Pinkfresh Studio “Anything Goes” challenge.

Product/technique notes

I stenciled this background design using the Pinkfresh Studio “Fancy Floral Print” set and Distress Inks. Then I used a rectangle die to cut out a portion of the design in the bottom right corner, backed that with a matching yellow scalloped rectangle, and set it aside. To add an all-over handwriting element to the card, I used a Hero Arts background stamp and grey ink. I popped up the focal element, added the sentiment made with a combination of stamps and dies, and embellished with a few purple sequins.

Day camp

April 17, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 10 Comments

The Little Yellow Bicycle Paradise collection was perfect to use with this 1976 photo.

There were a few summers when we were growing up that Mom and Dad signed us up to go to day camp. I think it was just for a week each summer, maybe two, but it left a big impression on me.

I remember being quite nervous to go, but I loved the adventure of it. We made candles in buckets of sand that we had hollowed out into shapes, tie dyed t-shirts, swam, fished, hiked…the usual activities. But the most important part that I can remember is that we got on a bus with kids we didn’t know and went somewhere new. It meant we were old enough to do this on our own—well, with lots of adult supervision, of course.

But these adults weren’t our parents or school teachers. They were mostly young adults (like the twin sisters in my photo) who were there with us as counselors. A counselor is, by definition, there to advise and guide. My apologies to any of my school teachers (many of them nuns) who may one day read this post, but in my nine-year-old brain a camp counselor was way cooler than a teacher. Teachers imparted math and history knowledge and then held us accountable with tests. Camp counselors showed us how to do things like tie knots. And there was nary a test in sight!

Way cooler.

So, here’s to my parents for giving us the opportunity to go on this type of adventure and to my camp counselors for teaching us the things we didn’t learn in school. And in case you can’t tell, this photo was taken on dress-up day (I think it was the last day of camp), and I am the little hobo with pigtails standing second from the right. 🙂

I based this layout on a nice sketch provided at the Artful Delight blog, and I am entering it into their April challenge. I am also entering this into Shimelle’s Online scrapbooking weekend challenge #8: Create a project featuring a stamp you should use more often.

The Artful Delight sketch I referenced while making this layout.

I used all Little Yellow Bicycle patterned papers from the “Paradise” collection and colored in that beautiful Hero Arts tree stamp with Copic markers to match the rest.

My first try at misting

July 13, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

My dear mother’s birthday was yesterday, and of course I created a card to send with her gifts. But I didn’t want to post it here until she had received it (just in case she peeked in here). I have been plucking up my courage to try misting, and this card is my first attempt. See those clouds in the background? I punched out several clouds with my Fiskars punches and placed them randomly on a white card base. After misting the card with turquoise Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist I peeled away the masks to reveal my sky background. I really like it, don’t you?

I stamped and paper pieced this card for my mom's birthday.

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