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The Constant Scrapper

If I'm not scrapbooking I'm thinking about scrapbooking!

Martha Stewart Crafts

Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal

August 5, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

My husband doesn’t care about clothes…at all. If he ruled the world people would all wear clean but wrinkled shorts and t-shirts to everything. Fortunately, we live in low-key Austin, Texas, where “business casual” doesn’t mean very much, and a majority of people do wear shorts everywhere.

Matt and I own a technology company, which means occasionally we get swag from companies like Microsoft and Cisco, among others. For years Matt has been wearing those hideous t-shirts (no offense intended to the big tech companies, but they really are garish) around the house. However, when he goes out that front door, he makes sure he’s wearing one of his “special” shirts. Even though he doesn’t care a jot about good clothes, he does want to maintain a certain image in the world. And I would describe that image as “geek chick.”

He carefully selects his t-shirts from various online purveyors of fine geek clothing. In his closet are shirts with:

  • A Shakespearean quote spelled out as a mathematical equation (think “To be or not to be”)
  • The falling sperm whale from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the thought bubble, “I wonder if it will be friends with me?”
  • The symbol Pi written in 4493 digits of Pi
  • My all-time favorite is the one he’s wearing in the large photo on the layout below. It’s inspired by the TV series Firefly and features two dinosaurs with a speech bubble between them that reads, “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.”

This illustrates yet another reason I love scrapbooking: memorializing the personality traits, quirks, habits and personal preferences of those we love. Whether it’s our 40-something husband’s corny t-shirt tastes or our 13-year-old daughter’s short-lived Bieber fever, it’s worth remembering. And celebrating. These are the little things that add up to make people lovable to us, and that’s a great layout topic in my book.

BeYou_Daquila-Pardo

Be You captures my husband's love of corny t-shirts.

Note: Matt does not wear these t-shirts to work, even though he would dearly love to! πŸ˜‰

Filed Under: My scrapbook layouts Tagged With: 4 photos, Bella Boulevard, border punches, Echo Park, Martha Stewart Crafts, October Afternoon, one-page layouts, scrapbook philosophy, stamping, Technique Tuesday

Easter chick

July 24, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 6 Comments

I scrapped more vintage photos this weekend, which is always lots of fun for me. These are from my first Easter. On Easter Sunday, March 26, 1967, Mom and Dad were 26 and 33 years old, respectively, and I was four months. My parents (when they were first married) and then our family (once they had us kids) always drove the two-hour trip to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to spend holidays with relatives there. So these photos are taken with my Nana and Papa (on Dad’s side) in front of their home on Fourth Avenue. Don’t you just love Mom’s Easter hat?

I created this layout using the PageMaps sketch shown below and am entering it in their Freehand Scraps sketch contest. Please wish me luck, and I hope you have a lovely Sunday!

EasterChick_Daquila-Pardo

My Easter 1967 layout is based on a sketch from the PageMaps site.

aug1112x12b

This is the PageMaps sketch I based my layout on.

Filed Under: Layouts based on sketches, My scrapbook layouts Tagged With: 2 photos, American Crafts, border punches, Martha Stewart Crafts, one-page layouts, Silhouette, vintage photos

Young Crafters Unite blog hop!

July 1, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 81 Comments

Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop header

Hi everyone, and welcome to the next stop on the Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop! If you’re following along the hop you should be arriving here from Chari Moss’ blog (She makes such adorable cards!). If you aren’t a hopper but want to join in the fun you can start at the beginning by visiting the Young Crafters Unite website.

Why do I consider myself a young crafter?

I always feel younger than the calendar says I am. I really believe that being “young” or “old” is up to us. So I act the way I want to feel. And crafting is one of the things I do that helps me stay young. Shopping for crafting supplies surely must reduce wrinkles because it makes me giddy like a little girl. And the feeling I get when I start to cut, stamp and glue things together…well, if my hair was longer I would put it up in pigtails! I suspect all crafters are young crafters. πŸ™‚

My “favorite thing” project

We were asked to create a new project using our favorite things, and I chose to create a layout using two favorite things:

  1. These photos are of my brother, Phil, and me at the baby pool in our hometown. I love everything about these photos: Phil’ls scrunchy smile, our darling bathing suits pushed low on our round bellies, our suntanned skin, our happy faces and my memories of many hours spent at that pool together with our mom. Wow, these are awesome photos!
  2. I recently created a tutorial about crocheting on your scrapbook pages, so that’s my new favorite technique! I’ve used it on this layout to create the sun element. It takes some extra time, so I’ll probably save it for more special photos/memories, but I love the even more handmade and vintage feel it gives to my layouts. πŸ™‚
AtThePool_Daquila-Pardo

At the Pool highlights a few special photos of me and my brother in the summer of 1970.

More of my personal favorites

I thought I would also share just a few more of my recent layouts and cards because they are all about being or staying young, and they make me happy to look at!

I think you are…
I made this little set of 2×3-inch cards so that I could occasionally pop a love note in my husband’s laptop bag before he leaves the house. Why does food with faces make us smile?

IThinkYouAre_Daquila-Pardo

I think you are...hot, cool, sweet and cheesy!

I am I because my little dog knows me
I can’t help itβ€”I love this layout. That photo of our precious family dog, Spenser, is from 1991 when he was only a few months old. We all adored him and he adored us. And I think this Gertrude Stein quote is awesome.

IAmI_Daquila-Pardo

I think this Gertrude Stein quote is all this layout needed to capture my feeling.

He will go far
This is a photo from 2000, when our nephew Jerad was only 4. I thought this new October Afternoon line, Rocket Age, would work perfectly to highlight all the potential I see in his little face.

HeWillGoFar_Daquila-Pardo

This outer space-themed paper just seemed like the perfect way to showcase a child's potential.

Thank you so much for hopping by today. Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post because there are prizes up for grabs for some lucky participants. Randomly selected commenters will have the opportunity to win prizes from Simon Says Stamp, Paper Smooches and Lawn Fawn! Comment by Monday, July 4th at 11:59PM CST to win; winners will be announced Wednesday, July 6th at noon CST.

The next young crafter on this hop is Kelly Latevola (This woman is a master with Distress Inks!). Thanks again for stopping by, and I do hope you’ll come back again soon.

Filed Under: Cards, My scrapbook layouts Tagged With: 1 photo, 2 photos, Basic Grey, border punches, cards, color, Little Yellow Bicycle, Making Memories, Martha Stewart Crafts, My Mind's Eye, October Afternoon, one-page layouts, scrapbook philosophy, Silhouette, Simple Stories, stamping, The Paper Studio, vintage photos, We R Memory Keepers

Here’s to Pat

June 27, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I’m sorry I’ve been absent lately, but I do have a good reason. I have been putting a good deal of crafty and blog-writing time into my first ever guest blog spot! I’m very excited to be appearing as a guest blogger this Wednesday on Live. Teach. Create. I’ve created a tutorial that I hope you’ll check out and use on a future layout.

Don’t worry; I’ll remind you again on Wednesday. πŸ™‚

In the meantime, I’ll share a layout I did a while back about my husband’s stepfather, Pat. He came into Matt’s life when he was about 12 and did a lot to make his life more stable. Though Pat had never been married or a father before, he stepped into a family of five small children who were not happy about having him around and won them over one-by-one. Unfortunately, Pat’s and Sandie’s marriage ended after ten years, but Pat did leave his mark on the family.

I used some rather psychedelic paper for this layout, but I thought it worked well with both the style of the older photo on the left and the colors in the later photo on the right.

So, here’s to Pat.

Pat_JDaquila-Pardo

This layout is in honor of my husband's stepfather, Pat.

Filed Under: My scrapbook layouts Tagged With: 2 photos, Basic Grey, border punches, Martha Stewart Crafts, one-page layouts, Recollections, Silhouette, vintage photos

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

June 22, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

Twisted Sketches has revealed its latest sketch, #107, and the twist is “time.” Be sure to head over to the site to grab the sketch, then create something and link it up! πŸ™‚

Here’s my Design Team layout inspired by the sketch…

Tomorrow_Daquila-Pardo

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.

And now a little background on this layout. When Phil and I started our sophomore year in high school in 1983 we decided to try out for the play and both were granted roles. The play was Charles Dickens’ “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.” It’s a great story, full of villainy and heroism and redemption.

While my role as Miss Ninetta Crummles, The “Infant Phenomenon,” (from Wikipedia: Mr. and Mrs. Crummles’ daughter. She is a very prominent member of the Crummles troupe, and a dancing part is written for her in every performance, even if there is no place for it. She is supposedly ten years old, but is actually closer to eighteen, having been kept on a steady diet of gin to keep her looking young.) was only a small one, I had the first lines of the play. I skipped onto stage and quoted Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.”

Phil and I had such a great experience that year in the play. The months of after-school rehearsals led to great friendships and wonderful memories. And, in the end, our rendition of Nicholas Nickleby was brilliant!

Here’s a peek at the week’s sketch. I hope you’ll play along.

twistedsketches_107

Here's a peek at the sketch from www.twistedsketches.org

Filed Under: Layouts based on sketches, My scrapbook layouts, Sketches Tagged With: 2 photos, border punches, Graphic 45, Martha Stewart Crafts, Me & My Big Ideas, one-page layouts, Silhouette, Twisted Sketches, vintage photos

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