one-page layouts

Knave training

July 22, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I am a total newbie to Renaissance festivals. It was such an interesting culture!

We spent a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon immersing ourselves in the sights and sounds of Sherwood Forest Faire, a Renaissance festival in McDade, Texas. We watched a jousting match and a magic show, threw axes and shot with a bow and arrows (my favorite!). Matt grew up attending Ren fests, but I didn’t, so this was all new to me. It was such an interesting culture! Everyone who worked the event was decked out in period wear, which I expected. But many of the attendees had even better costumes! It was a fun day.

Product/technique notes:
I used this fun sketch from Crafty Sketches:

The papers I used for the flags are from BasicGrey’s Oxford collection.

Oasis

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

I swear I heard a rattlesnake while we were on this walk into hell.

To be fair, it was my idea for us to go for a hike on July 4th. There’s a trail running along Brushy Creek Road that I see lots of walkers, runners and cyclists using, but we had not tried it yet. So we agreed to go first thing in the morning to check it out. Then, first thing in the morning turned into noon, and I suggested we wait for another morning. But Matt insisted we’d be fine. So we slathered ourselves with sunscreen, filled our water bottles and headed out.

That path. Went on. Forever. And I swear that ninety percent of it was in full sun. Did I mention that it got to nearly 100 degrees? And there were vultures circling overhead? Yeah.

My repeated requests to turn back fell on deaf ears; Matt really wanted to see where that path led.

Just as I started feeling sick from all that heat, and we were about to run out of the water we had been rationing, it appeared. I actually asked Matt if it was a mirage or an oasis!

He said, “It must be an OASIS because I can see it, too!”

It was a lovely little community water park…with families picnicking, kids playing and squealing and wonderful, cold, restorative water spraying everywhere. We looked at each other in amazement. And then ran in.

What could have been better than to find this?

I think it's awesome that this free splash area is offered by the park system.

Product/technique notes: I saw this distress ink watercolor technique over at Kristina Werner’s card blog and decided I wanted to use it on this layout because of my water theme. I pulled out this piece of patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle (I’m using both sides of just one piece of paper on this page) and thought it would be a great way to represent both the searing sun and then the bright colors and fresh feeling of the splash park. So I chose colors of distress ink to match the stripes in the paper (wow, did they match well!) and created swatches of splotchy watercolored paper. Then I cut out each letter of my title from a different swatch.

Just look at how my swatches match the paper!

Fun and games

July 10, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 6 Comments

My first sketch for Creative Scrappers went live on their site on Sunday, and I was so excited to see how the design team used it. All their pages are just beautiful!

Here is a peak at the sketch, and I hope you’ll go grab the full-sized version at Creative Scrappers and use it to play along:

I decided to play along with my own sketch, so I created this page about a recent night out with some friends for BINGO! We were having a little going-away party for our friend, Sri (in the turquoise top), who was about to leave to spend the summer in the English countryside with her grandparents and then come back to the States to attend graduate school. Quite a nice new beginning, right?

The journaling reads, “If BINGO sounds like a game for geriatrics, try playing it at The Park Hotel with Sri, Deborah and Heather! They serve shots when certain numbers are called, hold dance-offs to break ties and give garden gnomes as prizes. What a good time.”

I’ll add this comment: This is not like the BINGO they played in the church I grew up in; in fact, it’s pretty irreverent. 😉

I was sorry to see my friend, Sri, leave, but I know she's starting a great new life.

My first visit to Disneyland

June 30, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not me!

My mom lived in California from the time she was seven until leaving to attend college in Ohio right after high school, but her parents lived there for the remainder of their lives. So, once Mom and Dad started having a family, they frequently traded visits between California and Ohio so Mom’s parents could spend time with their grandchildren. Obviously, I don’t remember this time, but during our visit in June 1968 Grandma and Grandpa took me to Disneyland for the first time.

In creating this layout, I have hit upon a little tip I can share with you about making identifications in vintage photos.

I know the details my mom wrote on the back of these shots—because I scan the fronts and backs of my old photos—which said that it was June 1968 and that I was with the Big Bad Wolf. So right there, I have some great information. But as I was coming to the journaling part of this page, I started worrying about which amusement park featured the Big Bad Wolf. I mean, I thought it was Disneyland, but I wasn’t sure. It could have been Knott’s Berry Farm, which I know we also visited on at least one of our trips to California. And I wanted to be sure before putting pen to paper.

So I turned to Google’s images search and typed in “Disneyland 1968.” I thought this was probably a long-shot way to start my search, but I knew that I could refine it if need be.

First of all, I encourage you to do a search like this just for the fun of seeing the old Kodacolor images of people in their 60s garb and Disneyland in all its 60s glory. Just take a look at a few of the wonderful images I found:

This image came from http://home.earthlink.net/~rxunit/id15.html.

This image came from http://matterhorn1959.blogspot.com/2009/12/childs-trip-to-disneyland-1968.html.

This image came from http://www.tickledpinklife.com/2011/02/when-the-peoplemover-was-the-futur/

Now back to my objective for doing this search: I hit paydirt on the first try! Take a look at this image and then compare it to the Big Bad Wolf photo on my layout. My heart sped up when I noticed the same building and landscaping (it’s a Micky Mouse flower bed) in the background as in my photo! This was enough proof for me that these photos of mine were taken in the Magic Kingdom.

This image came from http://matterhorn1959.blogspot.com/2009/12/childs-trip-to-disneyland-1968.html.

So the next time you’re casting about for details to include in your journaling or to confirm the places, events or times in your vintage photos, try a Google image search. This is a rich resource for photo research, and I say the more details the better when you’re creating a special page like this.

Product/technique notes: All the patterned papers I used on this project were from the BasicGrey’s Up, Up & Away, PB&J and Serendipity collections. I created the black ribbon scallops using one of the We R Memory Keepers Sew Ribbons tools. The Disney font that I cut using my Silhouette is called Waltograph.

And I used this sketch provided at Club CK for their June challenge:
The June sketch from Club CK

Keep Austin Weird Festival + 5k

June 24, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

There were lots of great costumes to enjoy while attending the Keep Austin Weird Festival and 5k.

Is a part of your summer fun to attend sporting events in support of a family member? Well, now that my husband has started running, it has become a part of mine! As any sports enthusiast or sports enthusiast’s spouse/parent/sibling knows, the participant wants an audience. It’s akin to the question about the tree falling in the woods. If a runner crosses the finish line but no one they know was there to witness it, did they even run the race?

And so I found myself yesterday at the very colorful 10th annual Keep Austin Weird Festival + 5K in downtown Austin, Texas. There was a large stage featuring one band after another, plentiful drinks and food and lots of Austinites doing their utmost to keep their fair city as weird as possible (read: lots of fun costumes). The festival ran from early afternoon on into the night, and the race was set to begin at 7:00 p.m.

Do you have any idea how hot it gets in Texas in the summer? Let me put it this way: When the starter pistol rang out at 7:00, it had come down to 95 degrees. Yes, you do have to be a little crazy to run in this weather, but then I guess that’s part of the point at this festival.

So, just in case you, like me, are the official cheerleader and photographer at events like this, following are a few things I’ve learned about capturing the kind of images you will need to tell the whole story later in your scrapbook pages and/or blog.

Take your best camera

As scrapbookers, one of our most important tools is our camera. If you have more than one—the expensive camera and the little spy camera you keep in your purse at all times—haul along the good one. You will hate the weight of it, as well as fumbling with changing lenses if you have a DSLR, but you will be so much happier with the photos you get. Lug it and love it.

Dress comfortably

When I’m photographer at Matt’s races, I get a workout, too. I wear a large backpack so that I can carry my camera equipment as well as Matt’s supplies, so it gets rather heavy. And I run a lot to be where the shot is. Because of this I wear clothes that are roomy so they don’t cling to me when I sweat, appropriate for the weather and really practical. Yesterday I wore a comfy sun dress and tennis shoes. I’m sure I couldn’t have won any prizes for fashion, but my clothes didn’t hinder me, and that’s all I cared about.

Get before and after photos

Before I let Matt head over to the starting line, I make him stand for a few photos. I want to have shots of him while he’s still fresh and clean as well as nervous for the event to come. I also do my best to be at the finish line to capture his last steps. But I also make sure to shadow him as he huffs and puffs his way over to the water and banana stand. The idea is to get photos of the red face, the sweat and the exhaustion. If he worked that hard, I want to be sure to celebrate it on my layout later.

Capture the local flavor

There’s always something interesting about the location of an event. If it’s in a rural setting, be sure to set the scene by capturing the natural surroundings. If it’s in an urban setting like this festival we attended, get shots of the skyline and the crowds.

Vary the distance of your shots

To tell the whole story of an event, it’s important to get photos that expose different perspectives. You want close-up shots of the sporting equipment your family member is using, images of the crowds, posed and unposed photos of your subject and action shots. Vary the distance, vary the perspective.

Conduct a post-event interview

When Matt is still breathing heavily and high on adrenaline at the end of a race, I like to flip over to the video feature on my camera and spend a few minutes capturing his thoughts about the event. Not only is it great to have this video to watch in the future, but also it provides such a rich source of journaling for that layout you’re going to create later!

Don’t let those summer days drift away without capturing the sun-drenched fun!

Product/technique notes: All the supplies I used on this layout are from the BasicGrey Serendipity and Shine On collections.

« Previous Page