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Hush little baby

March 27, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I gathered up all my baby dolls one day and created beds for the whole lot.

The photo in this layout makes me laugh because it reveals a little bit about what I was like as a child. My parents had bought something that had packing material in it, and seeing its potential I used it to “build” beds for all my baby dolls. I’m sure I felt very pleased with myself once I had worked out all the necessary design decisions and finally had everyone tucked in for a nap.

Isn’t it wonderful that my mom snapped a shot of this? Thanks Mom!

I used this great sketch provided at the Artful Delight blog to inspire my layout:

Artful Delight sketch

Discus queen

March 24, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

This layout is based on sketch challenge #33 at the My Mind's Eye blog.

Matt’s younger sister, Thyia, competed in the discus and shot put events on her high school track team. Matt tells me that she was so good at these events that she went to nationals and came up against girls in her age range that were 100 pounds heavier than she was…and won! This photo of her is from 1993.

I created this layout for the My Mind’s Eye blog challenge #33, using all patterned papers from various lines of theirs and their sketch .

Old school

February 15, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

Twisted Sketches has revealed sketch #139, and the twist is “old.” Be sure to head over to the site to grab the sketch and see all the other design team members’ beautiful examples. Then create something of your own and link it up!

Here is what I created using this great new sketch:

I saw this Hot Date collection by KI Memories and immediately wanted to use it to do a layout about my love of fountain pens.

Do you ever create a layout because a certain patterned paper triggers something in your brain? The background paper on my page above was the inspiration for this whole idea. It’s from a Valentine-themed collection called Hot Date by KI Memories, and as soon as I saw the little fountain pens in the design I was committed to creating an ode to fountain pens (mine in particular).

I have loved fountain pens for a very long time. Daddy had a few old ones in his valet tray on the chest of drawers in the bedroom, and I loved to take those out and turn them over in my fingers. They were made of various colored pearl laminates and had lever fillers. They fascinated me with their beauty and old-world functionality. What?! You use the lever to suction special ink into a bladder inside the pen before you can write with it? How could I think that was anything but awesome when all we ever used at school were Bic ballpoint stick pens?

So I carried my love for fountain pens into my adulthood. I even bought a few inexpensive vintage pens at flea markets, but they didn’t work very well. Then one day, in my very first job out of college, my office mate brought a rubber stamp catalog (from Rubba Dub Dub) to work and asked if I wanted to order anything from it. I pored over that book for a long time, loving the idea of rubber stamps but having no concept of how I would use them. But there was a beautiful vintage fountain pen image that won me over. It seemed so expensive to me at the time, but I had visions of using it to create my own stationery, so I bought it.

Fast forward a number of years, and I must have let slip to my new husband how much I loved fountain pens because for one of our first Christmases together (1999) he gave me a gorgeous Mont Blanc. It’s a special edition pen called Hommage à Fédéric Chopin, and it includes a CD of Chopin’s music. I adore writing with it. It feels like you really mean what you’re saying when you write it with this beauty.

As I say in my journaling: I love technology, but old school is so cool.

SLR

January 28, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

My brother, Phil, began his love for photography under the influence of our eighth-grade math teacher, Mr. Moore. As is still his style to this day, the eighth-grade Phil did many months of research (the old-fashioned, pre-Web kind of research) before finally purchasing his first SLR camera. He bought a Pentax ME Super from a company that advertised in the back of Popular Photography magazine, and it came with a 50mm lens and leather case for $234.50 (he remembered that detail when I told him I was working on this layout).

All these years later Phil is still in love with photography, and in fact he now uses it in his work as a documentary storyteller. He has always dazzled me with his knowledge of the mechanics behind it, of which I have remained mostly ignorant. Until very recently, I never even used the manual mode on my SLR. But now, because of his influence I am adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings and rarely leave manual mode! It’s so freeing, and the quality of my photos is fast improving.

The photo on this layout was taken by Phil’s friend and fellow photography enthusiast, Jim Hutchins, while they were out shooting together one fine day in October 2011. Phil still shoots Pentax, only he has upgraded his main camera from the original ME Super to a digital K-5. He also has a medium format film Pentax 645N, which he is carrying in this photo! Back to the old along with the new.

This layout is based on sketch #189 at www.creativescrappers.blogspot.com.

I am also entering this layout in the Creative Scrappers challenge for sketch #189.

Twinkle toes

January 18, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

Twisted Sketches has revealed its latest sketch, #135, and the twist is “sparkle.” Be sure to head over to the site to grab the sketch and see all the other design team members’ beautiful examples, then create something of your own and link it up!

Here is what I created using this great new sketch:

Matt is trying a style of running called barefoot running, and these are his new barefoot shoes.

Matt started running last spring. He has always wanted to be a runner, and now he’s really enjoying it (most of the time). When Matt gets into something, he really gets into it. He reads everything he can and becomes a bit of a home-grown expert on the topic.

In his effort to know more about running and how to do it safely (fully 80% of runners get injured each year!), he read the book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall. In addition to going into the history of running, etc., McDougall explains the concept of barefoot running. The idea, simply put, is that wearing traditional running shoes sets up the body for injury because it forces you to run heel first. Slamming your foot into the ground like a club causes high-impact stress on the ankle, heel, knee and back. Barefoot running (wearing minimalist shoes that just provide protection from the ground) forces you to run and walk as your foot was built to be used. It allows you to use all the muscles and bones in your foot to carry you along, taking advantage of the natural shock absorbers of your feet, calves and legs.

Having read that you can’t just put on a pair of minimalist shoes and start running, Matt is wearing his new FiveFingers around the house to allow his feet to adjust. I’m more of the walking type, but I think I may get a pair of these shoes for myself if they make a real difference for Matt. The more natural the better!

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