Simple Stories

What a loser

August 29, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

I'm so proud of Matt for all his hard work to get in shape.

I was recently looking through some photos when I noticed a few of Matt that I had taken exactly one year before, and I could not get over how different he looked! I mean, of course I know that he has lost 35 pounds in the past year. But you know how it is: things that happen slowly are harder to notice. I’ve watched Matt do all the hard work it takes to lose that much weight—taking up running, lifting weights on the opposite days and changing his diet—and I see that he’s looking great. But that doesn’t mean I remembered how much he has changed his looks, not to mention his health, with his new routine.

I decided to create a scrapbook layout to celebrate the difference Matt has made with his hard work. So I had him put on the very same outfit he was wearing the previous year and pose for me as closely as possible to the original photos. Then I arranged the comparison photos next to each other to make the differences obvious. The first and second photos show how much weight Matt has lost in his face and neck, and the third and fourth ones show the weight loss in his torso.

I’m so proud of my hubby! He would say, “Don’t make such a big deal of it; I still have more to lose.” But anyone who has tried to lose extra pounds knows that 35 pounds and a lifestyle change are a huge deal. He’s such a loser.

Product/technique notes:
I used patterned papers from the Simple Stories Awesome collection on this layout.

Under the shade of the old oak tree

August 23, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

There's not a lot better in August than hanging out in the shade.

We grew up in a house with two big, beautiful trees in the front yard—a maple and an oak. In the fall, when we had to rake, I cursed their deep roots, sturdy limbs and plentiful leaves. But in the summer, their canopies combined to shade almost every inch of our yard, and I adored them.

In this August 1979 photo, Phil and I are under the shade of those trees, on an Indian blanket, playing a game of UNO. We actually spent a lot of quality time on that blanket, under those trees. We ate picnic lunches Mom made for us, drew, read books out loud to each other, played games and talked each other’s ears off.

I particularly remember Phil forcing me to slog through the entire 222 pages with him of Me & The Spitter: An Autobiographical Confession by Gaylord Perry. It was the Cleveland Indians pitcher’s account of how he cheated, doctoring baseballs with spit and Vaseline. It was truly thrilling.

What I also love about this photo are details like how each of us is wearing a matching tank-top-and-shorts set. And how tan we are. And our cute little haircuts. You get the idea: I think we’re darling! So, here’s to late summer and hanging out under a tree with your bestie!

I used Creative Scrappers sketch #222 for inspiration and Pebbles and Simple Stories patterned papers to pull this layout together.

Just me and the open road

July 2, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

When a kid has a bike, everything changes.

This is the first week Creative Scrappers is revealing the work of their new sketch artists and design teams. Sketch #215 is a great one created by Jenny Evans, and I decided to play along with it to celebrate with my new team members.

My journaling on this layout reads:
“What a 6-year-old girl knows about her world changes once she a gets a bike. Pre-bike all I knew of my hometown I saw from a moving car or on walks with my parents. But once Santa left me a beautiful blue vehicle of discovery under the Christmas tree my world expanded. Willoughby was mine!”

Product/technique notes: I pulled together this sweet little summer page using patterned papers from Simple Stories’ Summer Fresh collection and that cool building paper from Studio Calico’s Abroad collection.

Last year at ICS

April 28, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 3 Comments

That redo that you do

Are there any layouts in your albums that you would like to do over? Maybe you thought you were done with it, but when you looked at it later you weren’t thrilled. Or you put it aside unfinished because you just couldn’t make it come together to your liking.

I know I do.

And while I don’t think we should go through our albums and redo all the layouts on which we used older products or techniques that we’re no longer in love with (there are way too many new layouts to create), every so often I do think it’s worth pulling out an unsatisfactory page and “tweaking” it. Or outright starting over. In my mind, the ones that qualify for this treatment are the special photos—the one-time events and images of times past that can’t be recreated.

Version 1: Bleck!

Here is a layout I started a few years ago but never finished. It’s a 5×7 portrait of me from eighth grade, and nothing I was trying to do with it worked for me. So I set it aside thinking that I would pull it out on another day and that the best way to finish it would just occur to me. It never did.

This is my first try at a design with this photo. Wasn't working for me.

When I recently saw this sketch on the Designs by Ashley Rock blog, it made me think of my long-forgotten layout, and I decided to let my first version go into the darkness and start over with it.

The Ashley Rock sketch I referenced while making this layout.

Version 2: So much better!

This is the layout I came up with using the sketch. I’m so much happier with the final product than I would have been if I had insisted on finishing my first version!

I don't know about you, but I like this version a lot better!

So, what do you think? Should I have left well enough alone, or do you think my redo was worth it? Do you ever tweak or redo your pages?

Product/technique notes: Most of the papers and elements on this page came from the Simple Stories Elementary collection. I also used doily stamps from Studio Calico and Inkadinkado.

November 24th

November 23, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

Twisted Sketches has revealed its latest sketch, #129, and the twist is “ribbon.” 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:

Being born on Thanksgiving means my birthday falls on the holiday every so often!

The whole point of my layout is to express how much I have always loved that my birthday falls on or near Thanksgiving Day. I was born on Thanksgiving, which means that every several years it cycles back around and lands on the holiday again (like this year). But the wonderful thing is that because of its proximity to the holiday, even when it isn’t on the day there’s always a fun, relaxed, family, thankful feeling in the air. I just love it! And it’s one of the things I’m always thankful for on Thanksgiving. 🙂

These photos are from two different years in my little life, but they both show the relationship between my birthday and Thanksgiving. The first photo is my 2nd birthday cake, flanked by seasonal Pilgrim and turkey candles. The second shot is from 1969 and shows me, flanked by two of my cousins, Dick and Tom (both turkeys in their own right!). Their family has come from Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with us, and we’re all having dinner in our basement. They seem to have been quite gracious about sharing the little kids’ table with me. 🙂

Because the twist on the sketch this week was “ribbon,” I decided to create a little turkey with ribbon tail feathers. He seems pretty happy with himself!

This year, as I celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday, I will add my blog readers to my gratitude list. Happy Thanksgiving!

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