stitching

Caught you cavorting

September 9, 2013 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

Mom is having her own little beach dance party at Jordan Lake in NC.

In August I went home to North Carolina to visit my mom and bro for nine days. In looking for things to do to get out of the house a bit, we spent one afternoon at nearby Jordan Lake, where we had plans to walk one of the short trails that leads out to the water. Well, we didn’t plan all that well because not one of us thought to take insect repellent with us. What a disaster! I’m not exaggerating when I say that no more than 15 feet along the trail, all three of us shrieked and ran out of the woods, abandoning all hope of entering there.

At the park but banned from the woods by that angry gang of mosquitoes, we headed instead to the other side where the beach area is. We used the swingset for a while and then walked down to the water, where it seems Mom was possessed by the desire to twist and shout a bit! Fortunately, Phil had the camera at the ready, and he captured these shots. They are my new favorites.

Product/technique notes

Most of the products on this layout came from the My Mind’s Eye “Miss Caroline” collection. The arrows are from an ancient Daisy Dee’s sticker sheet. I designed and cut the title on my Silhouette Cameo. And I decided to stitch the circular elements. The whole page was inspired by this sketch by Simple Scrapper for Paper Issues.

Sending warm fuzzies

April 5, 2012 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 10 Comments

I wanted to let the background on this card get most of the focus, so I kept the other elements understated.

I made this Easter card for my mom with two challenges in mind (Young Crafters Unite called for stitching, and A Blog Named Hero for using Hero Arts stamps):

Young Crafters Unite! sewing/stitching challenge

I stamped the background with watermark ink and clear embossed it. Then I applied four colors of distress ink to make the background design pop. I pierced all the center dots before doing a cross stitch with brown floss to cover the whole thing. Honestly, this took a good bit of time to stitch, so after all that work I didn’t want to take much of the focus off that background. So I cut a little bunny with my Silhouette, covered his cotton tail with Stickles and stamped my sentiment on a banner. And a card is born!

This close-up shot shows the detail of the stitched background.

These are the main materials I used to create this card.

Talk to the animals

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

Twisted Sketches has revealed its latest sketch, #112, and the twist is “fun.” Be sure to head over to the site to grab the sketch, then create something and link it up! 🙂

Here’s my Design Team layout inspired by the sketch. The patterned papers I used on this very colorful layout are from Jillibean Soup. The colors just went so well with my vintage photo.

This photo is from August 1974, when we visited the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania.

That’s Phil and me at the Erie Zoo in Pennsylvania in August 1974. There’s so much I love about this photo: the great outfits Mom always picked for us (I adored that quilted skirt and remember looking down at those sandals on my feet all summer), that we’re not cheesing for the camera but engrossed in a moment and the signs of 1974 hairstyles and clothes on the people in the background. It’s a great snapshot!

I cut those animal embellishments with my Silhouette using a free dingbat font called Zoologic. They cut out beautifully, and I really think they added a lot to the design.

Here’s a fun fact: I chose to include images of the giraffe, lion and camel for a reason. It’s because most mammals move both legs on one side and then both legs on the other side. The only mammals that walk by alternating their legs in sequence are…you guessed it…the giraffe, the cat and the camel! Cool, huh?