tutorial

Kiss kiss layout and string art tutorial

June 10, 2015 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 4 Comments

I’m so excited about today’s project because 1) I tried something new and 2) liked how it turned out, so 3) I want to share the idea with you! Do you remember doing string art projects as a kid? That’s what I incorporated on my layout as a frame for my small photo of Grandma helping me kiss my brand new brother in January 1968. Mom says I called him “B” (for baby).

My thought process

This idea came to me because of a sketch (as most of my scrappy ideas do). I was referencing this My Scraps and More sketch below, and I started thinking about how I wanted to create the central “tic-tac-toe” area of the page. I ticked off my options (get it?): strips of patterned paper, strips of washi tape, strips of ribbon, lines of stitching. Lines of stitching made me picture creating an elaborate hand stitched grid area to frame the photo. And then it hit me: string art!

I went to Pinterest and perused other artists’ string art in search of some ideas for making a square frame (as represented in the sketch). After successfully incorporating this technique into my page design, I thought I should share my process in case you like the look as much as I do.

String art tutorial

After deciding to make the string art area take up 8×8 inches in the center of the 12×12 page, I created a quick template for myself in my Silhouette Designer software. If you have a Silhouette and want to recreate this, draw an 8×8 square, center it on the page, open the rhinestones window and follow the settings below. If you don’t have a cutting machine, just measure and mark equidistant holes (perhaps 1/2 inch apart) with a ruler.

I cut out my simple template on a scrap piece of paper, lined it up over my background paper and poked the holes. Then the fun began!

I double matted the 3×3 photo with white cardstock and patterned paper so it would pop better off the background. Then I mounted that onto another pattern that was 6.25 square. Following the numbering system in the diagram below (up at 1, down at 2, up at 3, down at 4, etc.), I stitched away with two colors of embroidery thread to create the four corners of my square frame.

I do hope this tutorial was helpful to you. If you decide to try this technique on a page, I would LOVE to see it, so please come back and leave me a comment on this post. I will leave you kindly comments in return, I promise!

There’s always room for ice cream

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

I know it's hard to believe, but I actually do love these two more than ice cream.

I thought I would share a Silhouette technique today. I had a lot of fun concocting this layout in my head, then in my Silhouette Studio software and finally in physical form.

I completed this look by building the page as much from the back as from the front. Here’s how:

I was looking for a novel way of highlighting my main photo, so I started surfing my Silhouette library for ideas. When I saw this “Folded Sunburst Card” shape, the light bulb went on. Why not cut the sunburst aperture from my background paper and put the photo behind it?
the Silhouette shape I used to highlight my main photo

So I opened the file and deleted all the card bits, leaving only the sunburst. I re-sized the shape to be a little smaller than a 4 x 4 photo and dragged it to the top third of a full 12 x 12 page in Silhouette Studio.

To add to the building from beneath theme, I set up my title to cut from the background paper as well. So that I would be sure to leave enough room between the sunburst and the title for the other photos I planned to use, I added those to the design in Silhouette Studio but I set them to “no cut.” Like this:
How my file looked before cutting

So that’s it. I laid down my patterned paper (from My Mind’s Eye “Cut and Paste: Flair” collection), cut this out all at once, backed it with white card stock and then built my page on top of it. And now I have a layout that has lots of depth and texture without lots of bulk.

Oh, and the photos are from a stop we made at a neat little ice cream place in North Carolina while I was home visiting Mom and Phil this August.

Origami leaf wreath

November 19, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

This has been add-on week on Sketch Support, and today my project is live! Please head over to grab the sketch so you can use it in your own crafting, and while you’re there I would love it if you would leave a quick comment for me. 🙂

Here is a look at the add-on project I made.

The origami instructions I used were quite easy to follow.

This add-on sketch made me think of origami because of the lines radiating from the center. So I searched online for instructions for making origami leaves similar to the sketch, and I chose this one: Origami flower leaf. I wanted to make enough leaves to create a fall wreath for our front door, so I rummaged through my stash for patterned papers that would go with it and found an older pad of Cloud 9 papers that included the russet of our door mixed with brown, turquoise and gold. I started folding!

The leaves were rather easy to fold, though I would caution that if you’re going to try this yourself you should consider using patterned papers that are on the lightweight side. I used these sturdy double-sided papers (because the colors worked for me, and I wanted to make sure that if the undersides showed they would look good), but my fingers paid the price. 😉

Once I had enough leaves in an assortment of patterns and sizes, I hot glued clusters of them together before arranging and hot gluing them to the wreath base (which I purchased at Hobby Lobby). Hot glue is such a great tool for projects like this; it made quick work of the assembly.

I then created a few rolled flowers using cardstock, misted them with iridescent gold Glimmer Mist and nestled them in among the leaves. And now it decorates our front door! Here’s close-up of a few of the leaves.

I used 3- and 4-inch squares of patterned paper to make these leaves.

Rosette pumpkin tutorial

October 18, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 10 Comments

Blogtoberfest Day 18

I was in Archiver’s about a month ago looking at new scrapbook products and saw a pretty 3D pumpkin they had made. The store was out of the printed instructions for it, so I took a good look at the sample and came home to try my hand at recreating it. Here is what I produced and what I learned along the way.

Gather your supplies: cardstock, adhesive, hot glue gun, scoring board, stamps and inks

Rather than use printed patterned paper for this I wanted to create my own with cardstock and stamps. For one thing, I really don’t use this technique very often, and I wanted to stretch myself creatively. Second, I wasn’t at all sure how many pieces of paper the pumpkin would take to finish (it ended up being 5), so I thought it would be a good idea to be able to make more as I needed it. I have amassed quite a collection of doily stamps since that trend began (but haven’t used them as much as I’d like), so I decided to pull them all out for this project. I selected a number of beautiful distress ink colors and set to work creating my patterns. Aren’t those doilies yummy?

Cover your cardstock with stamped images.

This pumpkin is made of stacked rosettes, so I knew I would be doing a lot of scoring. To save myself time I scored each whole 12×12 piece of paper at one time (every half inch) and then cut it into strips. To make this stack into a sphere shape requires making rosettes of graduating sizes. I have listed all the strip sizes below. Each rosette is made with 2 strips of equal width, so cut 2 of each size.

Score the whole 12x12 page at once before cutting the strips you need.

Number and size of paper strips needed to complete the pumpkin rosettes

Strip width	# Strips	# Rosettes
2 inches	2	1 (for the bottom of the stack)
2-1/4 inches	4	2
2-1/2 inches	4	2
2-3/4 inches	4	2
2-7/8 inches	4	2
3 inches	2	2

Accordion fold all strips and create your rosettes. I figure that rosettes are so common in paper crafting these days that many of us have made them before, so I’m not including instructions for that part of this project. However, there are probably hundreds of tutorials out there on how to make these little beauties—both in video form and still photo/text—if you haven’t yet tried your hand at them.

Cut all your various strips and accordion fold them.

Once you have a stack of rosettes, apply hot glue to the center disk of cardstock on each one and adhere them together. Start with the smallest rosette and stack gradually larger circles until you’ve used the largest one, and then start decreasing again. Once you’ve used all your rosettes, you’ll have your base pumpkin shape completed! Here is the order to follow:

Bottom of the stack: 2-inch rosette
Next up: 2-1/4 inch
2-1/2 inch
2-3/4 inch
2-7/8 inch
3 inch
2-7/8 inch
2-3/4 inch
2-1/2 inch
Top rosette: 2-1/4 inch. I preferred to leave off a top 2-inch rosette to avoid making my pumpkin look too much like a pineapple!

Stack the rosettes to create the pumpkin shape.

Cut two 1-1/2-inch strips of paper for your pumpkin’s stem. Apply wet glue to one side of the cardstock and start rolling it into a tight cylinder. When you’re about to the end of the first strip, slide in the second and keep rolling. Wrap rubber bands around the roll until it dries.

Apply glue to 2 long strips of cardstock and roll them tightly.

Now it’s time to add some flair to the stem. Cut another 1-1/2-inch strip of the same paper and snip fringe along its entire length. To make sure that I had enough room to apply my glue to the bottom of the strip, I drew a line to guide my fringe cutting. Then wrap the fringe around the bottom of the stem. Bend, curl and primp that fringe until it suits you.

Cut one more 1-1/2-inch strip of paper to use for the fringe.

I used my Silhouette to cut some maple leaf shapes. To add texture I ran them through a crimper then spritzed them with a few colors of Glimmer Mist. Pretty!

I cut out some maples leaves, ran them through a crimper and misted them.

Add the leaves (I used three) with glue dots. I also cut some very thin strips of paper, curled them and glued those at the top center.

Use glue dots to add leaves and curly-ques to the top of the pumpkin.

Use hot glue to secure the stem to the base. You’re finished! And you have a beautiful fall decoration to add to your home. 🙂

Once you add your leaves and stem, your pumpkin is complete!

It occurs to me that one last step that could really add a lot to our little pumpkin is to spritz it with a few hits of pearl Glimmer Mist. I may still do that to mine!

You know that if you make one of these I need to see it. Please leave me a comment with a link to your version. I really enjoyed making this little guy, and I hope you’ll give it a try.

Celebrating a little princess

July 30, 2011 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

I was recently talking with my friend, Heather, who mentioned her daughter’s current fascination with all things princess. That sparked a crafty idea in my brain, so I made Sydnie this banner for her bedroom.

I hope my friend's daughter likes her new princess banner. 🙂

I cut the base pennant shape and the lettering on my Silhouette. Then I embossed the background to give it texture and mounted these darling Pebbles Everafter glittered patterned papers on each flag. I topped it with a scalloped strip I punched and tipped each point with a star.

I know a true princess doesn’t need to be reminded of her status, but it doesn’t hurt to remind her subjects. 😉