vintage photos

2017 top ten blog hop and giveaway

December 27, 2017 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 33 Comments

Well, this is fun! I’m delighted to be joining a group of like-minded scrapbook enthusiasts to review our ten favorite layouts from the year. And if you read through to the end of the post, you’ll find details about my giveaway (open until January 3 at midnight CST).

Here is the list of participants so you can hop along and see them all:

Christine Meyer
Kathy Skou
Kathleen Graumüller
Teri Anderson
Susie Bentz
Janice Daquila-Pardo > That’s me!
Giorgia Rossini
Laurel Seabrook
Aimee Kidd
Mary Ann Jenkins
Keren Tamir
Lee-Anne Thornton
Heather Leopard
Tifany DeGough
Sue Eldred
Melissa Elsner
Laura Whitaker
Anita Mulcahey
Ashley Smith
Simone Schermann
Shelly Kurth
Monique Liedtke
Suzanna Lee
Marcia Dehn-Nix
Laura Cox
Irit Shalom
Nicole Martel
Carolyn Johnson
Tenia Nelson
Samantha Taylor
Rebecca Keppel
Judy Hayes
Isha Gupta
Traci Penrod
Tracy McLennon
Karen Hunter
Lyne Blodgett
Anna Sigga
Lisa Moen
Kat Benjamin
Wendy Antenucci

And now here are my top ten favorite pages from the past year (in chronological order):

I love this one because even with all those beautiful patterns and colors, our girl’s eyes still steal the show. She’s a stunner.

This one was fun to make because I was able to work in so many references to Disney, including those Mickey ears in the top left.

Hector was a turtle we found strolling down our busy street and scooped up so we could take him to a nearby pond. I like the simplicity of this page, allowing the story to be told by the patterned papers.

This page makes me happy because of the cute picture of my hubby and how the patterns and embellishment clusters work together. It’s a little bit masculine (but not too much!).

Again, I think I like this page because of the interplay of patterns and colors, not to mention that super sweet photo of my cousins on Easter morning 1968.

I love using bright colors and modern patterns with vintage photos…like this one of my mom on her 1965 honeymoon.

This photo of me is one I’ve had printed for ages, awaiting the right inspiration to hit. Once I found the unusual and beautiful color combination in this collection, it came together easily. I’m so pleased to have it recorded.

If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed that I love to mix lots of patterns on my pages. That, and the fact that I fit four decent sized photos on it, makes me quite happy with this one.

This page turned out just as I imagined it, which is such a joy for a crafter, isnt’ it? It was so much fun to die cut all those leaves and arrange them.

This photo of my dad reading a Christmas story to us is of such a wonderful memory that I had to do something special to record it. I love how all these bits of patterned paper came together to create my diamond focal point.

And that’s my year in review

Thank you so much for stopping by my spot on the blog hop. If you would like to leave a comment and tell me if you have a favorite from my list, I would love to read it! Comments are always so appreciated.

Giveaway

I just created an Instagram account (I’m so late to the game, I know)! So, if you would like to be included in my drawing for a $15 GIFT CARD to the Paper Issues Store, please follow me on Instagram (@theconstantscrapper) and then leave me a comment on this post with your Insta account to let me know you did and so that I can follow you back. I will leave this giveaway open for one week (January 3) and announce a winner on January 4th!

Please note: I must approve comments for them to appear, so please don’t worry if your comment doesn’t post immediately. I will be checking and approving comments often.

To continue the blog hop in order, head over to Giorgia Rossini’s site.

Happy New Year!

The Melodeon: DT layout for Stuck?! Sketches

December 15, 2017 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

Today Stuck?! Sketches launches our second challenge of December! Grab the sketch and play along for prizes from Creative Embellishments and Scrapbook Nerd.

The story

One of our family holiday traditions that I cherish was having Daddy select and read a Christmas story to us. He sat in a comfy chair, and we all piled near him on the couch to listen. It usually took a few nights to complete one, and he always tried to time it so the last installment fell on Christmas Eve.

Over the years we heard some delightful tales. But our favorite by far was The Melodeon by Glendon Swarthout. The description of this book on Amazon is so simple:

A youngster relates how his grandparents donated a valuable family heirloom, their melodeon, to the church in an unselfish act of giving one Christmas during the Depression when they had nothing to give each other.

The story is so beautifully told, detailed, and emotional that it made our hearts swell. We felt we were with them in the deep cold of winter during the Depression. And the feelings it evoked have stayed with me all these years.

Product/technique notes

I die cut diamonds from the Pink Paislee Snow Village 6×6 paper pad, inked the edges with iced spruce distress ink, and placed them against a background paper from the Bo Bunny Christmas Collage collection. The die cuts are from both the Snow Village and Simple Stories Classic Christmas collections. To create a cut file for the title, I found an image of the book cover and traced it in the Silhouette software.

Too cute to spook

October 30, 2017 By Janice Daquila-Pardo Leave a Comment

The story

In 1972 my brother and I were fortunate to have had Mom as our pre-school/kindergarten teacher! She held class in our basement and taught the two of us and several of her friends’ children who were all of the same age. We always had parties for the various holidays throughout the year, and this photo from our Halloween party shows Phil as Superman, Andrea as Little Bo Peep, and me as Tinkerbell. Squee, so cute!

Product/technique notes

I used several patterns from the Jillibean Soup Witches Brew 6×6 paper pad to create my “quilt” design, then I backed it all with the owl and moon patterned paper from My Mind’s Eye. I stamped the bats (from a Recollections Halloween stamp set) over the moon and added google eyes to the title.

Halloween masquerade: DT layout for Stuck?! Sketches

October 15, 2017 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 1 Comment

Today Stuck?! Sketches launches our second challenge of October. Grab the sketch and play along for prizes from Lindy’s Stamp Gang and Scrapbook Nerd.

The story

I met Christian as soon as I started grad school at Ohio University in 1993, and we dated throughout my program, which ended in summer 1994 (both my program and our relationship, as it happens). At first he was in the creative writing master’s program, but he eventually took a break from it and got a full-time job in town. His boss was a bit of a big wig in Athens at the time because he owned several businesses, so we were excited to be invited to the big Halloween party he threw at his home.

Rather than scrape together homemade or Goodwill costumes, we decided this event warranted a splurge, so we rented matching costumes that were supposed to represent a couple from the Renaissance period. What fun we had!

Product/technique notes

Most of the products I used are from Echo Park’s Chillingsworth Manor collection. The witch’s head embellishment is by K&Co.

Hello GR8

September 30, 2017 By Janice Daquila-Pardo 2 Comments

The story

Phil and I went to grade school from first through eighth grade at Immaculate Conception School in Willoughby, Ohio. Although we wore uniforms throughout the rest of the year, we were always allowed to dress up for the first day of class. This was our first day of eighth grade. Can you get over how skinny we were?

Product/technique notes

I used patterns from the Shimelle Go Now Go collection. The chipboard is from Crate Paper, and the glitter alphas are Thickers. I based my layout on this sketch from The ScrapRoom:

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