Woodpeckers, Swearing, and all those PDFs

I was walking with the sweet pup the other day and took a route that I haven't taken in a while.  I found this mostly dead :(  tree on the side of the road:

and upon closer look I saw this incredible pattern on the trunk ...

I pretty much thought this must be the work of a very hungry woodpecker ... but he was so NEAT about it ... lining his holes up in a line like that.

After looking up "woodpeckers pecking habits" online, I discovered that many woodpecker species peck in a straight line.

very, very cool!

I don't swear.  At least not out loud.  There may be a lot of swearing going on in my head ... but it doesn't make it to the mouth.  Today was an exception ... when I saw one of the Mercantile Kit projects from one of our lovely DT members ... I swore out loud!  Which is very strange because the swear meant "yowza", but it wasn't "yowza" that came out.  Yes - her projects are that good.

The entire team really ... oh man ... i could go on and on about them ... amazing talent really.  It's mighty humbling to be on a team with them ... and wicked inspiring for sure!

Does anybody else have a TON of scrapbooking PDFs on their hard drive?  And really ... are you reading them all?  I know I don't.  I download ... keep them on my desktop for a while to remind me to look at them ... and later move them to my "drop box" for later reading.  I should read my pdfs more, because I usually LOVE them when I do!

But the ones from Masterful Scrapbook Design I almost always read.  They are the perfect length for a quick read, written so well, and always seem to give me another way of looking at things.  Example:  this month's seminar is on Motifs, and Francine Clouden talks about creating a "personal motif".  Really interesting and a great idea.

that's all for now!

i think today is going to be a scrapping day for me!

hope you have a creative day too!

Looking at Every Single Layout - what i've learned

I learned at ton from my first project  (organizing my layouts and albums)!  As I removed every single layout from their album or pile and placed them in a new home I made some little observations about my scrapbooking and even took notes.  It was a good time to give myself little reminders and inspirations.  Here's what I wrote:

-- i should scraplift myself more

-- i love my layouts with sequins

-- the style of layout that appealed to me most were those with straight lines with a little twist thrown in

-- the layouts i put in the "do over" pile were mostly overdone with embellishments and didn't do the photo or story justice.

-- i used baseball card holders in my layouts way more than i remember

-- i scraplifted (and i'm talking copy and steal) Cathy Blackstone 4 times.

-- i need to scrapbook more baby photos of the boys

This was a great exercise to go through!  I do feel I will learn something from this!  If you feel like you may be in a creative slump, or are struggling every time you try to scrap, try looking at a bulk of your layouts with pencil in hand and take notes.

As a creative exercise, I decided to "do over" one of the layouts in my "do over" pile

The layout wasn't bad really.  Not at all.  There was just something that was bugging me about it.  Way too overdone.   Why not scrap it again anyway - I can keep one and give one away to my sil ...

Here's the "before" layout:

sure there's stuff to like about the layout, but it's just too busy for me ... 

And here's the "after layout" I made using my Jenni Bowlin Artisan Add-On (which SOLD OUT quick!):

Definitely Ranjini inspired, don't you think!  I used extra photos I had from the same day.  And I wanted to keep it simpler.  I love it.  See the sweet little round circles ... ?  That's the Grandma's Doily Punch from Fiskars/Jenni Bowlin.  Lovely versatile little tool!

Now, which layout do I keep and which goes to dear sil?!

thanks for stopping by!
Have a creative day!

Precious Things Safe ...

as I just can't sit still for one minute.  filling little squares with pretty bits and baubles was perfect for the Superbowl.

Old buttons from flea markets and tag sales ...

precious Jenni Bowlin embellishments ...

i just could NOT remove these sweet babies from their card ...

and these are only a small piece of my button collection.

Hello.  My name is Betsy.  And I'm a button hoarder.

(anyone know of a button challenge anywhere?)