Laura Vegas

i have a kerri bradford studio layout to share today, that just went up on her blog. kerri has a birthday this week, and decided that it was only fitting to have a celebration on her blog as well. as her design team, it was our fun job to help out with the party and make some pretty things to share. decorations, you could say. lol! we were asked to focus on happiness. create projects, based on something that makes us happy.

there are a lot of things that make me happy in life, like my family and friends. since i scrapbook about them all the time, i thought i would do a fun layout about something else that makes me really happy. music. i L-O-V-E music. whether i have it playing on the radio in the car, on my IPod while i'm scrapping, on ITunes when i'm working on the computer, or when my girls have it playing in their rooms. if there is music playing, i can guarantee you that you will find me singing along, boppin' in my chair, or dancing around the house.

i love all kinds of music, but i wanted to focus on my love of country music for this layout. i did google searches, to find photos of some of my favorite artists and groups, and printed them out in one of kerri's fabulous digital templates, from her storyboard #1 kit. the trick to finding great photos, is to look for larger sized images. if you are wanting to print them, you want a good quality photo. i had quite a few that just didn't work out, since they got super blurry when i made them big enough for the collage. 

i left one of the spots in the template empty, since i knew i was going to add my title there. I always leave the grey there (or whatever color the templates show), so that i can measure how big i need to cut my papers, to fit over the spot.

i trimmed up some pattern paper to fit the space. and then i used my silhouette, to cut out the "totally happy", from kerri's say what #1 kit, from both brown and red cardstock. i love to point out my "oops" moments. see that second "P"? i lost the little inside piece, cut from the brown cardstock. i was being so careful, and i lost it. so i just used a brown pen to color the red cardstock.

i made sure to choose photos that coordinated nicely with each other, and with the color scheme i was going for. it started with the photo of lady antebellum. i loved the rich, deep colors in the photo. so i made sure to find photos of the other artists/groups, in simliar, darker colors. this layout is a quick glance at the faces behind the music, that makes me happy!

isn't this fancy scroll border so gorgeous? honestly, this isn't something i would normally pick out on my own. i knew i wanted to add a fun border design on each side of my photo collage. this is from kerri's borderlines #2 kit, and when i saw it, i knew it was the perfect style to go with my layout. and check out the detail in this little 7 inch border (you can make it whatever length you want. mine happened to be 7 inches). amazing detail, and it cut out like butter on the silhouette. i cut all four of these at once, and ran them through my "X" xyron sticker-maker, to adhere them.

this layout is really layered, and i love it. my pattern papers were both from bella blvd, and i choose some coordinating cardstock colors from american crafts. what you can't see, is that i cut out the inside pieces from the blue, white, and green cardstock. just a paper saving trick. if i only need a small border of the blue cardstock to show, why use an entire sheet? same with the white. and the green. i cut my papers to size, and then i cut out a square from the inside, leaving 1-2 inches all the way around. no one will ever know. except all of you 😉

make sure and keep your eye on kerri's blog this week, for all the other good stuff going on. just yesterday, she put up some really fun new templates. i think i'll have to use a few of them on my next layout, for later this month 😉