Laura Vegas

i had a layout go up at kerri bradford designs yesterday. since it's october, i thought it was fitting to create a halloween layout for my project.

at first glance, this might not look like your average halloween layout. there's no orange. there's no purple. there is black, but not mixed with orange and purple. those are the colors normally found in most halloween collections. BUT. my girls don't usually choose costumes in your more traditional halloween colors. so when it comes time to scrap these photos, i definately look for more creative options to use on my layouts.

the great thing about die cutting your own images, is that you can choose the colors and papers that you cut your shapes from. i almost always pull the colors for my layouts, from my photos. these photos of alyssa and sarah, along with their friend amanda, were from two halloween's ago. i pulled the aqua from my girl's costumes, red from amanda's costume, and green from the greenery in the background of the photos.

i started with the grunge diamond background, which is from kerri's new foundations: trick or treat kit.

i used this new aqua patterned paper, from bella blvd's new winter wonder collection. i knew i wanted this background to cover half of my layout. i simply cut the shape twice, both at 6 inches square.

i knew my smaller photos would be covering the background design a bit, so i could cover where the two pieces met. i ended up cutting off a few rows of the diamond background at the last minute, to use on a card.  i love the grungy look to the shape, with the little torn pieces here and there. this cut beautifully on my silhouette.

next up, i knew i wanted to use this spider web, from kerri's this & that halloween: shapes only kit.

i cut the spider web from black cardstock. i wanted it to go from the top to the bottom of the page. but i didn't want the shape to get too wide, since i only had 6 inches across to work with, on that side of the page. so i cut my shape at about 8 inches high. then i just cut off the top 2 inches or so, and adhered the two pieces above and below my photo strip.

i decided on using the "BOO" title, that is also from kerri's this & that halloween: shapes only kit.

i had already added some of this red and green pattern papers to the opposite side of my layout (both by bella blvd). so i cut my "BOO" title from both of those same papers, keeping them the same size. then i adhered the green letters on top of the red letters, using pop dots. i shifted the top letters to the side, just a tad, so that you could see the red letters peeking out from behind. i added a few rhinestones to the letters, to embellish them.

one of my BFF's, lynn ghahary, has a challenge up in the garden at 2peas, for just this sort of idea. to scrap using non-traditional halloween colors. you can see her adorable layout and join in on the challenge HERE.