Laura Vegas

So, I have a new project up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today. Here's the thing. It's not at all what I set out to originally create. But I did manage to turn it into a happy accident, even though at times I was *THIS* close to giving up.

Kerri offered up a little color challenge to us, if we were interested in playing along. The color choices were grey and aqua, and she had attached some super cute grey and aqua images for inspiration. I loved the idea. But at the same time, I wasn't sure how I would work that on a layout, since I couldn't think of any photos that would go well with it.

Then I had this bright idea to create a 6×6" mini album. I was going to cut a bunch of 6×6" backgrounds, using some of my favorite background cuts from Kerri. I would adhere those all to 6×6" white cardstock pages. I was going to do a "favorites" kind of album, and had some themes picked out for each page, pulling from Kerri's titles/words, and even from some of the free shapes that we get thru her The History Project class. Things like movies, television shows, food, music, etc. On the second page of each spread, I would include a 6×6" photo collage using Kerri's Storyboard Templates, filling in some of the openings with text.

I even Instagrammed this photo of some of the background pieces I was cutting. I cut every single piece from white cardstock to make things simple. Although her challenge was to use grey and aqua, I thought it would be fun to make each spread in the mini album a mix of grey and another color. Grey and aqua on one, grey and yellow on another, grey and green on another, etc. I pulled out my small collection of Heidi Swapp's Color Shine Spritzers, and went to work misting each and every piece with either Tinsel (silver, which was my "grey") or one of the 6 colors that I own in her spritzers.

Then I realized I had time constraints that were working against me. Not enough hours in my day, unfortunately, and I haven't quite figured out how to add more hours yet 😉 So then I thought that instead of the mini album, I would simply create a two page layout, using divided page protectors that have four 6×6" openings on a page. I chose 8 of the 6×6" pieces and laid them all out to work with. Then somewhere along the way, I once again made an executive descision to change my mind switch to a one page layout. Indecisive much???

I chose to go with 4 of the silver background pieces to create the base of the page, and stuck with just the hearts (from the Hearts Background kit) and the circles (from the Background Basics kit).

I had already stapled these background pieces to 6×6" pieces of white cardstock. A few staples in each corner is all that's holding them in place. No extra adhesive used on them. Instead of prying staples up, and removing the background pieces to adhere to a full sheet of white cardstock, I simply adhered those four 6×6" squares to a sheet of scrap cardstock.

Then I picked out another 6×6" piece to add to the center of the page. I loved the yellow sunburst background (from the This & That: Freedom kit), so it was an obvious choice to use. I had also already adhere the "2013" (from the twentyTHIRTEEN kit) and the "me" (a freebie from The History Project class), both of which I had spritzed with the Tinsel color. So those were staying put.

To make that center piece stand out a bit more, I took out some Heidi Swapp banners and pulled out two of the large scalloped banners. They're more like a border I think, since they're straight. I cut each one in half, so I could make a border around my entire center 6×6" piece. I spritzed each one with the Mustard spritzer to match the sunburst.

I added some simple embellishments sprinkled from the top left corner, diagonally down to the bottom right corner. A few fun buttons from Jenni Bowlin, some colored rhinestones from Teresa Collins, and some glittered dots from SEI.

And what I ended up with, working with what I had and with the changes I kept making, was a fun divider page for my All-About-Me album. Which is actually a smart thing to have, since when you look through my All-About-Me albums (I have two, which include any layouts I've created about myself), all of the layouts tend to blend together so easy beause the majority of them don't even have photos on them. I think having a divider to seperate the years will help break up the albums a bit, and give a clear indication of what time in my life I created each layout.

Now I just have to create a lot more of these divider pages. And figure out a way to use all of the other pieces that I cut and spritzed for my original mini album idea 😉