Laura Vegas

A little over seven months ago, I had shared a birthday party layout that I had created for Kerri Bradford Studio. It was a two page layout, with one of those pages being a full 12×12" photo collage. I had actually created some photo collages for another birthday party layout at the same time, with the intention of scrapping it to share shortly after the first one. But life happened, and I never got around to it. And then it got pushed to the side and forgotten about.

Well, I dug out those photo collages a few weeks ago, and set about scrapping them. These photos are from Alyssa's 14th birthday party, which was about three and a half years ago. She had her party at Boomers, which is a local fun and games spot that has miniature golf, go-karts, rock climbing, water boats, and an arcade. All of these photos were taken by Alyssa's dad, while I did all the editing. I love that they're so bright and colorful!

Quite a while ago, I had received some Echo Park collection paper packs, and one of them was the Happy Days collection. At first glance, it might not have been something that I would get much use out of. But I specifically set it aside, with these photos in mind. And I'm glad I did, because it ended up working out perfectly.

I ended up creating two photo collages for this two page spread. I did a full 12×12" photo collage, which has fourteen photos on it. I then created a smaller photo collage, which has eight photos on it. So on this one two page spread, I was able to include 22 photos!! Both photo collages were created using template from Kerri Bradford's Storyboard #7 kit.

I was originally going to die cut some little banner pieces from the patterned papers in the collection kit. However, the sticker sheet that came with it had an entire row of these fun little banner stickers, which tied all of the colors in from the striped patterned paper strips that I added above and below the photos. I embellished a few of them by adding coordinating enamel dots.

Once again, I choose a chunky font word and a cursive font word to combine for my title. I cut both of them from black cardstock, and then from my aqua and red patterned papers. I adhered them all together, slightly offsetting the black cardstock cuts to help the patterned paper cut stand out. I don't always remember to do this, but when I do, I really like how much it can add to my titles.

I used a few additional stickers to round out my title. The "special" arrow came from the Echo Park sticker sheet, and then I dug around my stash for the small number and letter stickers to match. I added a few more enamel dots for good measure.

Random tidbit: I recently came into a huge assortment of enamel dots, using some product credit I had for recent published work. So I had joked to a few friends that I would be adding enamel dots to EVERYTHING I create 🙂

This is the exact same template that I used on that original birthday party layout, which was one of Sarah's many swimming parties. I like that it has a good mix of vertical and horizontal openings, with both small and larger openings. When I create larger photo collages, I have them printed at Costco. It's super convenient for me, since it's only about 2 miles from my house. 

There were some fun tab style stickers on the sticker sheet and I thought I would add them here and there to my photo collages. It was a really simple way to embellish the collage, which is really one of the two "pages" in this layout spread. I also adhere these 12×12" layouts to a sheet of cardstock, just to make them a little more sturdy.

These types of layouts are some of my favorites to scrap. I know sometimes it's overwhelming to scrap events or moments that have a TON of photos. But I also LOVE that I can take an event with a ton of photos, use a ton of those photos, and document it on a simple two page spread. It always feels really good to get these types of layouts done and in the books.