it WORKED! whoohoo!! (???)
many thanks again
for those who may be running into the same issues
heres the sequence of what worked for me:
1. Create New Layouts in the Project you want to merge into.
These will be your duplicate layouts from the project your merging from
(i was unsuccessful with simply dragging them over from one project to the other)
2. copy/paste your objects FROM the LAYOUTS FIRST as Ashley indicated.
3. be sure to create objects like mouse, audio, as well as sounds & music (they cannnot be copied by simply selecting the objects from the Layout)
3. Create New Event Sheets in the project you want to copy over to.
4. copy/paste the events to the NEW event sheets you just created.
5. cross your fingers & RUN your new Layouts/Events.
Awesome, btw sounds are automagically? copied