Hot Dog Casserole

I'm not sure I'm happy with this one. I was trying to give it a "hot" feel, and the only thing on the page that's hot is the orange paper! The green paper was blue & green and I adjusted the hue/saturation to warm it up to this green & orangy-brown. I love Ursula's dotted background paper from the Birds & Eggs collection, but it doesn't do much to add to the hot look. I did put Melanie's orange Canada paper over it with the "saturation" blending mode to brighten & warm it up.

Really, it looks overall more fun. And since this is a hot dog meal, I decided that fun was just as good as hot! LOL!

To make the word "HOT" fit the arrow, I typed it and adjusted it to lay over the arrow where I wanted it. Then I used the "warp text" feature in PSE 7 and chose "bulge." Then I played with the variables until it fit the arrow. It has 0 bend, +21 horizontal distortion, and 0 vertical distortion.

To make the shadow on the ribbon look more realistic I duplicated the ribbon and made the shadow on the top copy appropriate for the sections of the ribbon that are laying right on the page (so very small). On the bottom copy I added a shadow that was wider and softer, appropriate for the parts of the ribbon that are looped up over the page. Then with the eraser tool I erased the sections of the lower ribbon that are next to the page (in other words, where I didn't want the wider shadow). This is similar to a technique taught in a recent newsletter (making shadows more realistic when the object is laying over something with thickness - I'm sorry I forget who taught it) and that's where I got the idea to do what I did.

Supplies:

layout template - BVA Recipe Pages (letter)

papers - USC Birds and Eggs; MJO Canada; KSC Beaute Botanique

ribbons - BMU Ribbons To Go embellishment templates

arrow - SNU Resolutions

buttons - KSC Beaute Botanique Zoom Pages; ABR Scenic Route

styles - CBA Grunged Metals 4101

fonts - Exmouth; Oksana