hot, hot, hot!

it's a timely challenge this week at shopping our stash, we're feeling, "hot, hot, hot" so we'd love to see something summery/weather-related OR perhaps you prefer your heat in the kitchen (cooking or baking) OR in a restaurant via chilli peppers or other spicy treats? be creative and have fun!

colorburst backgrounds painted on strathmore watercolor paper diecut with heidi swapp's memorydex dies; pink paper scraps of far too many origins to list, but luckily ANY pink paper would work; texture sand and tiny blossoms: little birdie; crowns: jolees stickers or diecuts with eyelet outlet bling; lots and lots of random letter stickers from... well, everywhere, lol! adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, nuvo deluxe adhesive

 
i went all beachy, mostly because i was in the mood to paint with my colorbursts AND i had an awesome new flamingo die from stephanie that i was longing to test drive! everything else is pretty ancient stash, and very mixy-matchy. my junk journal junkies group at paper anthology has been having a series of memorydex swaps, for which this month's theme was "queen bee". in this case the "bee" became "beach" (say them both fast, lol!)

if you're looking for the perfect colorburst "recipe" for the easiest watercolor beach background ever, may i suggest a nice big brush and some yellow ochre with just a teeny touch of sepia for the sand? leave a tiny hairline of dry paper (or wait for the beach to dry completely) then paint a strip of rich turquoise ocean. when that's nearly-- but not quite entirely dry-- come in from the top with a clean brush and some rather diluted cerulean sky, but let it overlap the turquoise a bit, so that you get that nice blendy horizon line. for bonus points, after everything is BONE dry, use an old brush (or your finger) to swipe a little bit of liquid adhesive (i love nuvo deluxe!) randomly across the beach and sprinkle on some texture sand! warning, this is a bit addictive, you probably won't be able to stop at ONE!

when it was time to add my flamingos, my SOS "use what you have" ethic really kicked in. so i assure you that NO large pieces of paper were cut into for this project, i just raided the pink scraps file and used up lots and lots of tiny leftover bits! then i mixed and matched the prints to assemble eight uniquely lovely "beach queens"! this spellbinders die is absolutely awesome and has just the perfect amount of detail, there are even two different styles of legs. i cut some facing in each direction-- so technically YES, some of my cuts are "backwards" --but i like the variety. my only tiny complaint is that there is no separate die for the beak, so i handcut teeny pieces of black paper. btw, did you realize that flamingos' legs are also a pinkish shade? (thank you mr. google for settling that for me!)

when it was time to add my sentiment, i realized i didn't have enough of any one type of sticker for all of them, so i mixed and matched. my crowns are half a package of jolee's stickers and a few tim holtz diecuts adorned with fancy eyelet outlet bling.  

there are lots more ideas awaiting you from the HOT MAMAS of the sos design team. why not treat yourself to some inspiration? ♥