Photoshop tutorials used (or planned on using but didn't work)

Flame text effect
really cool flame background
flame lines (as seen in Ms. Ciccolo's example)
yin-yang shape
"lomo"-style photo
Custom tutorial
this is based off another tutorial i tried to use but it was really bad. I discovered a better way to do it.
Sick explosion/flame background
1. make two layers.
2. Go to Filters->Render->Clouds on both.
2.5 go to filters->Render->difference clouds on one.
3. Go to image->Adjustments->Gradient Map on both, and set it (from left to right:) black, darkish red, yellow, white (or some kind of yellowish off-white).
4. Set the opacity of the one higher on the list of layers to 50%. Then change it around a little from there to see what looks best.
5. there you go...