Happy February everyone! It’s a new month, which means time for new wallpaper for your desktop and phone! This month we’re offering two new designs from The Good Twin – including a fun ’80s-inspired squiggle! – and some seasonally-appropriate inspiration Christie Montague Designs. Enjoy!
For personal use only. All illustrations by The Good Twin and Christie Montague for Oh So Beautiful Paper
Hard to believe January is almost over! We’re digging out from under a mountain of snow here in DC, and as I shovel snow for the umpteenth time my thoughts go, naturally, to warmer destinations and Tiki cocktails. Since we’re still on the subject of mocktails this month, we created an Apricot Tiki Mocktail recipe to share with all of you. Can we all agree to #TikiTheSnowAway? – Andrew
Apricot Tiki Mocktail
1 1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz Orgeat
1/2 oz Falernum Syrup
1/2 oz Coconut Chai Tea
1 tbsp Apricot Preserves
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Combine everything in a cocktail shaker filled two-thirds with ice and shake well. Finely strain – using a Hawthorne strainer with a tight coil (like this one) or a tea strainer to remove any solids from the apricot preserves – into a glass filled with fresh crushed ice. Garnish with mint and enjoy!
Tiki cocktails enjoy a deep bench of flavors – tart citrus, grassy sugarcane, sweet tropical fruits, nuts and flowers, exotic spices, you get the idea – which makes them an ideal source of inspiration for mocktails. You don’t need to worry as much about losing depth of flavor when you take alcohol out of the picture when you have all these layers of flavor playing out in your mocktail.
Apricot is a flavor that, somewhat surprisingly, also shows up in quite a few Tiki drinks, including classics like the Zombie. Here, it adds a bit of summery fruit, but the preserves also help to thicken the drink and give it a more convincing mouthfeel. (The last thing you want is for your mocktail to feel like a glass of sweetened lime juice.)
We included tea in our mocktail, which adds spice and, more importantly, an astringency that mocktails tend to lack. A coconut chai tea is something you can probably make at home, but Owl’s Brew makes a really tasty one you can get by the bottle.
(Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, where we’ve been posting our experiments before they make their way onto this column!)
Glassware by Liquorary
Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper
Happy Friday everyone! We’re still digging out from a TON of snow here in DC. But we’ve done all the snow things – sledded, built snowmen, thrown snowballs – and the girls have loved it! This is Alice’s first real winter and she seems particularly enamored by the snow. She loves carrying little snowballs around with her and uses a little sand scoop to shovel snow, which is so ridiculously cute. I’ll be honest though, I’m looking forward to the snow melting when we get some warmer weather later this weekend! But in the meantime…
Photo by A Petal Unfolds
…a few links for your weekend!
This week on Oh So Beautiful Paper:
That’s it for me this week! Stay tuned for another mocktail recipe this afternoon! If you missed it, last week’s Winter Fruit Mocktail (with sparkling grapefruit) was seriously delicious. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday! xoxo
I just adore Ashkahn‘s cards. I seriously wanted to include every single one of his designs in this quick pick round up! The cards manage to be sweet and irreverent at the same time without going overboard in either direction, and even when the cards are irreverent they come from a place of love and totally make me smile. I love the minimalist designs – usually hand lettering or a simple line illustration – paired with a whimsical neon pink envelope. Ashkahn incorporates a lot of metallic foil into his collection, including gold foil and iridescent silver foil, while other cards are letterpress printed in crisp black ink on white cotton paper. So so good!
More cards and stationery from Ashkahn right here!
Today I’m thrilled to introduce a brand new column on Oh So Beautiful Paper: The World of Illustration! I’m completely fascinated by and enamored with illustration – and there are so many amazingly talented illustrators that I’ve been hoping to feature in a more meaningful way here on Oh So Beautiful Paper. And we’re finally making it happen! I’ve enlisted Julie (who already authors our fantastic calligraphy column) to profile the work of a different talented illustrator each month. Here’s a little sneak peek of what you can expect to see in the coming months! – Nole
The world of paper leaves many possibilities for art and beauty. We see so many shining examples here on Oh So Beautiful Paper with the stationery and paper goods we showcase. This is why I’m so pleased to be sharing a new column with our readers that puts the spotlight on the amazing world of illustration! We’re going to dip our toe in today as I share a few inspirations of late; hopefully this will get you all as excited as I am for this new feature. – Julie
Left: Tammie Bennett; Right: Emilie Ely
Left: Jen Collins; Right: Zanna Goldhawk
