Pickled Paper Designs: My Favorite Things

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

A "just for fun" card to share today using products from a mix of manufacturers. The darling moose is from Avery Elle's Snow Much Fun, the trees were done with Papertrey Ink's Tiny Town: Holiday Yard dies, and the frame and stitched lines were done with the Stitched Strip Die-namics by My Favorite Things.

I adore this little fella, and colored him with Copics in some bright and fun colors.

The Stitched Strip Die-namics die that I used for the criss-cross stitched lines reminded me of the lines ice skates leave in ice.

I used the holes from the Tiny Town: Holiday Yard trees as falling snow.

And the postage frame was done with Avery Elle's Postage Stamp Elle-ments die set.

I'm linking this one up to the current Christmas Critters Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, February 19, 2016

You Color My World

I'm up on the My Favorite Things blog again today. Thank you, MFT, for having me as your guest!

Mid-February is an ideal time to fall in love all over again with florals, and the new Large Desert Bouquet from My Favorite Things is a perfect way to coax spring out of hiding. Today, I've played with some ink blending, stamping, and splattering to create some lush background greenery for my bright blooms. First I stamped the leaves randomly in two corner clusters, then sponged on some light blue and turquoise inks, fading to white toward the top. Last, I splattered with green, teal, and white. I used Gansai Tambi watercolors and a paintbrush for the splatter. Because they are thicker paints, the splatter spots hold their color well, especially for the darker colors. You can mix your own colors and control the intensity depending on how much water you add, too.

Next I stamped and die-cut a flower assortment in some pretty, bright colors and arranged them over the corner leaf clusters. Along the bottom is a petite scalloped border and some black and white baker's twine.

The sentiment is white embossed on vellum and stitched into place.

Have a great weekend, friends!

Thursday, February 18, 2016

So Lucky You're My Friend

I'm super excited to be guest designing for My Favorite Things! You'll find me on the MFT blog today and tomorrow.

I've got a couple of goodies whipped up using their fabulous February release. For today, I have a sweet and simple friendship card using the Stitched Rainbow Die-namics along with the Lucky stamps and Lucky Die-namics dies. I love making cards with rainbows! I find with all of that color, it makes sense to keep the rest of the card simple, so rainbows can be an especially good option for quick cards and multiples.

I die-cut the Stitched Rainbow from watercolor paper and did some loose watercoloring in rainbow colors. I love the whimsical look of the watercoloring. I offset the assembled rainbow on a white card stock panel, popped up some cloud die-cuts from the Lucky Die-namics set, then trimmed off the overhang before layering onto a white, top-fold card base.

I love the sentiments in Lucky and am having serious font envy. As in, I totally want my handwriting to look JUST like that! Isn't it just so fun and charming?! I stamped the friendship sentiment in black ink onto the white card panel for a nice, crisp look.

With clean and simple cards, often the appeal is in the small details. Here, I've added a few wood veneer stars around the sentiment. The machine-stitched borders are another subtle detail that packs a whole lot of punch.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Friday, January 29, 2016

May Your Day Bubble Over With Fun

As promised, another Soda Pop card to share today. I can almost taste the fizzy, sweet, fruity soda!

The Soda Pop stamp set and companion die sets, Soda Pop Bottles and Bottlecaps are part of Laina Lamb's product line at My Favorite Things.

My rainbow of sodas was inspired by so many others: Laurie Willison, Yoonsun Hur, Donna Mikasa, Mayuri, and this super yummy ice cream soda bar by Eat Drink Chic.

I tied the die-cut drinking straws onto the bottles, as you might see as part of a birthday party spread, then added simple stamped sentiments above and below and a strip of polka dot paper along the bottom to ground everything.

The sleeve portion of the bottle labels are die-cut from vellum for that translucent look, and the circle images are stamped on Bottlecaps die-cuts. I love that they work as labels or as bottle caps.

Not sure how I managed to get my rainbow out of order. I'm going with RYOGB today! (And by the way, I think getting my candy corn colors out of order was FAR more egregious!)

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Everything You Dew

I have a super fun card to share today, but first, the backstory:

My husband worked tirelessly throughout last weekend's big storm snow-blowing our driveway and trying not to fall too far behind (we got 34 inches in about as many hours!). In the aftermath, he helped some of the neighbors open their driveways, cleared a path to the mailbox, removed snow from our porch roof, and countless other snow-related things that needed doing. Honestly, if it were up to me, we'd still be snowbound -- sad truth.

My husband also happens to love Mountain Dew.

And I happen to have the perfect products for the perfect thank-you for him: Soda Pop stamps and Soda Pop Bottles and Bottlecaps dies from My Favorite Things. These products, designed by Laina Lamb for MFT, are so unique and fun and playful, especially with all the different soda-related sentiments and puns.

I wanted to capture that wholly unnatural neon yellow-green color of Mountain Dew, which I was able to do with Twisted Citron and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Inks. I created a fizzy background by sponging on the two inks, then splashing with water and letting the ink move around and blend a little. Last, I added a light mist using Twisted Citron ink.

The sentiment is white embossed, half on black card stock and half on a strip of torn vellum. I sponged ink on the pop bottle die-cuts, then added the label details and die-cut straws. I kept the accents minimal -- just a few wood veneer stars.

My husband loved his card!

And I had so much fun making it that I decided to make a second one in different colors and with a different sentiment: