The Kira Nichols Etsy Shop

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It's a rainy day, fox.

Rain, rain.
I needed to sew something kinda happy.... So here is a quirky little fox. One of his eyes are a little wonky, but meh! He's made out of that angora I made the matryoshka stuffie out of. For him, I used the furrier side of the angora.
Ah, the rain! It's nice because it reminds me of home....but it makes me miss home, too. Gah, I can't wait till Christmas! I'll be headed back to the good old PNW.
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Mr. Bear wuld like sum noms, plz.

I didn't do an art journal page yesterday, so I knew I had to do a good one today. This is Mr. Bear in acrylic paint and he is excited and delighted to have a treat. I just love his little teeth...
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Felt Flower Barrettes + Silliness

I decided to make something quickie today and made these little felt flower barrettes. This one is supposed to look a little like an orchid. They are really easy to make. I aughta post a tute one of these days.
Another.
Here are some action shots. I couldn't seem to get the right face to show it off, so here are several.
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Motherlode of Buttons



After physical therapy this morning, I knew I had some good time to kill before my husband woke up. I thought, hey! Why not go to that thrift store? The last time I went, I found all those crafting mags, but didn't have ample time to peruse the rest of the store.
Bingo. There was a huge ziploc FULL of buttons for $2.00. Now, two bucks is on the high end of what I'll spend on a single find, mind you, but the sheer amount of buttons was breathtaking and irresistable.
This HAD to have been a seamstress' stash. I don't really have any immediate ideas as to what to do with them, but I know I'll figure SOMETHING out. If anyone reading this has any ideas, feel free to shout them out in a comment!
There were a lot of generic white pearl buttons, but these are my faves. There were even some teeny tiny buttons (next to the gold).
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Wercome to Asia

Here's my art journal offering for the day. A couple of nights ago, I found some of my oooold paper stuff from highschool. Amongst it, about 5 sheets of vintagey collage prints!!! How flippin' awesome. I barely had any memories of these, so I must not have known what to use them for and thus had no appreciation for them. 2 sheets are antique asian themed! So why not make an Asian journal page? The fortune cookie message (a real one) says, "Go for the gold today! You will be the champion of whatever!"
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One-Lion-Drawing... Hur hur hur


So this is what I did for my art journal page today. I've always been intrigued by one-line drawings, but whenever I'd try them, I'd end up cheating. I figured if I used string, I couldn't cheat without doing so incredibly blatantly... I like the right hand side of the spread, but almost hate the left side. Maybe I'll add more to it once I have better ideas.
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Fabric-Covered Accordion Book

Meh, not really the colors or style I'd usually do, but hey. I made this as an example for a YW activity tomorrow night. Pretty much, I made an accordion book by covering two rectangles of cardboard with cloth, then putting some paper in there.
I used another one of those felt flowers as an embellishment! This is my favorite part... Probably because I just like felt :D
This pic doesn't really show all the paper in there, there's quite a bit more.
For the yarn closure, I used the trusty hot glue gun and a button to conceal the glue blob. Sooooo, with any luck, the girls will make a couple of these for the activity tomorrow and not absolutely hate it (gotta love that teenage i-hate-everything angst, right?)
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Cute lil Monsters Holding Baby Animals

I made these little creatures a while ago! I was surprised to see that I hadn't posted them yet.
To make them, I just used my watercolors on watercolor paper to make textures and colorful patterns.
Next, I drew the monster shapes (body, arms, tail) and then cut them out. Add stickers, draw on the eyes and mouth, then used Elmer's glue to stick on the arms.
Voila! Cute little monsters. I've used one on a notecard, but you could add sticky foam to make a sticker or scrapbooking embellishment.
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Another beaded bird ornament

I did much more beading on this one. You can't really tell that it's a bird, but I couldn't care about that today...
Flowers!
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I will miss you, Gramma...

This is an art journal entry for my wonderful Grandma who passed away this Saturday. I'm really going to miss her.
Lilly Kay True
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Three Amigos

So, I know this is really random, but I made this tiny hat a long time ago, and today I let my sun conure, Peanut, play with it. He loves to munch crocheted yarn for some reason. Doesn't this remind you of the Disney Three Amigos cartoon?
Yeah, the guy on the far left. Lol, right?

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Beaded bird ornament

BORING! This is all I had time to craft today...It was a pretty emotionally crazy day, I'll leave it at that. I got some awesome fabric to make some throw pillows with 6 different bird designs on it, then it also has the same designs very tiny on the edges. I'm not sure what the tiny images are for, but I figured they would make good ornaments. I just hand beaded/sequined this to make it a little more colorful, put in a layer of batting, then whip-stitched it closed. It's pretty cute, but not that exciting. I think I'm going to focus on making some more stuffies and art journal pages this week. Hopefully I have the energy :

Anyhoo, happy week to everyone! To all the five people out there that actually read this little blorg! (you are much appreciated)
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Fishy Thank You Card

Made this thank you card this morning for a lady in our ward. I used some of the paper I handmade for the speech bubble, and watercolored the fish...
Used one of the envelopes I made out of an atlas, then just painted it with watercolor to make it look a little better. It's a meh project, but I think I'm going to go see the new HP movie today, and I don't know if I'll be able to make much else today to post! Oh and here's a little something for Caturday:

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The thrift store bears FRUIT!

Went to a new thrift store today! I didn't have much time to look around, as I had to get home, BUT! I think this is going to be an excellent place for old books for papercrafting. Good book stock, and the book section is an absolute MESS. I feel devious thinking about it, because it's so horribly cluttered and exploded that I think it discourages many people from thorough browsing. That leaves more for me (BWahahaHAhahah!)
But hey! I found this generous stack of various crafting magazines for 25 cents each. I was delighted! When I got home, I immediately added up all the cover prices on the magazines (I've looked at these mags on the rack before and gawked at the prices, vowed never to pay that much... $5.99?! For a mag?!! Really?!) Well, cover prices, added up was close to $65.00!!! Fetch! I got this stack for flippin' $2.75! WHAT!!!
Then! Not as good of a deal, but still a find.... this set of wooden nesting boxes for $1.50. My mind was turning with so many ideas to alter these boxes! But I may keep one of them with the stupid kitty on the front because how weird is a baby cat with a little outfit on? With a balloon? Lol. Well, that's all. NO WAIT! I also bought a Pokedex for 25 cents :D
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A thorough tidying....

My craft room, along with much of my home, has been a complete blast area for the last couple of weeks. I cleaned downstairs yesterday, soooo today it was time to tidy the craft room. I wish I would have gotten more before pics, because this place was a junk yard. You can't even see all the tiny little scrappy crap all over the floor.
So in lieu of much crafting tonight, this is the fruit of my labors. Haha, I wish the change was more dramatic. Rather, it still looks mighty cluttered.
I blame this on my desperate need for a book shelf. Maybe you can see the abundance of cardboard boxes acting as makeshift shelves and storage.

So that's my post for today. Super boring. Not to say I didn't do ANY crafting today... I crocheted something that will end up being a gift, so I'm going to hold off on posting the project. OH! And I went to a new thrift store and found some decent crap! I guess I'll put that stuff in a new post, bcoz it's so much easier that way....
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