The Kira Nichols Etsy Shop

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Wolfie face Pumpkin! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's halloween, everyone!!! Here's my pumpkin guy for this year.... I wanted to take a little bit more time to plan it, but that didn't happen! So I just did a silly face and then used my linoleum carving tools to make the furry face.
It looks really cool with candles in it, but it was tough to get a good picture of it.
WHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! Happy Halloween!
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Free as a Bird! Papercraft Wall Art

I ended up making something for the craftster challenge after all. The requirements were to make a hanging decoration incorporating patterned/scrapbooking paper. Aside from scrapbooking paper as a material, I used black string and stabilizing old cereal boxes, plus the whole thing it held together with little dabs of hot glue.
To embellish, I lined edges of stuff with various pigment inks...
As you may have noticed, the bird is the same outline as that other bird I made the other day. I didn't want to use the original, but was feeling too lazy to draw up a new original one, so I traced it onto scrapbooking paper. Turned out pretty okay! The back is close to horrendous, but it's the front that counts.
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Blue Bird and Kitty the Lovebird ATC

I was happy to do a little bit more watercoloring last night, So here's what I did:
A little blue bird.... I may cut him out and place him looking into a big monster's mouth, or something. He looks kinda lonely and plain here.
A Kitty ATC (my lovebird is named Kitty, shown here!) I'm trying to get together lots of different artists' interpretations of Kitty for a larger collage piece! So if you feel inclined to doodle, draw, paint or whatever a picture or likeness of Kitty, I would love for you to send it to me! :D
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Brilliantly Colored Swooping Watercolor Bird

Today while my husband was engrossed in videogames, I ducked up to my craft room to paint! I've been thinking about ideas for the craftster.org papercrafting challenge (I have to make something that incorportes patterned paper that also hangs), and I thought maybe I'd do a bird mobile type thingie, with patterned paper raindrops coming from the wings.... I'm not sure if I'm actually going to put something like that together before the deadline, though. We'll see.
I sketched out a flying bird of imaginary origins, and then started painting. I loooove warm and bright colors, so I went with a firey motif. After coloring with my watercolors, I used a sharpie pen to do all the black outlining and details you see. I wish I would have gotten some in-progress shots, but meh. Next time.
Then I cut the birdie out and lined the edges black with a brushpen. Here she is flying with my fish friend.
I actually don't think I'll be making that mobile thing, but rather just mounting the bird on a square of scrapbooking paper with some stickyback foam and then framing it. I haven't committed to a particular sheet yet, though. I'm not sure which I like the best, yet. Does anyone have any opinions on which I should go with? I'm sort of partial to the green....
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Towhee Birdie ATC

Sooo, I stayed up REALLLY late last night and actually slept in until 10. Ridiculous. I'm just hoping that I can fall asleep at a reasonable hour tonight!! Wish me luck...

Oh boy oh boy! Here we have a little ATC with a spotted towhee bird on it... It's just watercolor and sharpie pen with a sheet music border :) Enjoy, and happiest Tuesday to you.
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Resin Bottlecap Fridge Magnets

Aha! I poured a batch of resin bottle caps because I had need of some for a swap or two! I made a set of magnets for my fridge... Here they are holding up an octopus painting that I did for my husband a while back..
Here's a little tip for anyone out there who wants to have a go at making bottle cap stuff: The inside circle picture piece in the bottle cap is precisely the size of a US quarter. Its really helpful when you need to trace something. What I did here was trace a quarter to make little bases out of a cereal box (just like an ATC or inchie base), then papercrafted away. Another thing that is helpful is to hot glue the circle piece in before you pour the resin. Sometimes these can be unexpectantly buoyant in the resin, and it's frustrating when your artwork wants to float up to the top and not be properly covered by the resin....
Here are my favorites. I loooove the funny narwhal, mostly because there was a narwhal in the movie "Elf."
I made more bottle caps that didn't end up becoming magnets, but I'm sure they'll find a place eventually. This shall be my 182nd blogpost, I think, and I'm going to try to do a giveaway every 100th post.... 200 is coming up soon! Maybe I'll do a little variety prize package? :) Stay tuned!
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Ugly Sweater Re-Con into LEGWARMERS!

I got this horrendous sweater at the flea market for $1.00 earlier in the year, and it has been sitting in my stash, waiting to be reconstructed into stuffies, hats, whatever... Well, today is a chilly day, and stubborn as I am, I don't want to turn the heat on. My ankles were feeling a little cold, because I'm lounging in capri pants and only really have ankle socks... I thought, gee, I could use some leg warmers right now. *Lightbulb* With a snip snip snip and a sew sew sew, here are my new legwarmers....
I had to slip on my shoes, because frankly, the legwarmers looked ridiculous with my white socks. Still, they are quite functional even without the shoes on. The sleeve cuff works quite nicely to keep them from falling off or down...My ankles are nice and warm as I blog this blog. (it just occurred to me that my dog is standing next to me in this picture and it also occurred to me how funny it would have been if she were wearing her own set of smaller leg warmers.)
All I did was cut off the sleeves, folded over the raw edge and then sewed a straight-stitched hem a half inch from the edge(I tried to use a zig-zag stitch initially, but it didn't look quite right. The straight stitch won't stretch, but I don't really need it to). For good measure, I added another straight stitch about another half inch up... I wanted to make sure the knittedness of the sweater didn't become unraveled.
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Movable Frog ATC

Hahaha! I swear one of these days, I'm going to write up a tutorial post on various ways to make funny movable ATCs with hidden brads! They're just so fun... Here's a frog I drew, then watercolored, then cut out, then slapped onto an ATC.
Here he is kicking that fish... The fish btw, is just a cutout from an old book, but until I use him on some other papercraft, he's just going to end up in pictures with my movable ATC characters....
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Street Fair here in town....


I went to the Enterprise Fall Festival street fair this morning! It was pretty okay... I was expecting a lot more fresh vegetables and flowers, like a farmer's market, so I was a little disappointed. I also was wishing for kettle corn, but none of that either. It was however, MUCH BIGGER than I had expected! There were a LOT of craft booths, but it was all the same stuff practically... Ribbon hairbows, jewelries, wreathes, candles. Maybe next year I'll share a booth with somebody, and see how my wares fare. I ended up buying a little cinnamon candle, local pecans, and a basket of red and green peppers (making some AWESOME meatloaf tonight.)

Here's the boll weevil monument smack dab in the middle of main street. Here's a little Enterprise, Alabama history for you: I think that this town used to grow tons of cotton or some other crap, but one year there was a plague of boll weevils that demolished the entire crop. So the next year, the farmers of Enterprise decided to grow peanuts instead, just in case the weevils came back. Well, I guess the market was spectacular for peanuts, so the town flourished. Moral of the story, weevils are awesome because they pwn unprofitable garbage.

Aaaaaand.... Yeah, only in the south.
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Woodburned Wooden Spoons with Jellyfish!

This little project was a joint effort between my husband and I! He has been on a quest for a hobby, because he sees all of my different artsy hobbies and gets a little envious when he's bored and I never am :) He bought a woodburner a while back and used it a couple of times, but lost interest because he "can't make up designs."
So I bought him some wooden spoons and drew some sealife doodles on them for him to burn! I think they turned out pretty cool! I got the idea from another artist on craftster who burned seagull silhouettes into some wooden spoons.
On the octopus, you can see where the woodburner was acting up on one of the legs... Unfortunately, the temperature started to go berserk, then the woodburner finally quit. SAD! I'm sure it's easily fixed though, it's gotta just be what? A heating element attached to the on/off switch? We'll see, because I'd have fun making more of these....
So now, my crafts have spread to the kitchen! I'll let you know how they stand up to real usage....
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Watercolor textures! More wondrous colors

Man! I have been SOOOO tired lately! I went to bed a little before 11 last night and when I woke up, I expected it to be around 7 AM like normal, but lo, I looked at my clock and it was almost 9. Why the heck am I sleeping so much??! Plus, I've been super-tired during the day, too! Glarph, I'm so sluggish... It's taking a toll on my creativity....
So I needed a little blast of color last night, and I made more of these watercolor textures for my papercrafting, since I used up everything I had made from last time...
This time I did it on pages ripped from an old book... Watercolor paper was a bit too thick last time.
I love the way watercolors run together and make such pretty effects....
Happy Friday! Here's wishing for a less-fatigued weekend... I guess there's a street fair here in Enterprise tomorrow, so I hope I can wake up in time to go and be inspired! I LOVE street fairs... Maybe there will be some fresh veggies I can buy... YAY
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Movable Papercraft Yeti

Tonight I painted a bunch more watercolor textures for my papercrafting and then made this yeti ATC! His arms are anchored with brads behing the yeti's body, so they are completely movable... Well, movable in two directions: up and down.
"I eat snow food and live in a rainbow cave"
"Oh hi fish! You're pretty cool, let me touch your head for some reason."
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