The Kira Nichols Etsy Shop

Plenty more to see at kiranichols.etsy.com! Bookmarks, planner clips, digital stamps, ornaments, and many more unique gifts. Thanks for supporting this artist!

Nothin' new, just some owls.


All of my craft room is in shambles over at the new place, nothing is organized, and I still am stuck here at the old place with no supplies. Let me tell you, it can drive a person nuts. But I thought I'd post a collection of owl projects I've done over the past year.








I loves me some owls. I hope you enjoy them too... BTW I'm going nuts with ideas of crafts I want to be doing, but can't. I'm in for an art explosion once the move is over and I have access to all my supplies...



Yes it are my birthday :)

Aghhhh! Moving! No time to craft!!! Sorry to everyone for the lack of updating. I should be getting back to my normal crafting schedule in two weeks or so. Anyhoo, TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY! And to celebrate, here's my favorite lolcat. Happy Sunday!
Posted by Picasa

Altoids Tin Love Shrine

We got the keys to our new place today! (Nope, not buying yet!) Tonight will be the last night that my craft room will be in one piece for a couple of weeks, so I just HAD to make something... I was totally digging all the awesome love shrines happening in the craft world this month, I couldn't resist.
I wish I could get a better picture of this sweet birdy pair I watercolored! The colors just are getting washed out... They are really golden with a rich pink on the throats and tails. The branches are from some little plant here in Alabama, I have no idea what it's called. The acorn-looking thingies are seed pods and the little seeds shake out all over the place.
And of course, the "love" is made from wire :) I haven't finished the outside yet, but I'll be sure to share once I do! Happy Tuesday!!!
Posted by Picasa

First Blanket Ever.... Size FAIL

So, the women in my church are making blankets for Project Linus for this year's ongoing service project. A bunch of fabric and yarn was donated to us that needs to be sewn, knitted, and crocheted into blankets. I'm working on crocheting a blanket, but it's taking a long time, so I thought I'd try my hand at sewing.
Now, this is my first blanket ever, so I guess I kind of have an excuse, but.... I didn't even think about seam allowances and the blanket kind of just kept getting smaller. So it only ended up being 32''x26" instead of 39''x32". FAIL. I'm reasoning that it's not a complete loss, because it cooould be used for a newborn baby.
Anyways, I sewed on a little kitty cat to add a personal touch. I'm overall happy with how it looks and how it turned out. If only I had thought ahead and had it turn out bigger, I'd be 100% pleased. Well, at least I learned something. Hopefully, I should be done with my crocheted blanket of the correct size in 3 weeks or so. I want to try to make at least one blanket for every month this year.

Well, we get the keys to our new place tomorrow, so we're going to be starting the moving process. I probably won't be updating as often as usual over the next 2-3 weeks which is a bummer. I'm pretty excited to be able to re-organize my craft stuff into my new craft room, but not too excited for much else moving-related.
Posted by Picasa

Crested and Bespectacled!



It's an ATC! Blargh, I ate all junk food today and am feeling on the verge of a crash, hence the "not-my-best-effort" post.... Good night!
Posted by Picasa

4x4 Spread of Colorful Doodle Inchies

It's inchie madness! I made this spread of inchies last night after playing around with my watercolors. I just can't stop making them the last week or so. I need to find a nice square frame for these.
Here's the left half of the doodles...
...And the right half! The cat and the jellyfish have the best colors, I think.
So, now I guess I can now sort of identify in a tiny way with all those folks who were suffering heavy snowfall in the East! Can you believe that we've got snow here in Southern Alabama?! WTH! It's kind of wet snow, but I'm still surprised. I haven't seen snow in a couple of years... Well, it's supposed to snow all day, so I'm just hoping everyone's safe on the road. Crazy. Oh! and unrelated, we start moving next week! I'll try to keep finding time to craft, but you know how it goes. Happy snowy Friday!
Posted by Picasa

Keep on voting!

Hey everyone! This is just a reminder to keep on voting every day for my artwork in the Dangers Of Debt Contest! I'm currently in 13th place only 158 votes away from 1st place.

If you haven't started to vote every day, please do! It only takes 5 seconds and no sign-in required! Thank you to everyone who has been voting :)

Thanks again! To vote, click here: That Rainy Day Will Come

Kira

Woven Scrap Monster Fatbook Page

I've been planning on doing a woven fatbook page, and today was the day. I made this little guy this morning. He's got elements of other monster plushies I've made and sent away, so it will be nice to have this one as a permanent fixture in my fatbook that I definitely won't be sending away.
After stitching on the face and mouth, the back of this page was a mess of embroidery thread (grrrr, for not thinking ahead) so I took my last loose beaded butterfly and slapped it on with hot glue. Problem solved.
Here's an early progress shot of the weaving. I just used a piece of cardboard with some slits cut into it and pieces from my trusty scrap bin. If anyone wants to try this, make sure there are an odd number of column-strings. If there's an even number, the whole weaving thing just...doesn't happen. Dunno how to explain it... Anyhoo, happy Thursday!
Posted by Picasa

Bluebird Valentine

Only 4 days until Valentine's day! My husband and I don't usually make a big thing about Valentine's. He's so sweet all the time that it doesn't matter :) Plus my birthday is this month, too, so I get spoiled enough.
I was in the mood to paint a little birdie tonight, so I thought I'd turn this one into a little burlap Valentine!
He doesn't often check this blog, so I think the surprise will be safe even as I post this tonight, but when he asks what I made in the morning I'll just have to say, "meh, nothing..."
Posted by Picasa

Beaded Flower Fatbook Page & Rad BOX!

Beaded a flower today for my fatbook! I used quite a few different layers. Beads on sequins on corduroy on mesh on batik! Whew! I love the look of hand beading, but man it takes so long...
Here it is on the back of my fatbook. I haven't finished the other side of this page yet, hence the no-picture.
On another awesome note, I had to kill some time this morning while waiting for something, so I went to the thrift store and found this gem for 75 cents! I saw it and automatically thought of the awesome Knickertwist's Valentine's Day matchbox shrine. My new box is a makeup box about 9.5'' x 5.5'', so it won't be as tiny and cute, but I'm so psyched to make this into some mini-shrine wall art! The lids presents a challenge.... It swings open and has a magnetic closure, and also has a 4x6 picture frame constructed into its front. I'm not sure how I'm going to play that, but I'll let you know.

My Tuesday was better than my Monday... I hope yours is too! (^_^)
Posted by Picasa

Little Red Matryoshka Fatbook Page

Does something look familiar? :) I recreated my little red matryoshka plush for a fatbook page! This way, if I ever sell the stuffie, I'll still have her in my fatbook. She's made of red angora sweater, felt and thread.
Here's the page. Unfortunately, she's leans a little to the right on the page... Poor planning on my part. Oh well, I still think it's cute enough!
The back is buttons. The smell of the burlap background fabric is so nice... wheaty and burlappy. I love how fatbooks stimulate so many senses!
Here's the whole fatbook so far. Considering its fatness with 5 pages up to this point, I think I'm going to end up making it 10 to 12 pages total, not including what will be the cover.

Today was an INSANE day. I won't go into it, but this morning, I thought that the most interesting event of the day would be painting my toenails. I was WRONG.
Posted by Picasa

Some more watercolor inchies


Turns out resisting the urge to make more inchies was futile, so I made another set of nine with some watercolor and the inside of a security envelope. The background is an extra piece of thready canvas I also made! Enjoy the 1-sq-inch goodness...
Posted by Picasa

9 Card Phoenix ATC Spread!


Remember that WIP?! This was it! I created this set of ATCs for the 3x3 ATC swap on Craftster.org! It's based on a bunch of themes given by one of my swap partners. We had the option of picking 3 themes, 1 theme, or 9 themes. I picked 1 theme (the phoenix) to spread across the whole set. (Don't forget to click this pic, to see them all close-up!)
Here's what the original phoenix painting looked like before and after I sliced it to ATC size! It was nice to have 9 ATC bases made all at once.
This one is my favorite! It was based on a bicycling theme. He looks familiar, right? The original is green, but I just HAD to make another for this card. The raindrops look cooler in person... They're coated in heavily reflecty sparkly microballs.
My other favorite for the chunky theme. Buttons! I hard time sending this set off, because I really liked how they all came together! Other themes I used were human anatomy, Metalocalypse, June Palmer, & gothic arches.

So fun. I hope everyone has a beautiful and happy Saturday!


PS. Thanks to Mafiosa Grrl for letting me know my pics weren't showing up in the original post! I flippin hate it when that happens randomly. I never usually find out until someone tells me :D

Colorful inchies!

It doesn't happen often, but I had a hankerin' to make some inchies last night, and I liked it. I almost can't wait to make more. I was able to use up a teeny tiny bit of watercolor scraps, and the feeling that I'm saving those little guys from the trash can is kind of nice :)
I took 6 of the 8 and glued them into my board book! I love how they look all lined up in there... I can't wait till my book is all filled with fun artsy paper things.
Posted by Picasa