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!

Sun Conure Bookmark

 
You might remember Peanut, my sun conure, from previous posts and he did make a teeny appearance in my 51 things video (Thanks to everyone who watched it and made such nice comments!) Well, he is a special bird, so I made a little watercolor drawing of him so I could use him for a bookmark!
 The main body of the bookmark is just a piece of colorful printed cardstock joined with a bit of strong glue.
I think Peanut is much cuter in real life, though. Happy Thursday!

ALSO! I need your suggestions and/or requests. Do any of you have ideas on techniques or skillz you'd like me to explain and demonstrate in a how-to video? Pretty please let me know! Thanks, friends!

My first video



So I thought I'd try out the video editing software that comes with my computer.... I made this silly video this afternoon, and it wasn't too hard! I think I'll come up with some how-to crafting vids some time in the future. Well, enjoy 1 minute and 41 seconds of me being wacky! Thanks for watching!

Crafting Machine: Robot with scizzors

Watercolor and ink.
Have a super crafty day, and get your robot on :)

March Art Calendar Page

Border stamp: "Hanging Hearts" by Daniel Torrente for Stampotique
I had to pop this post in real quick, since it's already March 10th! I had this page done pretty early for the Kathryn Wheel challenge, but didn't get around to posting it! So here's my March page. I did a good job filling in February, too. Again, I'm pretty proud that I've been keeping up!

Stamp: "Old Timey Frog" by Kira Nichols for Stampotique
The weather is starting to be pretty nice, and there was a frog that fell out of our BBQ cover last week, sooo this frog stamp from my collection was pretty fitting.

Happy March, friends. Now I'm really going to go rest....

Bunny Craft Palace Shrine

Ah, yes! I am back from my marvelous vacation in Disney World and I had such a fun time! I'm glad to be home, even though I'm sad it's over... And sad that I brought home the flu. I guess the germs all want to live at the most magical place on earth, too. At any rate, I have tons of ideas for art now, since Disney is such an inspiring place, but I'll have to wait until I'm feeling better. Luckily, I have a little backlog of projects I can share. 
Stamp: Baby Bunny by Inkadinkadoo
 Tada! A little bunny shrine. I used an Alpha Stamps shelf shrine to alter and embellish. I started by using craft acrylics to paint the thing pink, then used various pigment inks to stamp on some texture and flicked on alcohol inks for even more texture. The very outside edge has glass beads glued on for extra fanciness, and I also added that kinda gem-studded crown topper to echo the dresden crown on the bunny.
 I love that little baby bunny. He comes off of the background a bit, because I used a couple layers of sticky back foam behind him for dimension.
And probably my favorite part are the stripey feathers dropped by Pipo, my budgie. I used a little glue to attach them to the ends of bits of wire to make little feather fronds.

So I hope everyone has had a wonderful week and has a fantastic weekend. Me? I'm going to go lay down.

Themed bookmarks for swappage & Unique Crafter's Challenge #1

 Alright, I made a bookmark book to house all of my various bookmarks, so it seemed totally appropriate to join a bookmark swap to get more bookmarks to fill it fuller, right? Here are the goodies I made. I also made them for the first Unique Crafter's Challenge that is running for the month of March! 



Challenge #1
The theme for our first challenge is: "Anything Goes"
Challenge Start Date: March 1st
Anything goes means that as long as you used some type of paper on your project, you can submit it! The winner will receive the huge honor of being the first winner of this challenge site. I think that calls for a big prize so we will be giving out a paper crafting prize package worth over $200. Two additional (runner-up) winners will also be chosen. 

So, you can pretty much submit ANY project that you used paper on, and if you win, you get a fat prize-pack of radical papercrafting supplies... Sounds like a sweet deal to me :) So go craft it up, folks, and go submit something!

 Now for some detail shots :) This one is bellydance themed. I used both Alene's flexible fabric glue and a glue inkpad to adhere the craft foil in the background and on the dancer's outfit. I know, that's not what the glue is meant for, but it works awesome with craft foil... I have to use it!
Stamp:"Baby Bunny" by Inkadinkadoo
 This one is for a forest animals theme. I took the text from an old book about forest creatures... The squirrels and songbirds actually scolded an owl in the book, but it worked with the bunny, too, and that is somehow cuter to me.
Stamp: "Birdy Shoes" by Kira Nichols for Stampotique
I used one of my Stampotique stamps for this one which for someone who likes birdies

This bookmark has the Raven King for someone who is a fan of Jonathan Strange. I finished that book a few months ago and it was pretty darn good, but crazy long and a little slow to start. It was neat to find someone else who had read it!

Stamp: "Kitty" by Daniel Torrente for Stampotique
And this little bookmark is for a red/white/black and creepy cute theme. 

Well, Happy March to you all! Be sure to enter the challenge :)