Free Spoonflower Swatch!

*ATTENTION: This is NOT a sponsored announcement! I just thought it was cool and wanted to share the coolness with you all!*

Today is "Free Swatch Day" at Spoonflower.com, a custom-printed fabric company! (I found out about it via Craftzine) You can upload your own design, or choose from designs on the site. I just ordered my own 8x8 swatch! This offer is available until tomorrow, August 19th, at noon (eastern-standard time).

This is what my fabric will look like!

Some more info:

"This offer is limited to one swatch per customer. To activate the discount, add a swatch-sized piece of fabric to your shopping cart between noon EST on Thursday, August 18 and noon EST on Friday, August 19, then proceed to checkout. The discount will be subtracted from your cart total automatically. Note that in order to receive your swatches, you need to follow the transaction through to the order confirmation page. [And yes, shipping is free, too.] This offer works for your own designs or for any of the designs available for sale in the Spoonflower marketplace. Offer is limited to ONE SWATCH PER CUSTOMER." -via Spoonflower's Blog

This is the original design I uploaded. The site repeats it for you and there are different options for how to repeat it.

I'm not sure what I'll use the fabric for right now...but I'm thinking that I'll make myself a new pouch to hold my fabric scissors when I'm on the go (my scissor tips are very pointy!). I've been using this pouch I made awhile ago.

Flip Flop Cookies Tutorial on Mom's Blog...

Go check out my mom's blog, Talking Meadow, for a tutorial on how to make these super-cute flip flop cookies! Make these and bring them to whatever festivities you attend on the 4th and they'll be a hit!

We're All Idea Thieves...

I came across this interesting article yesterday called How To Steal Like An Artist (and 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me). The title is provocative and makes you go "What???", which makes you go read the article (well...it's actually a blog post).

(image credit: Austin Kleon)

The main idea of it is that Nothing Is Original and that all artists "steal" ideas from somewhere. He even quotes the Bible from Ecclesiastes..."That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun." Yup...there is nothing new under the sun.

My own foray into plush-making is an example of this. I essentially "stole" the idea of making stuffed toys from recycled clothes from John Murphy of Stupid Sock Creatures fame. But after "stealing" the initial idea, I've made it my own with my own style, my own designs, and my own ideas. But he also essentially "stole" the idea of making creatures out of socks from the old classic sock monkey. See?...We're all idea thieves! But it's how we make it our own and add our own twists to those ideas that makes our work unique...and sometimes can go on to inspire the next aspiring artist.

Even the name "Nubbins" I'll admit I "stole" from an episode of the SyFy Channel series "Sanctuary" (episode 6 of Season 1 if you want to know). In the episode, Nubbins are little fuzzy animals ) that reproduce like crazy and eat through anything (kind of like Tribbles, but with eyes, ears, and teeth.) They have some scientific name "Nubina Atelerix" but one character nicknames them "Nubbins". I saw the episode before I even started making the simple little armless monsters I've come to call Nubbins...back when I only made sock monsters. But I heard the name and said to my husband "I'm SO going to make a line of monsters called Nubbins someday!"

So anyway, I'd encourage you to go check out the guy's blog post. I know that I was very encouraged by it. It made me feel a bit better about the insecurities I tend to have as an artist.

"There’s this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It’s called impostor syndrome. The clinical definition is a “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.” It means that you feel like a phony, like you’re just winging it, that you really don’t have any idea what you’re doing.
Guess what?
None of us do."

Oh good. I thought it was just me! And now my internal hypochondriac suspects that I have impostor syndrome! Because I definitely feel like that a lot! ;)

Blog Mention: Chic & Green

I was mentioned in this post at Chic & Green about Mayday Underground Artists!

RNEST Monthly Challenge: March (Natural History)

It's that time again! Time for the RNEST Monthly Challenge! The theme for March is "Natural History"...so I decided to adapt a design for the custom Godzilla plush I did awhile back and do a big T-Rex! Please take a minute to go to the RNEST Blog and vote for "Sharptooth the T-Rex" in the poll in the upper right-hand corner. You don't even have to register or anything. Just go and click!

I'm up against some pretty tough competition this month. People have entered some really cool items, but I'm the only dinosaur item that entered. Everyone else's items are bird/plant/woodland creature themed. And I forgot that people could enter more than one item. I should have thought to enter Mika the Raccoon as well! Oh well. :P

I named him Sharptooth because I was thinking about "The Land Before Time" the whole time I was sewing him! The pictures don't give a very good sense of just how big he is (I forgot to do a pic with the ruler), but he is twice the size of the Godzilla...about as big as my large sweater monsters.

Raaaaaaawr! Vote For Meeeeeeee!

***EDIT: I won the Challenge!***

KiraArts Giveaways!

I've shared this on the KiraArts Facebook page, but realized I never posted about it here on the blog!

I've been featured this week in the RNEST "Wednesday Wellspring" Giveaway! Click the link to be taken to the RNEST blog and find out how to enter in order to win this cute multicolored spotted Nubbin! You have until Tuesday, March 8th to enter!

"You can win ME!"

As an added bonus, I've decided that when both my Etsy shop and Facebook fan page reach 200 fans, I will do ANOTHER giveaway here on the blog! The Etsy shop is past the goal right now (with 202 fans! Yay!), and my Facebook page is only 42 fans away from reaching 200! So get over there and click that "like" button!

Link Roundup: Other People Sewing Monsters!

Here is yet another link roundup! This roundup features other bloggers' sewn monster projects...

Monster Tooth Pillow (image credit: The Long Thread)

Crayon Monster Art Tote (image credit: Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky!)

This one isn't a tutorial, but check out this monster that a blogger's son made! A boy after my own heart! I'm quite impressed! I made a comment on her post that "I hope he keeps that love of sewing and doesn't get "too cool" for it when he gets older and grows up to be a crafty man!" Crafty men are the best! (image credit: RiceBabies)

Link Roundup: Last-Minute Valentine Kid Crafts!

Attention stay-at-home moms, homeschooling moms, babysitters, preschool/kindergarten teachers, grandmas, and any one else who enjoys doing holiday crafts with young children...here are a few easy, last-minute, cute Valentine craft ideas I've come across this week!

Paper Doily Butterflies (*image credit: Scrumdillydo!)

No paper doilies in your craft stash and not enough time (or energy) to go out and snag some? Scrumdillydo says that this craft is based on the "ever happy and popular coffee-filter butterfly"...so you could always use coffee filters instead! (you could use watercolors to color them)

Toilet Paper Tube Valentine Animals (*image credit: Ziggity Zoom Parents)

Valentine Owl Softie (*image credit 5 Orange Potatoes)

This project is more suited for older kids that are ready to start learning how to sew.

The fun thing about both these projects is that they can be versatile and don't just have to be just for Valentine's Day. Change up the colors or leave out the smattering of hearts and you have just a regular ol' everyday kids' craft that you can use any time of the year!

Happy crafting!

Link Roundup from Ohdeedoh

I don't have kids, but a lot of my friends have kids...and plus I am just a big kid at heart...so one of my favorite blogs is the Apartment Therapy kid-decor blog Ohdeedoh. A lot of times I'll find posts there that I want to share with friends and family, or just want to bookmark for later, so I'll post the link on Facebook. But I've been so behind on reading the blog lately, that when I finally got around to catching up on it today, there were WAY too many links to share! So I decided to do a roundup here on my blog.

How To Make Flubber, Glurch and Other Homemade Art Supplies at Home

I posted a link on Facebook last month of the "Make your own watercolors" tutorial I found, expecting one of my young-mother friends to benefit from it and maybe make some with their kids, and my own mom (a preschool aide for special needs kids) actually made some at home on one of her days off!

Rediscovering Ed Emberly

I think I remember an Ed Emberley book I liked as a child. It was one where you made various creatures using your fingerprints. I always thought it was so fun!

One of my friends who is homeschooling asked me recently if I could give her son a weekly art lesson. While I am an artist, I don't consider myself a particularly good teacher and sometimes have a hard time coming up with a "lesson plan". So I think I may try to find some of these books at my local library. *Just doing a search on the online library system website is revealing that he has a LOT of books!

Changing Table Transformed Into Driving Dresser

This is just fun. I can just see my friends' little boys driving their matchbox cars up and down this dresser!

Drab to Fab Thrifted Dollhouse

This reminds me of the dollhouse I still have from my childhood. Not because they are the same style (mine is much more simple...and not quite as funky-colorful) but because my childhood dollhouse is one that my grandmother picked up out of someone's trash and my grandfather fixed it up and gave it to me for Christmas (or was it my birthday?). The funny thing is that I thought for years that Grandpa MADE me that dollhouse. It was only a few years ago that my mom told me that Grandpa only refurbished it! But I still love it anyway!

* Make sure you click through to the original blog to see all the little details!

Repurpose A Frame To Keep Kids Under Control

Even though I believe that some naughty children just need a spanking to bring them in line, there is something to be said for positive reinforcement so that children will want to be good and less spankings will need be given out in the first place!

Gavin's Winning Woodsy Nursery

This room is so gorgeous! My favorite part is the tree graphics on the wall (as well as the pops of turquoise!). I'd love to do that in a room someday. Although I probably would not have the background color so dark.

*all images via Ohdeedoh

Treasury Tuesday Special! 1/11/11

As some of you might know, I do the "Treasury Tuesday" blog posts for the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team (RNEST) blog. When I was trying to think of a good theme for this week's Etsy Treasury, I happened to look at the calender and realized that today was 1/11/11...which inspired me to make this treasury with items with ones and elevens.

1/11/11 by KiraArts

Sadly, I couldn't find any RNEST members' items to put in this treasury as I'd originally planned, but I went ahead and scoured the rest of Etsy for items with ones or elevens (or 2011). And even with the thousands of sellers on Etsy to choose from, this theme was still a bit challenging. But I'd like to think I ultimately succeeded in making a cohesive, aesthetically-pleasing treasury.

Click here if you want to see today's "official" RNEST Treasury Tuesday post.

Craft Blog Love: Wise Craft and Obsessively Stitching

Do you ever find a new blog and just keep scrolling to the bottom and clicking the "older entries" button, looking at all the back-entries?

That's what I've been doing lately with Wise Craft. I came across a bunch of "new" craft blogs last night and Wise Craft was one of them. I can't even remember what brought me to it. I think it may have been the fabric flower tutorial that was linked to from another blog. But now I can't seem to stop clicking the older posts link at the bottom of each page. I'm looking at back-entries from 2007 right now. Although I must admit that I'm not actually reading all the posts. I'm at the point now where I just scroll down for crafty eye candy and only actually read what's written when it catches my eye.

Obsessively Stitching is another craft blog I'm liking. Mostly for her Angry Birds plush tutorials! I only heard about Angry Birds a few weeks ago when my husband showed me the game on his phone. Ever since then I keep seeing people talk/post/blog about it. I want a Droid phone so I can play Angry Birds too! I like those type of strategy/physics based games.

KiraArts.com!

I'm pleased to announce that I now have the web domain name KiraArts.com!

So now, if you type KiraArts.com into your web browser, it will take you directly to my Etsy shop. And in addition to obtaining the web domain for me, my computer genius husband also made me some nifty sub-domains...so now I have some easy-to-remember links for the blog and Facebook page.

Blog - http://blog.kiraarts.com
Facebook Page - http://facebook.kiraarts.com (whereI just broke the 100 fan mark!)

Sometime in the future, I'm hoping to have KiraArts.com direct to its own website with links to the Etsy shop, blog, and Facebook page.

Guest Blogger for RNEST!

I'm the new guest blogger on the RNEST blog! The person who did their "Trash to Treasure Tuesday" posts couldn't do it anymore, so I am now doing "Treasury Tuesdays".

Go check it out!

Featured Studio on RNEST!

I was featured on the RNEST blog yesterday! Their "Make-It Mondays" series is now featuring a different artist each week, interviewing them about their creative process and workspace...and I'm the first artist to be featured!

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT!

Speaking of Dogs...

I came across this via Readymade today...

SuperPunch Surprise!

I've been commissioned by a friend to make an astronaut/spaceman plush for her nephew. Never having made one before, I turned to the internet for some inspiration. My websurfing brought me to the SuperPunch Blog...which is mostly a blog of geeky cool-ness, artsy-ness, and crafty-ness, and they have a lot of posts about handmade plush from various places on the internet.

So...I'm browsing all the posts labeled "plush", and at one point when I scroll down I see my little Max Nubbin! And below the pictures it says " Plush Max by Kira, who has various plush creations on sale at Etsy. " with a link to the post I made at The Needle as well as a link to my Etsy shop! Wow! I had no idea my work had been blogged about! And this was back in November.

Then, a bit more scrolling and there's a post about my "Where The Wild Things Are" inspired monster too!

Sorry, I get a bit excited when people blog about my work...that means my name is getting out there!

Photo Shoot: Snow White

I spent this afternoon being a model! My friend Ashley is an aspiring photographer (I believe I've mentioned her before). She is taking a digital photography class and has an assignment to pick a famous photographer and shoot a photo in their style. She chose Annie Leibovitz...who has done a lot of dramatic/elaborate fairy tale/fantasy themed photos (some examples can be found here, here, and here). So Ashley asked if I would be her model and if I would be in costume for the shoot. And anyone who knows me knows I never pass up a chance to wear my corset! (as well as my wedding dress...what other bride gets this much milage out of her dress? I get to wear it to the Renaissance Faire every year AND do photo shoots!)

We did a kind of Snow White kind of thing (hence the apple and me lying on the ground). If only we'd had some dwarves! (...er, um...little people).

I laid on the ground for quite a while while she took shots from some different angles. But I was comfortable...I was lying on a blanket and had a jacket rolled up propping up my head. It was chilly today though...my apple hand got pretty cold when I was lying there. The funny thing is whenever people walked by. They probably thought "who's the crazy girl in the medieval dress lying on the ground?"...at least until they saw Ashley with her camera.

Be sure to go check out her photography blog for more pictures !

Blog Shout Outs...

Every once in awhile on my internet travels, I'm on one of my favorite "big" sites like Craft: or Ohdeedoh or Apartment Therapy, and I'll click a link for a project tutorial and come across a lovely blog I've never been to before. Then I proceed to go back and back and back until I'm looking at entries from months ago. These three blogs have done that to me this week...

http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/

http://www.twigandthistle.com/blog/

http://tutusandturtles.blogspot.com/

Thank You Zakka Life!

A big thank you to Jessica of Zakka Life for featuring me this week for her "Facebook Fan Friday"!
Welcome newcomers!

Terrible Yellow Eyes

I just discovered this delightful blog called Terrible Yellow Eyes. It has some wonderful artist interpretations of the childrens' classic "Where The Wild Things Are"...by various artists in various styles and mediums.

Can you believe, with my love of monsters, that I've never owned a copy of "Where The Wild Things Are"? It's been so long since I've read it... I should go to the library for a refresher. By the way, I absolutely can't wait for the movie to come out!

I'm feeling very inspired now to plan some "Wild Thing" Nubbins...one of Max and then one of the Wild Thing that is most recognizable...the one with the bulbous pink nose, horns, brown mane, round face and stripey body (most artists actually seem to favor this one).