Saturday Spotlight Feature Week 2

I love to craft and am blessed to have as much as I do. Unfortunately, all my things are scattered throughout the house. In my bedroom, I have all my yarn and spinning supplies. In the basement, I have all my scrapbooking things. Then in various drawers and cabinets, I have little odds and ends. Totes are stacked in my livingroom for my WIPs. I bounce around my house looking for things I want to use. For now, its what I have to do. With two adults, two children and two labs in a two bedroom place, I don't get the luxury of a single space. My best friend & co-writer, on the other hand, has an awesome setup for her craft supplies! One day, I will have a similar setup, she might even have to help me get organized!

"I am one lucky girl, I think I have everything a crafter could ever want in one area and yet I always seem to be expanding. This year my hubby expanded my area as a Christmas gift and my Christmas gift to myself was to get reorganized. The hubby knew how much crafting meant to me and over the past year he has built me a chair that helps support my back and it spins 360 degrees so I can reach just about everything from the comfort of my chair. 

Also this year I acquired my grandmothers sewing machine which is built in to the table and then I have my sewing machine on top of the table. I have always wanted an antique sewing machine but getting something that was passed down always means so much more. Better yet it still RUNS!!!!!

He also expanded my large working table so that there is room for the whole family to sit during family time. I think that was my favorite part. I can now sit and do my crafts while looking up to see my son coloring or drawing and my husband working on what ever little project is up his sleeve that day. 

I love having a massive wall to hang all my WIP and to be able to organize a lot of my odds and ends. 

 This past year I have been collecting fabric for my stashes  most of the fabric on the shelf is cut already and was donated between family and friends. They have truly been my biggest supporters. Also on the shelf is my stash of vinyl. 

I think one of my favorite Christmas gift this year was this awesome wall organizer that I got from my Mother-in-law it was perfect for all my buttons, sewing odds and ends, ETC. 

Next to my new organizer is a shelf that my hubby built me that stores all my paints and other scraping materials that I store in jars and such. 

Last but not least is my main desk that I do a lot of my crafting at. It has 3 additional large shelves above the main table shown. These shelves store my large fabric, glues, tools, and the table that you see in the picture that is most of my scrapbooking inks, markers, glitter, ETC. 

The only thing not shown is my yarn stash we are currently finding a new home for that but to give you an idea my area filled up my fabric shelf plus one regular size storage bin. 

Well that's my space in a nut shell. Thank you for stopping by. I know that I am lucky to have all that I do. Its been years of collecting during Christmas and birthdays and lucky enough to get donations from family and friends for the stuff they no longer use." 

I love her space and her organizing! In what ways do you stay organized?

Happy crafting!

Framed Hand Print

Happy Father's Day!

Have you ever been working on something for a gift for someone and at the very end it did not turn out the way you had wanted and you are literally down to the day of. Well that happened to me last night. My little guy and I had been working on a project for my Husband for Father's Day and it just didn't turn out. Jesse was so bummed. He really wanted to give his dad multiple gifts this year since he had done most of the work.

Quick on my feet I looked around at what my husband calls "my personal craft store" to see what else we could quickly whip up. I had spied a box of picture frames that I have set aside for gifts and projects. All the sudden a little light bulb went off in my head.

Since we already had the paint out from painting our clay imprints I had my Brother (who was visiting) take Jesse's hand and paint it black while I took the opportunity for a photo op.  We had picked out a frame and I took his hand and pressed his hand print on the back of the cleaned glass. (The reason you put it on the back of the glass is so that it doesn't get scratched or rubbed off. Also it will have a nice glassy finish without having to add your own enamel or gloss.) After we pressed his hand on the glass we quickly went and washed the paint off his hand and let the glass dry. The rest of the project was on me.

I paged through my book of quotes that I have been collecting, picked out the perfect one and hopped onto the computer. I set up the text the way I wanted it printing it in a light color that was easy to color over. After I printed it out I took my metallic markers and traced over all lettering. I chose certain words to decorate a little differently with different font type and color. I printed it on 8x11 glossy photo paper trimmed it to size and placed it behind the hand print and securing it in with the frame backing.

If you are one of those people that have awesome penmanship you could probably skip the whole process of laying out your text on the computer and printing it out. The whole process for me took 25-30 min. Now that it's finished I think this is a better gift than the original.

We always love to hear from our readers. Have you ever had a last minute gift to make.

Happy Crafting!
Stephanie 

Kids Clay Gift Idea

 This week was a busy week in my household as we get ready for Father's Day. This is also the first year where my son took a big role in creating his own gifts for dad. Now of course I was there to assist him along with a little help from my brother when he was around. This is just one of a few different projects that we had done during the week.

Other than a few small clay ornaments we made back in February for Valentines Day I had not worked with clay much. I am a big fan of the Crayola Air-Dry-Clay and I will most definitely be going back and buying more. This last week was National Clay Week so I only thought it was fitting to use clay as one of our gift projects.

So to start off my son and I made a big clay ball and then rolled it out into a 3/4 inch pancake. I made sure everything was smoothed out. Yes we had to improvise a bit for a rolling pin and used a smooth pencil to roll  it out. We are not much for baking and recently realized that I don't own a rolling pin. Mind you this is now on my list of things to pick up next time I am at the store.

So after our clay chunk is rolled out nice and smooth I took my sons freshly washed foot and placed it in the center of the the clay piece. I had him shift all his weight onto his one foot and I helped him press down so that we could get an imprint of his foot into the clay.

After we pressed his foot we did the same thing for his hand. Then we poked holes in the top so that we could hang these on the wall. I also stuck in the wooden pegs that I will be using for the key chain holder. After I imprinted the pegs I pulled them out and cut out the shape I wanted and set the clay pieces aside to dry for the next couple days.

After the pieces were all dry we pulled them out and Jesse picked out what colors he wanted to paint them. We went ahead and put the first coat of paint on them and applied a 2nd coat after the first coat had dried.

I wanted the imprints to stand out a bit so I decided to attempt my first "antiquing technique" to the imprint with some black paint and a dry cloth. I dabbed a small amount of paint and gently wiped it throughout the imprint. I then went back with the colored paint to touch up any spots that I had accidentally smudged over. I didn't like the look of the yellow and black so i went back and put a metallic silver on the imprint for the foot.

When all the paint was dried I took them outside and sprayed them with a high gloss enamel to give it a protective coat.

This was definitely a fun project to do with my little guy and I know he had a blast with it. I can't wait to do our next clay project.

We always love to hear from our readers so let us know what you made for Fathers Day or what you made with your latest clay project.








Happy Crafting

Stephanie

Dad's Treasure

Hi Everyone! Like many households, we're preparing for Father's Day! It's great day to celebrate all the little things, and big things, that my children's father does for them and me!

My son loves to paint! From sun catchers, to figurines, plain paper and even a treasure chest, he can sit for hours and continuously paint! Good thing for me because I'm running out of ideas of what my husband would want for any holiday! A treasure chest from my son is perfect though, and let me tell you why. When Ethan got old enough to learn about hiding and finding people or things, my husband started playing the treasure game with him. And I'm sure he will carry on the tradition of playing with our youngest son when he's old enough.

Just before Ethan's bed time every so often, my husband finds Ethan's little treasure chest and fills it with mini M&Ms and finds a hiding spot. After he found a good spot, my husband asks if Ethan want to go on a treasure hunt! He is always excited about this! With all the lights turned out and flashlight in hand, they go searching. They run into scary bears (stuffed animals) and wolves (stuffed dogs) and every now and then a scary mommy gets in the way!! In the end, the treasure is always found with a happy little boy emptying the treasure into his mouth!

With this, we decided to give daddy his own hand-painted treasure box! We also added a few special things...

Ethan painted wooden circles yellow for gold, a key to keep the 'key to mommy's heart' safe, a mirror that says "Best Dad in the World," a small bottle with 'love' confetti, a painting made by Ethan and a few other fun things!! This treasure chest can be personalized for the 'dad' in your life, and so much fun for the kids to do! For the older kids, a wood burning kit would be a great opportunity to learn something new as well as be creative!

Until next craft...
Crystal

Crystal

First off I would like to thank you for taking the time to look at our blog and hope you find that this is something you will want to follow!! We have so many crafts, hobbies and so much more that we want to share with you!! And we both look forward to hearing from all of our readers and what they want to see from us as well!

Crystal

A Little About Me

I am a mother of two boys and a wife to an amazing husband! I work for the local school district so during the school year, I will most likely be less active but the summer months allow me to dedicate more time to this blog! 

As for my crafting, my husband actually complains that I have 'too many hobbies' but its what I love to do. I love to crochet but I also love to scrapbook and make cards. I run a crochet store through Etsy.com and a Facebook page just for my handmade crochet items. Please feel free to check it out at http://www.facebook.com/myphotojewelry. Most my items revolve around my other favorite hobby!

I love photography!! Most of my crochet items are for photography props but love to make anything my hook allows me to! I'm hoping to be a registered photography business within a year and I believe photography can be an art in itself. I love to capture any special moments the camera will allow me to see!

Learning new crafts and being creative with the supplies I have is always a fun challenge to me! My mother and I have crafted together for several years together and always loved to find challenges for each other. So when Stephanie came to me with the opportunity of creating a crafting blog, I jumped at the chance. This is one of her many great ideas and I'm honored to be a part of it.

Outside of my crafting world, I love to spend time outdoors. There is a family cabin that my family and I love to spend time at no matter what season. In the warmer months, I love to sit out in the backyard while my children play and crochet! And I love crafting with the oldest one and making homemade games (the younger boy is only one so I haven't really done any crafts with him yet.) As this blog ages, I will be sharing the numerous things my children and I love to do together, including our fun handmade games!

Again, we encourage you to not just be a reader but also to challenge us!! Tell us what you want to see, tell us what you want to learn.... we'll try to become the 'crafting, hobby and so much more' blog that you can't wait to see what comes from us next!

Until next craft....

Crystal

Welcome!!

Welcome to KiKi Love Creations!! A blog all about crafting, hobbies and so much more!!

This blog is run by two mothers who love to craft and fill their time with a variety of things!! Keep an eye out for an upcoming post from each writer to get to know a little about them! And then, the real fun starts!! We'd like to share the things we love with you, our readers! From crafts to household tips to recipes... there is endless possibilties!!

If you have an idea or a craft you would like us to learn and post, or would just like to get ahold of us, feel free to send us an email at kikilovecreate@gmail.com or comment on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/KiKiLoveCreations

We look forward to crafting with you!