Niki Jin Crafts

Well, it's officially the Christmas season, which means sparkling snow, pretty twinkle lights, cookie baking, and holiday crafting. To kick off this December, I thought I would share this DIY gift that I had fun making for my mom a few years ago. She likes to collect Santa dolls to display in her home at Christmastime, so I came up with the idea to design and make her a custom doll. I ended up buying a Ken doll and modifying it to look like Santa Claus. See below for my work-in-progress pictures and the end results. BEFORE This particular doll worked well because I could use the boots in the final Santa outfit. I used permanent markers to add some wrinkles and rosy cheeks to the face. I sewed batting scraps around the body of the doll to plump him up a bit. I then designed and knit a miniature winter sweater, and also sewed him a pair of pants and hat from fabric scraps. I glued strips of white specialty fur yarn to the face to create the

Thanksgiving is around the corner. Usually, I love to make pies for dessert. And there will be pie. Lots of it. But sometimes it is fun to do something different. I like to use the Thanksgiving season to experiment with new fall recipes. A little while back, I discovered patterned cakes on Pinterest was instantly intrigued. Pretty patterns + baking = LOVE. They are just so pretty. Pinterest search for "patterned cake roll" Basically, it is a swiss roll cake where a design is drawn out with different colored cake batter before pouring the rest of the batter into the pan, so it creates a design on the cake. This was the first one I attempted. It was a basic yellow cake with strawberry jam and whipped cream filling, so the pattern was appropriately themed. strawberry cake roll For my second attempt, I created my own recipe for a fall-themed cake. It is chocolate/pumpkin flavored with an autumn pattern and color scheme. Here is the result: This would be a nic

I don't know about you, but I am so glad this election in the U.S. is finally over. Moving forward, I think everyone would be much better off focusing on the positive things and what a blessing it is to live in a beautiful world and—yes, all you Americans—a wonderful country, especially in this month of Thanksgiving. And that's probably about all you'll ever see me post about politics. You're welcome. As you may have seen on my illustration blog or social media, I have been working on learning brush lettering, and I've found that I especially like to work with watercolors. I still have a lot to learn and practice, but it has been a lot of fun so far. I created this piece from one of my favorite hymns, "For the Beauty of the Earth." I thought it was appropriate to the theme of gratitude this month. Click on the link below to download a free printable. :) DOWNLOAD PRINTABLE Have a beautiful day! Niki RELATED POSTS

Halloween is over... bring on the holidays! I'm usually not one to skip over Thanksgiving and go straight into Christmas, but I am particularly excited to share a holiday-themed project that I have just finished. For the past few months, I have been hard at work creating a collection of adult coloring pages with a Christmas theme. If you follow me on Facebook , you already know that not only have I completed the designs, but I've compiled them into a book that is now for sale in Amazon! This is something I have wanted to do for a long time because I love adult coloring designs. Their intricate detail and fun patterns are so attractive to my sense of style as an artist. They are so much fun to both color and create. While I think it is wonderful how popular they have become in recent years, I find that the market has been flooded with substandard work. My hope in creating my own pages is to make the kinds of pages I like to see myself and to inspire creativity in others.