art project Archives - Spoonful of Imagination

Watching my kids create has always been something I love. Before they could even hold a paintbrush, I was letting them play with paint. We would smash a footprint on something and I would turn into something else. We have all turned a handprint into a turkey around Thanksgiving at some point in our lives. As our kids grow and their interests change, their creative process may change. Teen’s will experiment in new creative endeavors, and I believe it is just as important to be present in these efforts, as we were when they were young. We can support our teen’s creative endeavors!

It may look different in the how we support.

When kids are young, some simple ways to encourage their creative efforts may look like…

Listen to their stories
Hang up their art
Watch the amount of screen time they consume
Make boredom possible, so they have to tap into their imagination
Provide supplies from paper and drawing materials to blocks or legos
Plan a project with steps
Get them outside to explore the woods and dirt
Be present in showing and demonstrating.

When our kids were younger, I had these frames that I could easily switch art out of. It was a constant changing museum in our home.

As they began to grow, they would have their own projects and ideas.

Once they start dreaming up their own ideas, you begin to become a little more of a questionnaire than the one leading the charge. Asking lots of questions gets them processing. Not all their ideas will work, but by asking questions and letting them start to play with an idea, allows your child to figure out on their own if something will work or not. That is embracing the process and letting them grow as confident decision makers.

I will never forget how Caleb painted a cityscape at our studio. It led into us hosting several cityscape sign workshops. He even lead one! Letting his idea develop into something that then inspired other artists and peers was pretty special.

I have to believe that supporting his creative endeavors at this new stage helped encourage him to keep experimenting and doing art.

We all remember when we started feeling like our art wasn’t good enough.

Do you remember that moment that you stopped creating for the process and fun of bringing an idea to life? You started creating and working towards a finished product only if you knew it would be amazing and it would be useful? So many stop creating because of the pressure they feel in creating and lose the freedom to tinker, learn, make mistakes, develop and take a risk.

One of our jobs as parents is to keep encouraging the process and supporting their creative endeavors as they grow.

As Caleb has grown, his love for basketball and shoes has only grown as well. He started drawing shoes, designing shoes, filming shoes and even painting his own custom shoes.

What began as an interest slowly grew into a hobby, and now it is a full blown business.

As Caleb’s dedication to this interest grew, we saw him investing time and his own money into it. Those are all signs that this is something that really matters to him.

My encouragement to you is to not necessarily buy the next piece of equipment the minute an idea is born from your growing teen, but keep asking questions and grow in the interest as they do.

We helped loft Caleb’s bed, so he would have more work space. It didn’t happen over night, but one step at a time.

Caleb says on his website, “I did my first custom a couple of years ago and loved doing it. Back then I had a cheap battery powered airbrush and a couple of colors. I’ve been working hard to upgrade my skills and my gear to professional grade tools. Every sneaker is an exciting new opportunity and I’d love to create some for you. Hit me up on the contact page or check out my Instagram.”

I still love to watch this kid of mine create.

Now, it’s not as much of me setting up a creative project and inviting him in. It’s more of me wandering to his room and watching him do it. The how we support our teen’s creative endeavors can change, but not the why.

A lot of the ways you support your young artists still matters as they grow.

Let them hang their art. Be present in the journey and listen to the stories. There are new ways to encourage their creative endeavors as well. My two biggest encouragements would be one, help invest in the equipment if you can. It can be lofting a bed, sharing your computer and camera, or even buying a stencil machine and spray gun. You can always get creative in how you give it. For example, wrap it up as part of their birthday present. Caleb got one of his paint guns as a Christmas present one year.

Find a way to connect your interests together.

It’s important that your teen feels supported in their creative endeavors to feel the freedom to keep developing. The second way I think it is important to encourage your artist is to combine your interests and theirs together. Find it. It might not be obvious at first. That’s ok, keep looking. My latest way to connect Caleb’s interests and mine is taking the pictures he took of his shoe designs and turning them into greeting cards.

I have been on this greeting card creation journey, and what a fun way to connect his art with mine for a new card design. Not everyone may want a pair of custom shoes, but they may know someone who is a shoe fanatic and would appreciate a fun card so I listed them in my store.

We can support our teen’s creative endeavors.

The heart behind encouraging your artist, growing teen, and child is that you want them to believe that their ideas matter and the world needs what they got. Maybe those interests turn into a job someday, like they did for Caleb. We just don’t know, but the beautiful impact of embracing this creative journey together is you grow a deeper connection with someone who matters most to you.

I am going to be sharing more ways to connect with yourself and those you love most real soon. If you are interested in learning more, join my newsletter today so you are the first to hear about it!

I had this idea last week while playing with my kids at a local playground. As I chased my kids on the playground, I kept seeing these smooth short sticks and wondering what I could do with them. I came up with this DIY Stick Heart Wall Art.

It really wasn’t hard. It has several different steps, but don’t worry, I am going to show you how to do it!

First off, my parents gave me some tongue and groove bead board they had left over from completing their porch ceiling. I knew it would come in handy for something! I had enough boards to cut them in half (about 20″ long) and make two square pieces that I am going to refer to as my wood canvases.

If you have used tongue and groove boards, you know they fit together like a puzzle piece. In order to have them stay together more permanently, we used wood glue and scrap wood strips to create a permanent bond.

Do this by cutting some small scrap pieces of wood just a little shorter than the length of your wood canvas. To be like mine, use wood glue to attach to these scrap pieces to the “shiny” side of the tongue and groove boards. I wanted the rougher side to use for my project, but you can do it which ever way you like best. I really liked how the grooves are much more narrow on the rough side of the boards.

Simply put a strip of wood glue along each scrap piece of wood and use clamps to keep them pressed tightly together. We used four pieces of scrap wood per my wood canvases. Three across the center to secure the boards, and one strip of scrap across the top to serve as an easy wall hanger. (See picture further down)

Once our boards were clamped and the glue was drying, we let them sit that way for over 24 hours before we messed with them.

After the wood glue was good and dry, we released the clamps and sanded the edges of the square wood canvases so they were ready to be painted.

I painted my two wood canvases (one pink and one teal) and let them dry. Once they were dry, I gave them each another good sanding to add the vintage effect that I love so much. Depending on how aged/vintage you want your canvas to appear, there’s no need to make sure your paint job is thick and even, because that will make the sanding job harder.

I went ahead and painted the back of my piece as well. I had enough paint and because this piece sticks out from the wall a little bit I wanted to make sure all the visible sides and edges would appear finished.

Once they were sanded, I was ready to stain. I hate staining. My brother is a wood worker and does it by profession right now, and I don’t know how he does it everyday! I love the results of staining, but the process drives me crazy.

First, you have to cover your canvas with a pretty heavy coat of stain. I have found that a sponge brush does the best job of retaining the stain for an even, heavy coat. Note: Because I used beadboard the small indentions in my canvas were hard to make sure the stain got fully down in the grooves. I pressed my brush down and let the “excess” stain run into the groove.

The longer you leave the stain on, the darker your results should be (depending also on the base paint color you choose). I let my stain sit on until the whole board was covered with stain. Probably a little over 5 minutes. Using an old t-shirt or rag go back to the area you stained first and start wiping the stain off.

All that is not a big deal and is quick and easy. Here is the step that makes me hate staining. One wipe of the stain is not enough. You have to keep wiping until there is no more stain “seeping” up and leaving ring marks.

This process can take a while. Once I wipe and think it is done, I come back ten minutes later and there is more seepage. It probably took about a dozen wipes to fully catch all the extra stain, so it didn’t leave rings or spots on my piece. This piece had more wipe downs than most projects because of the grooved wood that had excess stain collected in it. It’s more annoying than hard, especially if you are like me and struggle with patience! Once the seepage stopped, I let my wood canvases sit for about 24 hours just to let everything completely dry.

If you are wondering if this staining step is worth it, look at the difference in these two pictures.

To me the depth and beauty is worth it, and that my friends is why I do that annoying step. I love the deep darker tone it adds to a piece. Staining makes a piece look more finished or professional. It is more timeless in my opinion.

Next, it was time to start assembling the stick heart. I plugged in my hot glue gun and started laying out my sticks in what looked like a heart on my wood canvas.

After I had what seemed like a good size heart, I used my ruler to center the first stick in the middle of my canvas. I also used it to measure the open teal space between the first stick and the edge of the wood. It measured to be three inches.

I wanted my heart to be centered, so I made sure the top had a three-inch margin as well.

The next step was to start gluing the sticks down. On each stick, I put a strip of hot glue and then pressed the stick down for a few seconds to allow it to set on the wood.

This step was kind of tricky because the sticks are not perfectly round. The bumps and different widths mattered. Do the best you can to put the glue on the side you think will sit the most flushed against the beadboard.

Once your heart is created, stand back and take a look. My heart seemed to have lots of holes and be a little distorted. I decided I would go back and add more sticks into the cracks and openings to create a more filled in, sold heart.

I really like the more solid look of the heart, but I ran out of sticks. It has been raining like crazy here in the ATL. You might have seen on twitter that I was going to gather more sticks yesterday. They were still drenched last night. So, I am currently drying sticks out on a towel in my house.

Once the sticks are done drying, I will go back and add even more to my heart.

I think this piece will end up in my daughter’s room at some point, but for now it is hanging out in my living room. I love it and the simple heart is such a huge symbol of love, and that is what we want our family to be all about.

I love the contrast between the grooves in the wood being perpendicular to the way I layed my sticks. I love all the texture and the difference in the stark teal paint color with the natural wood sticks. What do you think? Can you see yourself making this Stick Heart Wall Art?

Thank you so much for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

P.S. Are you wondering about my pink version? It is not done, but I am going to finish it and it will be for sale in the coming weeks. You might remember I had a little art show at Roux on Canton last year. They are too kind and have asked me to come back and do another sale. I will be giving more details soon. If you are in the ATL area, Roux is a really fun place to eat and maybe my craft sale will put you over the edge to stop by. 🙂

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