Spoonful of Imagination

Add it to a Family for Something Beautiful

DIY Painted Journals

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Do you ever find yourself needing just a safe, inexpensive way to play?

With everything going on in the world right now, it can be hard to go places. We can create fun at home by creating in our home.

This past week, I found myself analyzing the fall, plans, what to do, how to move forward and it was all real heavy when you mix in COVID-19. I bought some notebooks and just started painting for no reason other than I needed too. It was a safe place for me to play, experiment and enjoy the creative process.

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” -Neil Gaiman

With back to school shopping happening, composition notebooks are only about $0.50 each right now. What a cheap canvas! I bought eight notebooks, gave them a quick spray paint to have a blank canvas and got started just brushing them with big bold strokes of  acrylic paint.

I played with colors mixing, making subtle blends, and big bold blends. It was so fun and satisfying to squirt paint directly onto the notebook and to just start brushing and watching that paint move. I played with directions, pressure of the brush, and the amount of paint. It was therapeutic to play with colors I love and stretch myself with new colors.

I loved having eight notebooks to do at once. It allowed me to keep going and not having to wait long periods for a base coat to dry before I painted more. Once all eight of my first coats on the journals dried, I came back and added some more concrete brush strokes on top of my abstract blends.

I loved picking contrasting colors and create movement that went against the other brush strokes. The final step was stamping some circles and squirting some runny paint on top. The mix of all these colors, layers, and different techniques blended together to create some fun abstract notebook covers.

What do you think? Will you pick up some composition notebooks next time you are at the store? I had so much fun creating these covers that now I am continuing on in them! I love art journaling and after leading some art journaling workshops at the beginning of quarantine, I realized one of my favorite parts of journaling is creating base coats like these.

Doodles, words, collages, poems, paintings, and special notes look amazing on top, but they are also pretty fun just like this!

Have you art journaled? If you haven’t, you may just love it. It is one of my favorite ways to rest and process the world around me!

Do you have a student a little nervous to walk back into a new school year? Maybe painting their notebooks for school might help in the excitement and also open up an opportunity for you to talk and process it all together.

I hope you can find sometime for YOU to create, breath and rest, as you also process the world around you! We are in this together! If you try these paint techniques on some inexpensive notebooks, I would love to see them! Please find me on social media!

Instagram: @ericadeuel

Facebook: @spoonfulofimagination

#spoonfulofimagination

Create your own inexpensive foliage!

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Are you ready for spring?

I don’t mind the winter, as long as there is snow and it’s pretty! Sometimes the pretty is just the trees’ silhouette outline on a colorful sky, since we haven’t had as much snow this winter. There have been a lot of gray, wet days. It has me itching to bring back color, so the other day, I took down all the winter decorations at our art studio and started creating some spring ones. Let me show you how I came up with my foliage!

As the founder of a non profit art studio, we get a good amount of local craft donations from other artists or businesses in town. Recently, we got some fabric samples from a home designer and it got me thinking if I could turn those into some inexpensive green, spring foliage.

I loved how there were different patterns, texture of fabrics and shades of colors. I started by cutting about 3″ long leaves. I didn’t measure or worry about the exact width or shape. This is a great activity to do during a movie or couch lounging one night.

Once I had a huge stack of leaves, I simply started hot gluing and folding them around some wire stems.

You can use whatever wire you have or you can pick some up in the craft floral section at your local craft store like I did. I added a dab of hot glue on the wire and kind of folded one end of the leaf around it. I don’t have any pictures of this step, but if you look closely you can see what I am saying.

I worked in about 3′ long pieces of wire and made a stack of this foliage as I went. I made 8 separate pieces, but you could make as many as you wanted. I intended for my foliage to hang like a garland, but you could create yours on dowel rods for a sturdy base to stick in a vase as well. There are lots of possibilities!

I love how the fabric creates a soft leaf and foliage look. It really makes it more believable by how it moves and does not have a harsh fold. I took my foliage to the studio and hung it down in our faux fireplace.

I love the natural, yet creative pop of inspiration it gives in the space.

It was a perfect way to add some spring decorations in an inexpensive way to our space. What do you think?

So, are you ready for spring? Or, do you want to will it into existence by creating spring looks too?

Creating doesn’t have to be expensive. Use what you have. If you have some old green Christmas decorations, you can cut that up for some leaves. Do you have some green shirts with a stain? You can use that too! On those little leaves, you can’t tell where they came from or what they use to be. When they are all strung up together though, they create a beautiful look!

Have fun and imagine the possibilities! If you create some inexpensive foliage, tag us on Instagram or Facebook so we can see!

Marbled Soup Can Canister Tutorial

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Do you love recycling trash into treasures as much as we do!?

Art doesn’t have to be expensive. Using things you might normally throw away as art supplies is one way to create in an inexpensive way! Soup cans are one of our favorite recycling materials to repurpose into a fun craft. It is sturdy and strong and be a great base for something else.

Today, we are excited to show you how you can turn those cans into marbleized storage canisters.

The first step is to collect your soup cans. We have gotten in the habit of just saving all our soup cans, so when a project idea arises, we are ready with cans on hand. I take the paper wrapper off our soup cans and run them through the dishwasher with our dishes to get clean. Once you have your dry cans, you are ready to create! We spray painted our cans white to have a nice matte base coat for this project. While the tin cans were drying, we collected our spray paint cans and filled a bucket with water. For each can, we choose two different spray paint colors. We added one color at a time.

All you have to do is spray the water with your spray paint color. The spray paint sits on top of the water. You then lay the can on top of the water and the paint will adhere to the can like a sticker might grab onto your hand. After one color was added, we simply looked at the can, maybe rotated it a little to figure out what side needed some more color, and did this step again with the second color of paint.

The can comes out of the water looked marbleized and super fun! After you get the hang of it, you can play with how much spray paint you spray on top of the water to create a more thick or less thick look on your can. We had so much fun doing all four of our cans that we prepped!

After the cans were dry, we used ours to hold art supplies. You could do the same or turn it into something else! A wind chime, flower pot, vase, or candle holder are fun ways to use your new canister too. You can personalize this craft using colors that fit your taste or the size can that fits your need best.

Sometimes it is easier to understand the steps to a project to see it actually happen. To see this craft in video form, you can watch the process on our YouTube channel here.

We love how quick, colorful, process art base, and inexpensive this paint technique can be! We had so much fun doing it to the tin cans that we bought some inexpensive raw wood candle sicks to paint this way too!

How fun are those!? We think they look like they belong on shelves in World Market or Anthropologie. We found some white candle sticks that make the colors pop even more, and we are going to use them as Christmas presents for family this year!

What do you think!? Will you try this paint technique? Do you like making Christmas gifts too!? We’d love to hear from you! Find us on social media by tagging us with your pictures #spoonfulofimagination

Thanks so much for stopping by!

VLOG Behind the Scenes: Fun Family Paint Dropper Craft Tutorial

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paint dropper craftDid you see our big news!?

We were so excited to share in yesterday’s post that we have started a YouTube Channel! This really is a family project. Our kids are all in. They are so excited but also learning how much work it is. Here they were, patiently waiting for us to have all the supplies and camera equipment set up.

Don’t they look thrilled!?

They did actually have a lot of fun. We all did.

If you haven’t seen this vlog episode yet, check it out now! I made a major mistake and the aftermath plays out for the whole world to see.

It was a fun project because it incorporated a lot of color, gave freedom to make it ‘yours’, and was simple with only two main steps. We got to paint with droppers and paint with brushes – all the while talking and hanging out.

We plan on growing into a regular blog recap after we release a new vlog that can show you behind the scenes pictures and moments like this. Our kids will also be editing pictures they take and writing these posts from time to time.

process art project

process art projectCaleb’s project was looking so perfect and then we came back in from playing in the snow and disaster struck! I made a huge mess and am just thankful the cameras weren’t rolling when this happened, or Matt would shown you for sure!

process art project

If you’ve followed us for a while, you know that we encourage that the creating process is the art and not the final product. This helps to break down fears and boundaries when creating and encourage a more “go for it” spirit. This mindset will also help when your project gets messed up or isn’t looking the way you wanted it too.

Mistakes open up the opportunity to problem solve and dream up a different direction. I love how our Jeremiah caught the moment that Caleb looked at his messed up painting, tried a new idea, and loved it. His facial expression shows the joy and discovery that art can be.

process art projectNot only was I off the hook for ruining his painting, but I was so proud of how he processed through a mistake and turned it into something he loves. He now has it hanging next to his bed! Pretty cool!

What did you guys think of this first project!? Do you have some old paints you can use this dropper technique on? If you try it, we would love to see! Tag your work with #spoonfulofimagination so we can join you in your creations.

Supplies for this Craft: