New Mugs for me! Using DecoArts Americana Glossy Enamel paints, Mod stencil and tools

The 1st in my collection from my Granny

I have some teapots that I love sooo much! The collection was started when my Granny gave me the first one, since then my Mum and my hubs have given me a few and I have gotten a couple for myself, I don't have a lot of them but I have always loved to look at them.

My pretty orange nook 

I think my favorite part is that they are perfectly imperfect. they have beautiful designs in gold with enamel paint in added touches, the enamel is not perfect within the design and is always a reminder to me that art is not exact.


I love them so much that I decided to make my kitchen colors reflect the teapots, oranges and greens with contrast of dark brown.



Because of the color combination whenever I went looking for items to match my kitchen I usually only found fall or Thanksgiving themed items so I have had to make a lot of my decor myself.

I have been looking for a while for some cute coffee mugs that I could put out on my coffee bar that would match but had not found anything that I liked enough to buy so I made due with a jumble of mugs, most of them I have had since my 1st apartment!

In the past I have made mugs for other people and I decided now was the time to be selfish and make something for me! 

My tools

I went to a Dollar Store (I am so cheap) and bought 4 mugs, 2 in green and 2 in brown and got some DecoArt Americana Glossy Enamels one of their sticky back stencil sets, the set called Mod, and a packet of tools, the palette knives and wedge sponges and I also used a paint brush I already had on hand.
















I used stencils for 2 of the mugs. To apply the paint I used the wedge sponge for 1 and the palette knife for the other. 

Paint applied with sponge

Paint applied with palette knife 

I was far from tedious with the application of the paint because I wanted them imperfect to match the rest of my kitchen!


With the remaining 2 mugs I applied the paint using a paint brush, the paint is thick and applies beautifully, for heavier coverage a 2nd coat is all that is needed. I decided to do a simple flower design on the one and a simple doodle design on the other.

Simple flowers

Simple doodles

Love Love Love!

I decided to make the matching point the color and not the design because even with my teapots the designs are not all the same, I also didn't want anything too intricate because I my home is very informal, decorated odd knickknacks, antiques, art and my barbies, Yes I am an adult with barbies!

I think I may need to make more mugs!

I love how my new mugs look on my coffee bar in the kitchen, ready for anyone to grab a cup and get caffeinated!

The "Coffee I Love You" was purchased and given to me as a gift, the "Bird in Cup" mixed media on canvas is one of my original works, The large painting of my cat "Mina" is and original acrylic on canvas painted by my cousin from Art by Bea on Facebook, the small photo in the lower right is an altered photo "Birds". Both Bird in cup and Birds are available in my Society6 store.






If you would like to see the video of the process here you go!

Big Hugs!!! 

- Shana Banana

$6 and 10 minutes Christmas wreath!

Yes, I admit it! I am cheap! I rarely buy anything with out a coupon or a sale. I wanted a wreath for my house but realized I refused to pay what was being charged for the ones I liked!



I had to go to a dollar store for a different project I am working on and saw the Christmas decorations and got inspired! This wreath turned out better than I thought it would and looks totally adorable on my house!



Best yet, I used no glue! Glue can be used if you want but my wreath is sheltered enough that I think it will be secure!



I hope you enjoy!!



Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff

- Shana

A Collaboration with Tiffany from Southern Gals Design!

Oh My Gosh!! How fun is this going to be! I am doing a collaboration with Tiffany from Southern Gals Designs! We will be making 2 Journal pages total.

Today we are both posting our videos for our backgrounds, which we will mail out, we will the pages a few times recording out process as we go, so we both end up with an awesome journal page to add to our journals! I am so excited!!!! I hope you follow along and I will post at least a quick blog with a link to both whenever we publish!

I cant wait to see what we end up with!

I had so much fun playing but I had such a hard time letting go! I love this background! Using both brushes and my fingers in my watercolor palate, using my favorite stencils, some Liquitex Ultra Matte Gel medium, Acrylic craft paints, and dylusions sprays, do you know what that creates!?

The Perfect Monday!

I hope you enjoy watching the fun I got to have!!

here is my background video

And to see what I'll be working with Click this HERE to see her video! 

She said she will be posting a blog tonight so go check her out at SouthernGalsDesign!

Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff!

Shana Banana!

Inspired by Bird Wall Hanging Mixed Media Tutorial

I had some fun using a Video from Tiffany from Southern Gals Design for inspiration, she did a whimy bird wall hanging that was ADORABLE and since I had some plaques collecting dust I decided to do one in my style! Hope you enjoy and go on over and check hers out! The way she does her backgrounds is inspiration in itself and I only hope I can someday make one like hers! Big hugs and love!!

Inspiration - Pick a Decade - Artful Journeys Week #45

It has definitely been a while since my last blog post! I have been leaving the Journal prompts to be posted on the Artful Chicks blog, so if you would like to see some of the past weekly and pop-up prompts go over to Artful Chicks to check them out !

This weeks Prompt is Pick a decade! I kind of got an awesome 2-fer out of this one because I also played with a new medium, Chalk pastels.

How awesome are these things!!!

I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful set of handmade chalk Pastels gifted to me by the main admin and a dear sweet friend whom I love and adore, in the Artful Journeys Betty ( AKA Arty Auntie.)







I was so excited to try them out that I decided to put the time to good use and play with them for my prompt this week! For my paper I used Canson Mi-Teintes 98 lbs Pastel Paper and I used no tools other than my fingers for smudging.

This is the 1st ineteration of my flapper girl, but the more I looked at her the more I saw there wasn't any real contrast.




















 So I went back in and added more depth into her face, hair and the scarf on her head, even after adding more highlights and shadows she still seemed so bland, so I changed up the background using the color form her eyes to add some pop.When I was satisfied with the look I did an even coat of Aqua-net Hairspray since I am out of workable fixative. SO I would have the pastels rubbing off in my journal.























 I found an awesome quote from F.Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby Girls that totally fit the attitude on my girls face and wrote it using my Prismacolor Chisel tip and brush tip pens in black.






















I thought it needed a bit of sparkle so I went in with my Martha Stewart Glitter glues in Sugar Cube, Hematite and Candy Apple to add some sparkly details.

I then tipped the original girl into my junk journal with washi tape and Golden Matte medium for extra hold.

I hope you enjoyed my process overview! and please let me know is you have any questions that I didn't address. For your convenience I have added a link for every product mentioned throughout.

Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff!!

Shana Banana

Inspiration - Black Cats and Bats Week #41 Artful Journeys

Hello my Lovelies!

I hope you are all doing awesome!

I loved this prompt, not just because of its Halloween theme but also because of the black cats! I love animals and have a soft spot for black cats, did you know that black cats are more likely to be euthanized than any other color? Because of the stigma of black cats being bad luck many people pass up wonderful animals, here in Phoenix at a local pet store that helps adopt out cats they actually have a special for black cats! They give food, a cat tree and a litter box along with a reduced adoption fee!

I actually have 2 black cats Gable that I rescued 15 yrs ago,



















and Matty who had to be given up because his owner was moving

They are both awesome pets and I wouldn't trade them for the world! Ok enough of my speech! On with the art!

This week I went for simple, my tools were Mixed Media paper, watercolors, black and metallic gold acrylic paint.
I was inspired by a silhouette Halloween window decoration I saw and decided to put some color into it!

I did a simple background using all the shades of blue and purple in my Koi watercolor pallet and brush wet layers of color over the entire page leaving it streaky for a cloud effect.

I then grabbed a paint brush and painted the tree, cat and bats into place, I planned on being done at that point but I wanted a bit more contrast so I grabbed my Lumier metallic gold paint and added the moon, stars and the eyes of the bats and cat!











I was thinking I may add some words but I wasn't sure what would fit so I let it as is.


















I will put it in my art journal as a tip in and maybe I will be inspired then!


Big hugs and Mushy stuff!

-Shana

Inspiration - Leaves - Week #38 Artful Journeys

For this weeks journal entry I decided to go cute! To be honest I started the page without it actually being for this week! The page started out being the pages I used to clean my stencils after spraying my Dylusions inks through them. the colors that were there already had a fall feel to them and I went from there!

I wet the page and reactivated the inks and move them around a bit on the page then coated it with watered down gesso.

Then I went looking for what images I saw in the spots! I found this cute little guy! holding an acorn getting ready for winter!

I brought him out using craft acrylic paints and prismacolor pencils.

I love my journal! I can work in my journal with no fear of error because it will only be seen if I share it!

I'll keep it short today!

Big hugs and mushy stuff!

Playing with Dylusions Ink in a new way - "dreams"

Hello All! I just thought I would share this process with you all, this is how I like to play with Dylusions spray inks. This is the process I usually follow when I am at a loss for inspiration but I want to create!

I have been using this process for quite a while but I never thought to share until I realized I had never seen anyone else use their sprays this way! I shared this video in some facebook groups I am a part of and could not believe the response I got! This is by far my most popular video on Youtube and I think I need to record my play time more often.

The reason I love this process so much is that it is soo uncontrolled, because I start with the black background I cannot see where the spray ends up very clearly and I dont see how the inks are mixing together, when I add the white to it and Smoosh the pages together I have no control as to how the white will lay on the page and what color ink it will attach itself to.

I hope you enjoy the video, if you have any questions feel free to ask! I am usually pretty good at answering them!

Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff!

Inspiration - Go To the Fair - Week #37 Artful Journeys

I am sorry in advance for this short post, but sometimes time is not in the abundance that I wish!

This weeks prompt was "Go to the Fair" I had the idea for a watercolor and ink like I had done in the past that I wanted to tweak and to make it better. I did this a few years ago for a art swap and I wish I would have kept it for journal! but I have the picture so I can try again and make it better, it was a lot of fun to make with the simple sunset sky and the black silhouettes. I will do it again I swear!

I did make a new piece this week, but I did it digitally! I love playing with Photoshop to create instead of just adjust images for printing!

For this piece I took about 6 different images and used some effects to get the great gradient shading then added the blue yellow and red to give the illusion of Electricity at the Fair!

I know it is simple but I think once I get it printed out and in my journal is will be a great addition to my creative collection!

Go over and check out what the other ladies have done with this weeks prompt over at Artful Chicks!

Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff!

- Shana

Remembering to Enjoy being an Artist

I love being an artist, but just like anything when you start worrying what other people like or what they will think it causes stress, I have actually ended up roadblocked in my creative process! The prompts from Artful Journeys are easy, I am not trying to make art that I think someone will want to buy, I am excepting a challenge to create a theme.

For years I have created without thought to what others liked, just what made me feel good, and I have sold many pieces! but suddenly with the need for income from my art I pretty much stressed myself out into creating mud... I have had enough of being stuck in my own head, I decided to get my journal out and create just for the fun of creating!



What I came up with is just a fun piece, Its not something anyone would want on their wall, I made it where it belongs, in my art journal. Its there to remind me that I have to make sure I enjoy what I am doing or I might as well go back to my desk job being stressed all the time working on deadlines and trying to find satisfaction in someone else's dream.

Art should be enjoyed not only by the person who views, reads or hears it, but also by the creator. I want people to see the love, joy, anger, sadness, remorse what ever I am feeling, that I put into my art and I have been trying to force myself to make happy sweet art when I am stressed out, that is not achievable for me!

So I just used all the art supplies I hadn't played with in a while and just chose the colors I wanted, giving no thought to the process, just being happy that my hands were getting full of color and I was ruining another t-shirt.

I just kept telling myself as I played, if it looks too bad Ill just throw a layer of gesso over it or cover it with papers. It turned out perfect for a journal.



And I feel much better!




Big Hugs and Mushy Stuff!

- Shana
                                             Check out the video to see all the fun I had!

Inspiration - Dream Destinations - Week #36 Artful Journeys

This weeks prompt "Dream Destinations" was an easy choice for my subject, Hawaii! To be honest I was in Hawaii once, for about a half hour! I was on a layover on my way to the Philippines so I got the wonder and awe of walking around the airport!

Flying over the islands and on our way in and our way out was magical! From my airplane window I got to see, Pearl Harbor, the beautiful landscapes and cityscapes, a whale in the wild for the 1st time, and a new island being formed from an underwater volcano eruption. it was beautiful! I think that because I never got to see it from the ground it is a place I really want to go.



I am in love with the Art Deco style and I attempted to recreate it, I used colored prismacolor pencils and acrylic paint to create the page as seen here. I like my girl and the floral pattern in the circle behind her but I think it was my color choices that made it not really feel Art Deco-ish, and on top of that I didn't plan ahead for a place to actually write "Hawaii" on it!

So I went to the other Artful chicks asking for help, actually is was more like "HELP!" I received awesome ideas from the ladies, but the one I hadn't thought of was digitally altering it!

I took this photo of my page and uploaded it into my photoshop program, Originally I was just going to add text, but when I went scoping the internet for inspiration I decided to go a slightly different route trying to work the Art Deco style I wanted back into the piece.






I used some vintage Hawaii brochures and postcard images and cropped them down put for the green and blue spaces, I then brought the opacity down to about 60% so that they didn't overshadow my hula girl and I love how it turned out!

The page still doesn't have the full Art Deco feel I wanted but I think I got some of the style back that I was looking for as well as adding some depth to the piece,

I hope you enjoyed my very basic review of my process! 

If there is ever anything you would like more details on in my process ask and I will see what I can do!

Big Hugs and Mushy stuff!

- Shana

Inspiration - Sunset and Fireflys - Artful Journeys Prompt Week #35

This weeks prompt got my blood boiling! I had this grand idea of a watercolor sunset background and the bold black silhouette of a corn field and the fireflies brightly lit up in the field. I thought it would be easy! I am a pro! I can do watercolor sunsets with my eyes closed!

WRONG!!!

I grabbed my Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor Journal and started up! I wet my page to get it ready and started adding color, it was one of those days... even the skills I think I have down pat are impossible to accomplish!  I was overworking the color I could not keep a light hand!  I tried to fix it and I picked up too much color! This is what I ended up with, all the colors to bold, no dreamy color what so ever, and a muddy mix of color that I could not pick up and it was sopping wet from trying to lighten the it, this picture is from about and hour of trying to fix my initial error.

I was so frustrated I closed my watercolor journal went and played with my puppy to cool down and came back to it. I opened my journal and I still did not like it for what I wanted to do, but....

The page on the opposite side was beautiful and reminded my of my scouting days when I took a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters , it was so beautiful there! I was inspired! Woo hoo!!

The colors that were bold on the opposite page came over as muted on the opposite page that gave it the dreamy surreal quality that I remember from the Boundary Waters. 

Right away I found my inner Bob Ross, pulled out my fan brush, and started painting some happy little trees using a mix of black and forest green watercolor. 

The muddy mix of color from the page gone wrong was concentrated in mostly one area of my new loveliness, and reminded me of some of the bluffs we had seen during our trip, I always wanted to go to the top and camp out looking over the waterways and see the everything from above.

So I painted the bluff in and put people camping on the top, I even remembered to put their food pack up in a tree! In reality you would put it further from your campsite, but it's my world! Oops! how did they get there!? So, I added the canoe banked at the bottom of the bluff.

I added another tree into the foreground to add a bit of depth, and added my lightening bugs (aka fire flies) here and there. In hind sight I would have left the foreground tree out, the fireflies make it look kinda like a Christmas tree, but, I don't hate it entirely, so that's a positive, right?

I really like how this page ended up! I really was so frustrated with the whole thing, but life is so full of happy accidents!

I know I will end up using the original page for something else, I don't know what but it will be used, I do like how the colors turned out on that page, it just wasn't what was in my head! I am still going to do my original idea at some point, just not now!


Big hugs and mushy stuff!!!

Special thanks to my Puppy for helping me keep my cool! It is impossible to look at him an not smile!

Go on over and check out what the other girls made over at Artful Chicks!

Inspiration - Windows - Artful Journeys - Week #34

This weeks prompt gave me a reason to practice my watercolor skills, and what is a art journal for if not to practice! I have always had a hard time with trees so I decided to do a scene with trees so I scoured the internet looking for some nice scenery pictures, I found a beautiful picture by Anna Surface of Surface and Surface Photography, I would post a copy of the picture but I didn't get permissions to post the photo, you should definitely take a look at her website surfaceandsurfacephotography.com her work is beautiful.

I used her photo as reference for this watercolor

I think I am getting better at catching the highlights and shadows when it comes to groups of trees, I still have more work to do to get where I want to but I am pretty happy with my progress!

I wanted to use this picture as a  view from a window in my junk journal, I made my junk journal using a large Smash journal and a Recollections journal that I found on the clearance rack a Micheals, they were both damaged so I took the 2 and made them into 1 journal, I love this journal and the different patterns sometime lead me to paint and draw things I normally wouldn't.

I found a page that had wood grain that would make a perfect window frame so I cut out the windows, and I lucked out that the other side was a floral pattern and I use the cut out parts as curtains!

I taped the watercolor onto the back of the page using scotch paper tape on just the one side so that the full watercolor can still be seen if wanted.

I then used the cut out pieces from the window and used double stick tape to attach them to the window frame to make pretty curtains.

I think the journal entry turned out pretty cute and love that I have put another entry into my junk journal!

Go check out how the other ladies used this weeks prompt over at Artful Chicks!!

Big hugs and mushy stuff!

Inspiration - Bad Poetry - Artful Journeys - Week #33

Ok... Bad Poetry... Did you know National Bad Poetry Day is August 18th? Who knew it had its own day! I didn't! but it is awesome to have a day that makes me realize I'm not the only one that cant write like Shakespeare!

For the Artful Journeys prompt we put a twist on it and made it a 'Found' Poetry prompt as well! Basically cutting out words from magazines, books, flyers, newspapers etc. and seeing what we could come up with!

I had so much fun with this one! I sat on the couch just cutting words out of magazines, I thought I was done then realized I forgot to cut out my Fanboys! (Fanboy is an acronym for the basic conjunctions F=for A=and N=nor B=but O=or Y=yet S=so) So don't forget your Fanboys!

I also had a page in my junk journal that I had no idea how to use so I started gluing my words down, I didn't even add any other embellishment on the page, I just like how they look on top of the wheat.

It says:

I looked in the mirror
Dream
Serenity and a Dog,
Is Mystery
Intensifying
Into the Last Best Plunge with you?

Lets pretend it's deep and meaningful, shall we?










To go along with it I just used paint and colored pencil to make a girl with a dog on the other side of the page, covering as little of the background as possible.

Here is the full spread, it may not be my absolute favorite journal entry but it was a lot of fun! and I love that I don't have to stare at the wheat pages anymore!

And just for fun I made a second one for bad poetry day, This spread I made using napkins I received from a member of Artful Mail Groupies as a "just because" she is so sweet! (thank you P.J.!)













I started by separating the layers of the napkins ripping them apart and gluing them down along with some book pages using Liquitex Matte Medium.

I used gelatos and gesso to color the back ground and added splatters of black India Ink around just for some contrast.

The large yellow and red butterfly I stamped on the page using my StazOn ink pad.

I used acrylic paint, Neocolor II's to paint the face in the sunflower and the butterflies then used my Faber-Castell Pitt Pens add some dimension and lines.

At that point I felt that the butterflies were stealing the show from the flower so I watered down some gesso and did a thin coat over everything except the face of the sunflower to tone them down.

I then scanned the image into my computer and added the bad poem that I wrote!

I want to apologize for getting this post up so late! I had company this weekend, my puppy Tomah had his brother Slate over for a visit 

and they had fun!

And wore each other out!

Hard to believe they are from the same litter!

Big hugs and Mushy Stuff everyone!

be sure to go check over at Artful Chicks to see what the other ladies did and go on over to Artful Journeys on Facebook to share how you used the prompt!

- Shana aka wisccheeto