My mother always loved to decorate for the various holidays and various seasons and loved decorating her home with handmade decorations either she had made or were made for her by her children. So, when my mother down sized and moved into a senior citizen apartment many years ago she didn't have a lot of room for her seasonal and holiday decorations. She ended up giving some of her cherished decorations away. She just didn't have the room to store or display them.
In thinking about this over the years and thinking about my own need to down size a little on my decorations I thought about handmade decorations that could be left out for several holidays and several seasons. For me that would mean something I could bring out in September and leave out until March. But, what kind of form would be conducive to that?
Well, after experimenting with the mixed media art dolls I had learned to make in my latest Artful Gathering class and thinking about multi level wood blocks a light bulb went off in my head. The multi level wood blocks would be perfect for a multi seasonal multi holiday mixed media collage decoration that could be left out for many months.
Since the Fall, Christmas, and Winter seasons are my favorite times of the year I thought my blocks should have a Fall side, a Christmas side, a Winter side, and a Halloween side. And, best of all, they could be left out for 7 months. All you'd have to do was turn the block for the season or holiday you wanted.
For the graphics I decided to mainly use some of my own doll graphics that I had created for my custom fabric lines. However, I didn't have quite enough so I added some free graphics from The Graphics Fairy, free graphics from The Vintage Moth, free graphics from Antique Clipart, some Victorian graphics from "A Victorian Lady's Scrapbook" Dover Pictorial Archive paperback CD-ROM that I bought from Amazon, and some Victorian graphics in the public domain.
I ended up creating two 9" x 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" 3-tier mixed media collage art block towers with a Fall side, a Christmas side, a Winter side, and a Halloween side and two 4 1/2" x 2" x 2" mixed media mini art lock towers with a Fall side, a Christmas side, a Winter side, and a Halloween side.
I also had some other solid wood blocks that were 6" x 2" x 2" and 5 1/4" x 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" wood blocks that I made into mixed media collage art blocks with a Christmas side, a Winter side, and a Halloween side.
I also had two solid wood rectangles that were 4 3/4" x 2 1/4" x 1 1/4" that I made into mixed media collage art rectangles with 3 Christmas sides and one Halloween side.
I also made two 3 1/2" x 2 1/2" x 2" mixed media collage artist trading cards (i.e. ATC's) with a Halloween side and Christmas side.
I was pleased with the way all the art blocks turned out and decided to try my hand at some bigger blocks so stay tuned - there will be more.
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