The Challenge of the NEW!

This was a long way from designing birdhouses yet fun to do in many "new" ways!

Last year,  when I asked my daughter what she would like for Christmas for herself, husband and my granddaughter she thought awhile and then said, I would like you to create a Hanukkah Village for us to put on our mantle. While my daughter is a born and raised United Methodist, he husband is Jewish and I knew they were combining faith traditions as they raise their daughter, my granddaughter.

She sent me a photo of the houses she wanted to use, (left) three different sizes of paper mache houses that had removable roofs. The Hanukkah tradition is for each day the candle burns, 8 days in all, there is a small gift for a child each day. With these, they could put a gift inside. I loved the idea but the challenge was that Hanukkah was less than a month away!

I hurried over to the craft store to get two sets of the houses and thought I would use a wooden birdhouse (that really didn't look like a birdhouse) and use a wooden tree I decorated with snowmen skiing down a hillside to a frozen pond for the seventh and eighth pieces. There was room in the birdhouse to hide something and a space in front of the snowman tree.

The challenge? How to design each one so they were unique and yet festive enough for the Holiday Season.

A birdhouse converted to a synagogue

I first tackled the wooden birdhouse that I made into a synagogue. I found some Hanukkah decorations and used them on the birdhouse keeping the synagogue as simple as I could. It turned out to be a kind of Spanish style synagogue but with a few simple additions it was passable.

It was fun and that made me learn to use my scroll saw because the next item was a big, formal house with columns! I added lintels, feet became attic windows and of course you needed holiday decorations. 

I had amassed a collection of items and for the first time I found that I was able to use them to embellish the items with more than just with paint. My two story houses with removable roofs were put to the test.

A little adobe house with removable roof

What was so fun was that I got to do all kinds of detail work with a variety of objects that I found new uses for. I had never done anything quite like this and found that I would spend just about all night working on these fragile houses creating a kind of village from as you can see above, from nothing!

The challenge was to decide HOW to decorate each piece. The Hanukkah tree was already done and the synagogue was finished but now what? I two two large houses to do, two mid sized and two small houses left. I wanted each one to be different but how?

I was given free reign on how I wanted to decorate them and I didn't want them to all be too formal. I next tackled one of the small houses and converted it into a Southwest adobe style with visible wooden beams coming through the walls, front and back, Southwest colors and details complete with cactuses. It was fun. I did the other small house more in the Spanish Territorial style you would see in New Mexico!

The two midsized houses were a challenge. I finally decided to paint one in the Pennsylvania Dutch / Bavarian style with dark walls and hearts and flowers similar to what I had seen in Bavaria on several trips. It was dark yet remained colorful with large red hearts and tulips adorning front and back. Adding a tree also added a German feel.

The second large house I decided to decorate in my wildly colorful "crazy-quilt" design incorporating both Hanukkah and Christmas elements. While I am not all that familiar with Jewish traditions some decorations at the craft store helped. Here I used Christmas colors and each base color had it's own design. The rub was that I used Christmas and Hanukkah wrap instead of fabric prints. It was a challenge with an amazing amount of detailing required.

The last mid-sized house I made blue with snowflake patterns with a small birdhouse decorating the front. You "know" I had to get a birdhouse in somewhere. As you can see from the photo at the top the village is quite colorful and was a hit at my daughters house.

Packing them all in a box was yet another challenge. The miracle was that they managed to arrive with little damage despite the damage to the box. Pieces that fell off were easily glued back on and it was unique as displayed on their fireplace mantle.

Sometimes you need a little, in this case a huge shove, to use your talents in new ways. This would be a wonderful gift for family, friends or yourself, something unique that you created! With tender loving care, this would be a decoration that could be used for years and handed down to the next generation. Who doesn't have Christmas things from years and generations past? 

With the holidays just around the corner I hope that I have inspired my readers to attempt the same thing!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!