365 Cards - Day 121 - 4 Seasons

I made this exploding box for mum's birthday some months ago (and it took months to put together), but didn't take pics before I sent it to her.  I've just spent a fortnight with the parentals, and as a result, now have a pic.  Better late than never, but I think it's nearly the end of the 365 Cards year, and I've done barely a third of the challenges, and this challenge was from back in June .... oh well!

The basic card stock is that Dutch stuff I bought from Puffin Crafts (which is or has already closed down - boo hoo), then I've hand decorated each paper which has been matted onto each side of the card, as follows:

Centre - Summer - a papier mache ball covered in loose flame-like shapes in yellow/orange/red tissue paper with background paper of pieces of the same tissue paper pasted onto cartridge paper with diluted PVA (gives it a bit of shine).

Middle layer - Spring (greens) - wallpaper lining paper initially drawn lines with coloured wax crayons then washes of darker and darker green interspersed with lines drawn in candle wax (just the end of an household candle).  The same paper was punched out and the punches put on little foam pads.

Outer layer - Autumn (browns) - same technique and papers as Spring, but the acorn is from a Fiskars template.

Outside of box - Winter (blues) - same technique and papers as Spring & Autumn with some of the paper used to make little Origami fish (3 of them) which have been stuck around the lid.

Here's a closeup of the interior of the box, and then of what the outside looks like:

I'm really pleased with it, it's about 5-6" square base.  Mum suggested that if I do another one I could put the interior boxes on point, then the decoration could be seen better, because I also used the papers on the other side of the card as well as the sides you can see.  I am not however going to do another one for a while, as I don't have any suitable papers, but if I do, I'll see how that works.