Homemade Nativities

My clothes peg people are missing now…I’ll post a new (close-up) photo when I find them. They are made with traditional wooden clothes pegs, a painted face (with facial features added with sharpie) and material. The arms are pipe cleaners. These are sample crafts from
A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families.

What’s the theme here? Where’s Baby Jesus? These are all Nativity figures I have made over the years with toilet paper rolls, egg cartons and wooden pegs…but Baby Jesus is missing in each one!

I need to start re-making Him…

I remember the egg carton Baby Jesus, was just a small piece of the egg carton for a cradle, with construction paper “straw” sticking out behind a fabric bundle of baby.

I’ll post pictures when I either find my original or make a new one.

I find that Baby Jesus either gets misplaced by one of my kids parading him around the house during Advent (before Baby Jesus is supposed to be in the manger), or in transit from one of the Catholic conferences we attend. We have actually had the odd sample craft
made from A Treasure Chest of Traditions for Catholic Families
stolen from our booth display!

These Holy Family Felt Friends are made with felt over a pipe-cleaner body, felt clothes, embroidery floss hair and facial features. I know, I need to make a Baby Jesus version here as well.

I added a quick Baby Jesus for this post.

I made this Nativity before we were married and it’s our special one-of-a-kind family Nativity. I think I found a pattern for the little bodies and then I improvised for the clothing. (Can you tell ? =)

I engineered the manger myself with the little skylight for the star to poke through.

The brown manger material already had verticle lines in it, so I quilted it to make it a little more durable. The manger also has a couple wooden dowels in it, but it’s not too “stable”. I usually use a little pillow to prop it up. I didn’t make the tree, but it looks cute with the set. I like the lighting on the close-up picture…I think it looks like they’re sitting by the fire.