My kids
LOVE these Nativity blocks.
We have a breakable Nativity set that lives up high on a shelf, but these are indestructible and fun to play with. So we cleared out the bottom shelf of the kids' bookshelf for them, so the star can live up one shelf and shine over Baby Jesus.
They're also hard to get a good picture of because as soon as I start to arange them for a picture, the kids come in and HAVE to play with them RIGHT now.
Of course Baby Jesus is Sweet Pea's favorite.
And that's Firecracker behind her stacking them to compare how many pieces we have of each size.
I made these quite a while ago, long before I'd started or even heard of craft blogs. My mom first got the idea at a Christmas Craft Day at church. I borrowed her set to copy them for our family and to make as gifts several years ago. The original set had Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, The Three Wise Men, a shepard, and two sheep. Then two years ago, I added the angel, donkey, camel, and star because we still had a few extra blocks left over. The blocks are just 2x4's that were cut, sanded, and stained. Then I traced the design in pencil, painted them with acrylic paint, and then used a black paint pen to go over the lines. (That makes the images stand out and also helps to cover any small mistakes made when you painted.
Because I made these long before I was blogging, I don't have a printable pattern for them, but I did scan the blocks themselves in using our scanner, so even though they're not very printable, you could trace them off yoru computer screen.
NOTE:
I forgot to include the lengths of the blocks initially. Most of them are 8 1/2 inches tall. Mary is 7 in. Baby Jesus is 5 in. The sheep are 4 in. The donkey is on a longer one because that's what I had and didn't want to go cut the wood again, but he could be on one a little shorter.
Here is the link to a PDF in Google Documents that you can download to get the
Nativity Blocks pattern here. I just put the blocks on my scanner and scanned them in, so it's in full color.
I also recently saw an idea of
felt nativity finger puppets at the Craft Patch. Anybody else have some Nativity related craft ideas? I'm always looking for more.
You can see a round up of my Christmas posts from last year
here.
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