DIY Little Clay Nativity

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Years ago I fell in love with a picture I saw of a little pewter nativity set. It was beautiful, and because of the simplicity of it (the lack of faces!!) I thought I could make something similar. However, metalworking is definitely not in my wheelhouse. I ended up making two nativities that year out of clay, and I’ve been working ever since towards perfecting the metal look.

Supplies for the figures:

Sculpey

Toothpicks

wire

Supplies for the stable:

Basswood

3/16” thick 3”x24”

3/16” thick 4”x24”

Wood stain or paint

Rub ’n Buff in silver and gold

Optional for storage:

Photo box

Small plastic zipper bags

The one thing that has stayed constant throughout this process is that I’ve always used Sculpey to make the figures. My figures still look pretty much the same, too (except a little bigger). Other than that I’ve mixed things up in an effort to find what works best. I’ll share with you what I’ve found through trial and error.

My youngest was 2.5 when I made the first nativities. Just for fun, here’s an actual conversation that happened as I was working at the dining room table and he was nearby playing with a Little People nativity.

M: There’s one more bad guy.

Me: Wait, what? Oh no, those aren’t bad guys. Those are wise men.

M. Ok. Now, there’s one more bad guy.

Me: Those are GOOD guys. They’re wise men! Can you say wise men?

M: Wise men.

Me: Good!

M: They’re also called bad guys.

At eight years old he just calls them wise men, thankfully. 🙂

The first stable I made was out of balsa wood. I was very unscientific about the whole thing; I didn’t have a pattern. I used a craft knife and cut out some pieces that I glued together with Tacky glue and then stained. To get the angles of the roof right I just kind of chipped away at the edges of the pieces and sanded them down until they fit together. It worked fine, but it’s not something I wanted to do over and over again.

When I had multiple nativities to make at one time, my husband and I came up with a much simpler design that looked very nice in the end. We used basswood this time. He cut the pieces for me, and then I glued them together and stained them. To get the size right, I laid out my figures and measured them. I wanted all of the figures to be able to fit inside, but you could make it big enough just for the family or whatever size you want. We used the 3” wide boards for the back and sides of the stable, and the 4” boards for the floor and roof.

The clay pieces I made were Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, the manger, a shepherd, three wise men, an angel, six animals of various sizes, and a star. The animals are purposefully a little ambiguous. They’re meant more to represent the variety of animals that might have been there than looking like specific animals. It works for me, but if you’d like for them to look more realistic, by all means make them that way! 

I tried a few different things to give the figures the metallic look. First I used acrylic paint. I even coated it with some kind of sealant. To store the figures I wrapped them up and put them with the stable inside a box. It probably has more to do with the sealant than anything, but they never lost the stickiness/tackiness they had when I first painted them, and the paint started peeling a bit when I’d pull them out each year.

Then I read an article about using something called Rub ’n Buff wax to give clay pieces a metallic look, so I decided to give it a try. It’s a winner! I bought another kind of wax at the same time, but the Rub ’n Buff was my favorite by far. It comes in silver and two shades of gold. To apply it I use a paint brush, and then I take a soft cloth and buff it. It’s probably not a bad idea to wear gloves because it’s a bit messy, but the finished look is so pretty. I haven’t sealed them with anything, and stored in little zip-top bags they look perfect when I pull them out each year. Compared with the acrylic paint, I think they look a lot more pewter-like. That’s a nice bonus. The only thing I use the gold for is baby Jesus, since he’s really the star of the show.

I have a few tips that I hope will help you make the figures…

Make your heads at once if you want them to be the same size. I think it’s easier to roll out the heads to get them about even, and then roll out the bodies.

Make the bodies narrower than the heads. Adding the clothes will add bulk, so I like to start with smaller bodies.

Use pieces of tooth pics to attach the heads to the bodies. I lost too many heads to count after (or during) baking before I figured this out. 

To make the clothes, roll out some clay pretty thin into a rough oval shape and wrap it around so that the edges overlap. Each figure will look a little different, and that’s okay! For everybody but Mary, it works best to have an oval that’s about as tall as the body. For Mary, add a little extra clay at the top of the oval that you can wrap around her head. I like to let it form ruffles around her face (as it does naturally) because it makes her stand out from the rest.

To make the crown for one of the wise men, start with basically a cube and pull up on each corner to make them stand up like a crown. Once you press it onto the head, you’ll have to manipulate it a little more to make sure the points are standing up the way you want them to.

To make the rest of the headpieces, you’ll need a combination of some snake-like pieces rolled out and some thin, flat pieces. Drape a flat piece over the heads of Joseph and the shepherd, and then take two of your little “snakes” and wrap them around each head. For the angel and one of the wise men I make simple round rings. For the third wise man I start with a long “snake” and wrap it around the head a few times.

To make one (or more) of the wise men kneel, there are a few things you can tweak. In either case, make the body a little shorter. Then make the head sit a little forward, and/or just put the crown/head piece a little more forward.

To make a star that is detachable, I make it in two pieces. I form the star itself, and then I make a piece that hooks onto the roof. To get the angle right, I use a spare piece of wood and wrap a little clay around the edge of that. Then I press the star onto it and—while holding the wood at about the same angle as the roof—position the star so it hangs straight up and down. Carefully take it off of the wood and lay it face down onto your baking sheet.

This is one I haven’t actually tried, but the idea just came to me. To make a staff, I’ve always just rolled it out, attached it to the figure, and hoped it came out of the oven straight. The problem with this is because of the way Sculpey bakes, the staff may bend in ways you don’t want it to. I think a piece of wire would fix this. You could cut a piece to size and then form the staff around it. The wire wouldn’t have to be (and couldn’t be) very thick—I’m thinking 22 or 24 gauge would probably work fine.

Finally, to store the whole thing in the off-season, I use a photo box from Michaels. The stable fits perfectly, and everything else fits inside the stable. I use a combination of the 2”x3” and 3” x 4” sizes for my 2-2.5” figures.

The most important thing is to have fun! The pieces don’t have to look the same, and they don’t have to be perfect. The good thing about clay is that you can start over if it doesn’t look the way you want it to.