Wood and Paper Nativity
I’ve already done one post about a nativity this year, but then I was inspired to make another one. I saw a picture of a beautiful nativity with what looks like a reclaimed wood stable and galvanized metal silhouettes of the holy family. I decided to make my own Katieish version. The project evolved as I explored different materials, but in the end what I used is pretty simple and relatively inexpensive.
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SUPPLIES:
Cardstock/paper for back of stable
Table saw
Wood glue
Wood stain
Paint brush
Scissors
Optional:
Cutting machine
Notes about materials:
I will link to everything I can that I used, which mostly came from Michaels, in case you want to make one exactly like mine. There are SO many beautiful papers and stains out there, though, so you have a lot of options.
I found a roll of bulletin board material that is made to look like galvanized metal, and I almost bought that to make the figures out of. It was waaaay more than I needed, however, and since I was already buying scrapbook paper I decided to see what I could find. It’s a little hard to tell what you’re looking at when you’re buying online, but I took a chance on this shimmery silver stuff, and it ended up being even prettier in person.
You’d have a lot more options for wood if you went to a hardware store, of course, but this 12” square piece of plywood that I found at Michaels worked perfectly for me. I needed the finished structure to fit within the 12”x12” constraints of my scrapbook paper, so I didn’t need anything bigger.
I don’t see the exact stain I have, which may not exist anymore. Looking the Michaels site, I see a bunch of really pretty options, including whitewash and aged/weathered wood options.
I thought about breaking out my spray adhesive for this, but I ended up just using my trusty Tacky glue. I used a piece of cardstock to spread it out in thin layers, and the paper is thick enough that there was no wrinkling or anything. I’m still using the same bottle of clear gel glue that I have, but regular Tacky glue would work just as well.
Let’s get started!
The first thing I did was make the stable. Well, I had my husband make it. I wanted him to be able to make as few cuts as possible, and I don’t think it was too bad. The base is 12”x2.5”. All four of the other pieces ended up being the same size. To assemble it, I just used wood glue. I glued the top first, and then added the sides. When those were dry I glued the whole top piece to the middle of the base. Then it was ready to stain! I had a few different kinds of stain to choose from in my collection, and I think the one I chose works really well with the background.
There’s a lot of waiting in between the steps of making the stable, so you can make the figures any time. I used that time to plan and cut out my figures. To keep it simple I stuck with the family plus a couple of animals, and I actually had a bunch of nativity files in my Silhouette Studio library that I mixed and matched from to get what I wanted. I found an image of a star online that I liked better than what I had, so I traced that in the software.
Here’s where things took a bit of a turn. I couldn’t get the cut settings right on my Cameo to cut these out! This is some special heavy-duty cardstock for sure, but I thought even the glitter cut settings would work. But no. No to textured cardstock, and no to glitter cardstock. I’ve never had this happen before, but when I tried to do two cut passes, the second cut pass was slightly offset from the first in some places. I have no idea what happened. Admittedly, I was impatient and didn’t do the work I should have to manually adjust the cut settings, but it was just weird. And I only had two pieces of cardstock to play with (thank goodness I had bought a spare!!), so I didn’t have a ton of room to play with. I ended up doing a lot of cutting by hand, which wasn’t as terrible as it could have been since I had cut lines to follow.
Since the figures are made out of cardstock and not metal, I figured they’d need a little help standing up. That’s why I bought the foam board. I just bought a regular piece of white board, because it’s hidden and you won’t see it unless you’re looking for it. Originally I cut out some rough shapes to give some support to Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, and when I started assembling the whole thing, I cut some little pieces of foam board to support their heads and Joseph’s staff. You’ll see what I mean when you start laying it all out. You may not even need any extra support, but if you do it’s easy to do.
The other thing I used the foam board for was to support the back of the stable. Once the stain had dried, I laid the whole thing down on top of the background paper—on the edge of a table—and traced it. I cut it out by hand, and then traced it on the foam board. I used my craft knife to cut it out slightly smaller—like 1/4”—than what I’d drawn. That way it would still cover the entire opening of the stable to give support but not be visible even if you look at it from a bit of an angle. I glued the foam board to the paper, and then glued the paper to the stable.
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are all glued to the back of the stable. I like having them forward just that little bit. I could have simplified attaching the animals by attaching some foam board to them and then attaching that to the wood the same way I attached the rest of the figures. I changed things up just a little and attached the hind ends to the wood so that they were flush with it, but I also cut smaller pieces of foam board that I attached to both the animals and inside walls. I used tiny bits of glue on their feet to keep them in place.
The finishing touch on this whole project was the star. I wanted a wood outline to give it some structure, since I didn’t want to try to cut the foam board small enough to be invisible behind it. Balsa wood would probably be perfect for this, since it’s thin and can be cut with a craft knife. I didn’t have any of that, of course. I decided to use white cardboard instead. I put the star on the cardboard and traced around it, leaving about 1/4” border, and then I cut that out. Had I thought about it sooner, I would have kept my stain out and tried to see what that looked like on the cardboard. But, again, I’d already put my stain away and didn’t feel like messing with it again. We have some markers that are meant for filling in blemishes in wood furniture, so they come in pretty shades of brown. I used one of those to color the front and edges of the cardboard. I colored over it twice, which darkened it more than I intended, but I think it works. Once the marker dried, I glued the silver star on and then glued it to the stable.
I took pictures of the finished nativity in a lot of different places because it looks extra shimmery in the sunlight. I just love it.
I hope you enjoy this project as much as I did. Happy Holidays!
