31 days of warming up to the holidays: {day 19} wooden nativity blocks

When Grayson was just shy of 1, I was in charge of the crafts for our MOPS meetings.  This is the craft that I came up with and it’s one of my favorite things to pull out of our Christmas decoration bins.

I wanted to make a nativity that my little guy could play with…that I wouldn’t be worried about him breaking.  Then I found this blog post one day and loved it!  The stickers that they used are out of print, but you can download the clip art that I used here: http://www.pccrafter.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?id=168&s=1  The clip art has many more “characters” including King Herod, the inn, the star, etc.

I took it a step further than the original blogger did and added Bible verses to the back of my blocks.  This makes it easy to tell Grayson about the Nativity while playing with him…and hopefully these blocks will still be around when he can read the verses for himself!

Here’s what you need for the blocks:

• 1 2x4 piece of lumber
• A print out of the clip art – I printed mine on a laser printer because ink from an ink jet printer tends to bleed when you use Mod Podge on top of it.
• Paint of your choice
• Mod Podge

1.  Cut your 2x4 into 3-inch pieces, enough for the amount of characters that you’d like in your Nativity.  You’ll have blocks that are roughly 3 1/2 x 3 inches, because  a 2x4 isn’t really 2 inches x 4 inches.

2. Sand down any rough edges.

3. Paint your blocks the color of your choice.  I painted all of my blocks white, then went over them with a light coat of brown.

4. While the paint is drying, cut your clip art out.

5. Once your blocks are dry, adhere the figures to the blocks using Mod Podge.  Put a coat of Mod Podge over the top of the figure, too.

6.  Adhere the verses to the back of the blocks if you’d like.

7. I didn’t do this step, but you might spray them with a clear sealer of some sort.  My blocks probably wouldn’t look as worn if I had sealed them.

8.  Wrap them up for your favorite child!

 

If you’d like a .pdf file of the verses for each character, send me an e-mail and I’ll gladly send them to you!