Make a toy stable and manger

 

So far we’ve made the town of Bethlehem, painted our figures, and added accessories.  Now we’ll make our stable for our Peg Doll Nativity.

The directions on making the stable can be found at my project on the Studio: making a bear cave.  So for detailed instructions head there.

After that, my project more or less followed the directions.  The kids…….  in particular the boys……  Not so much.

 

You’ll see the full impact of it at the end………

 

materials for manger: felt (you can make several from 1 piece of craft felt), needle, thread, yarn, scissors

 

First cut a small square from your felt, about 1 inch by 1 inch.

Next fold the felt in half, so the sides meet.  This lets you make a mostly symmetrical and lined up piece.

Cut the length of your manger.  Ours was about 2 inches long.  I cut some extra length to have some wiggle room for the next step, about 1 inch.

Fold the felt in half like you did in the second step.  This lets you make sure the final side your cutting out is the same shape as before.

This is what your piece will look like when all done.  Princess commented it looked kind of like a cross……  I hadn’t noticed that until she said it and then I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  From here on out your kids can take over the craft.

Hold 2 adjacent sides together and sew up the sides.  Then hand your Mom the felt to tie knots.  I sat there tying knots for 10 minutes.  As soon as I was done with one kid, the next would be ready for theirs, and then it would cycle back to the beginning as each one finished their sides.

 

But they loved it.  It was wildly popular with them.

 

Finally add some yarn for hay.  We didn’t have yellow yarn, but we did have some yellow rope, so we took that apart and used it.  Worked like a charm.

 

Now put your Holy Family in the stable with some extra hay and you’re ready to play with your Nativity set.

 

Then they each took turns playing and setting it up for me to take pictures for the next hour or two.

I kid you not.  Princess took about 20 minutes or so, and that was with me helping her.

 

Batman took over 30 minutes.  He had to set up traps and the men to protect everyone in town.

 

Superman went through the town and made sure every house had soldiers standing guard over them for when Herod came.  Jesus had his own platoon.  It was quite impressive.

 

Over all the kids have loved this project, and every day for the past week the only question I’ve gotten is “When are we going to make more of our Nativity set?”

 

Want some more Advent ideas to focus on Christ this Christmas?  Then check out my Christmas story for kids page.