Clothes Pin Nativity

I make my friend's Christmas gifts every year, I usually make everyone a similar item, but my one very Catholic friend always requests a Nativity  every year. I think she is trying to slowly convert me to Catholicism one craft project at a time. This year I decided to step up my game and do a clothes pin nativity. 

JMJ Clothes pins

• My materials included 
• Clothes pins (the ones that look like people), 
• Twine, 
• Burlap (I had some with gold flecks that I saved from a wedding shower gift. I save everything,)
• White and tan felt,
• River birch sticks from outside,
• Some garden sheers to cut up the sticks and fabric sheers for the fabric.
• Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue and hot glue
• Sharpie Marker

I started out by rolling the burlap around the clothes pins and fixing it with tacky glue. If you like having burnt fingertips then by all means use the hot glue because it works faster, but I'd rather be patient and still have feeling in my fingers. 

I cut the felt into rectangular pieces and glued them around the heads and folded and glued it to the bodies, to give the appearance in the picture. Mary's felt rectangle was the length of the clothes pin and Joesph's was 1/3 the length of the clothes pin. I tied the twine around the top of Joesph's head to give the appearance of a keffiyehs. (Now there is your word of the day. Go Google it now.)

Jesus was just a cut piece of the bottom of a clothes pin with the burlap glued to his head, then another piece to swaddle him in. Swaddle him just like you did your own babies, only tinier. 

I started out making Jesus's  manger bed by cutting some thicker birch pieces the same length, hot gluing them into 2 X shapes then taking one piece to hot glue across the bottom V part of the X to hold it all together. The thinner birch pieces were cut and glued length wise as shown in the picture. I misplaced my tacky glue so I just got out the Elmer's and glued on the sticks.

Use the sharpie to pencil in the eyes. I just go with simple shapes. If you screw up the eyes, the entire thing looks creepy. 

Stay tuned for the blog update for the sheep, donkey, barn, and wise men.

Grade: A

Skill Level: Moderate
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Frustration Level: Moderate
Cost: $ (Cost of Felt, burlap and clothes pins)