I love homemade Christmas gifts, and try to make them most years. Homemade gifts for our grandkids can be challenging to do, but once in a while I think of something clever… This vintage basket worked perfect to store the cute kid’s nativity figurines in it I found for our 2 year old grandson. To add a special ‘handmade’ touch from grandma, I decided to create a felt nativity scene on the lid.
Here’s how I did it:
The vintage picnic basket is quite sturdy, and I love the striped details on the side.
It came with the original little pullout wooden tray.
I thought a handwritten verse on the tray would make a sweet little touch, and perhaps even help our grandson to memorize this special passage from the Bible.
The little people of the nativity fit underneath the tray for storage.
and the stable and accessories just fit perfectly on top of the tray.
So that’s the ‘storage’ part…
Here’s the handmade creating part…
First, I covered the top lid with black felt, cutting at the seams of the lid.
Next, I cut and glued brown strips to represent the stable.
As I went along, I used a hot melt glue gun to glue the pieces down, with once I was happy with the placement, sort of layer by layer.
Next it was time to create the figures for Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus in the manger.
I purposely wanted this to look childlike and primitive, so no pattern… I looked online for some ideas, and pinned them, (you can see other felt nativities on my pinterest board… some are so lovely!)
But, instead of trying to copy those, I just used them as inspiration as I was creating this one. I just had a bunch of different colored felt to cut and layer.
This is a pic I took as I was creating the wisemen:
Here they are all glued together with a couple of camel additions.
The angel is supposed to be looking down towards Jesus, but actually winded up looking a little goofy… but I guess that’s the primitive part of the art. 🙂
Little detail by little detail, as I was satisfied with a small part, I would glue it as I went, until it was completed. The nativity scene has the the key figures from the Bible story, including the star.
Once the whole scene was glued on, I went back and carefully glued a bit more around the edges of all the pieces to secure them just a wee bit extra. (remember this is a 2 year old playing with it) Hopefully all the pieces of the felt nativity will stay together for many Christmases as our grandson plays with it.
Looking for some pretty felt colors? Check out these fun choices.
HERE is a great place to shop for a vintage picnic basket.
Here are more Christmas decorating ideas:
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Lynnie says
ADOWABBLE! I could also see gluing a wide Popsicle stick behind each figure so kids could play with them manually-so many ideas-thanks for sharing.