UPDATE: Wise Men pdf pattern now available (scroll down to the bottom of this post).
NEW UPDATE (2019): Shepherds, lamb, camel, and donkey now available (follow this link to the post).
After years of wishing and hoping (and a little bit of nagging) I finally have a beautiful nativity scene for my front yard and I love it. I did a lot of searching through clipart sites until I found the silhouette that I really liked and one that would translate well into a large sized cut out. This one even has coordinating silhouettes for the 3 Wise Men for next years project. We made the star a couple of years ago using this tutorial on Little Bit Funky.
I spy a little doggy in the window.
I sized the design to be able to fit on one 4x4 piece of plywood (about 24.00). My hubby had the nice folks at Home Depot trim a 15 inch strip off so it would fit in the back of our car (the 15 inch strip was the right size for the Joseph piece).
Here is the pdf file if you're interested in making one yourself. Just click here or on the picture below to download. I traced the design so it would use less printer ink and included a mini version of it so you can see how all the pieces should go together. Each grid represents one 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.
Once the pieces were all taped together Joey cut out each individual character and traced them on the smooth side of the plywood sheet (this is the 15" strip he had cut).
The Mary and Baby Jesus fit best like this on the other piece of the plywood.
To cut out the inside holes he used the big drill bit to drill holes around the inside edges so he could get the jigsaw in there easily.
He took his time with this part and did a great job. The jigsaw kind of scares me so I'm glad he was doing this.
Tada! It came out great and the halo and the little "hay" details look fantastic.
After he was done cutting the pieces out he quickly filed the rough edges away.
One good coat of white paint was sufficient.
Then he made the base using 2 x 4s and angle brackets. The front one is 48" long and the sides are 24". The back board is a 2 x 2 and he decided to use that in case he wanted to weigh it down with some flat brick caps of something. So far we haven't needed them but it hasn't been windy. I painted the front 2 x 4 white as well.
When everything was done he just used some screws to attach each piece to the 2 x 4. It will be easy to dismantle and store this way. He also bought a small flood light (and extension cord) to light it from the front. Pretty!
So here it is and I'm in love with it! Let me know if you try it!
I hope you're having a great Christmas and Hanukkah season! If you're looking for some ideas for hand crafted gifts don't forget to check my tutorial page. Keep on sewing!
UPDATE:
We finally made the Wise Men! Here are the pictures:
I love them!
This makes me so happy. We will be working on some shepherds next and I will update when that is ready but in the meantime here is a picture of the cut out and a link to the pdf. Click here or on the picture below for the pdf pattern. When we make them we ended up separating them into 3 pieces at the bottom (look at the above pictures to see what I mean). Enjoy and Merry Christmas!
