Okay! In the past I've always had a special Christmas Gift for my blog readers sometime in December. But this year I want to post your gift sooner so you can get an early start on it (because if you do the whole Nativity set it's quite a project). I already had a request for this newest segment of the set (previous segments are in the links at the bottom of this post) so I figured I'd better just put it out there. This time I'm including a disclaimer....
DISCLAIMER: This is a sewing blog (at least 95% of it) so you'll need to forgive our lack of lumber acumen. Sewing questions? I'm your gal! Woodwork questions? Not so much. So please don't expect the same details you would get from a woodworking website. Thank you!
Our latest addition to my beloved nativity set is an angel and star set. I designed it to fit on a 4 x 4 piece of plywood so it's not crazy expensive and it's wonderfully uncomplicated. We mounted ours on a long strip of firring and tied it to our palm tree. Unfortunately our palm tree has since kicked the bucket (if you look at the other patterns you'll see we started with two palm trees and they've both died, not sure why) so we'll have to find another solution this year. But, I can't express how much I love this set and how happy it makes me to get it lit up every year!
Here's a closer picture of the angel and star. I'm going to paint the firring black this time (we painted it to match the tree last year and it was too bright for me). I also need to darken the little "connector" that goes from the sash to the gown (black sharpie does the trick quickly).
So the pages simply get printed (link for pdf file at bottom of this post) and taped together. You only need tape for the page edges inside the lines really. There may be printing gaps at the edges depending on how your printer works (if you can set it to "no borders" that would be great). Don't worry about the gaps, just pencil in the missing lines or cut right across them. Cut both images out.
Position your pattern shapes on your 4 x 4 and tape it down on some of the edges (or use pattern weights if you have them). Trace around the shapes. We just used a sharpie so it would be easily visible and it won't show once it's painted anyway.
Use your skill saw to cut the shapes out. We sanded the edges where there were any obvious rough spots.
Paint with white paint. Or black paint if you want a dark silhouette with a bright back light. We just used random white paint from our paint collection. You may want to paint both sides so you can turn it either direction when you're setting it up. Screw the pieces onto your firring strip and you're done (you can dab paint on the screws if you want them to blend in).
Please let me know if you use this! I'd love to see your pictures! If you blog about it or make a video with it please give me credit (Jona Giammalva, @jonagiammalva on instagram) and link to my blog. We have worked very hard on these over the years and we realize we could be selling the patterns instead of giving them away so any credit would be appreciated. Thank you! And Merry Christmas (early)!
Link to Angel and Star set
Link to Holy Family set (blog post Here)
Link to Wise Men set (blog post Here, at bottom of page)
Link to Shepherds and Sheep set (blog post Here, at bottom of page)
