Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wood Manger-Crafty Sisters

Hello again!
It's Candace & Nicole from Crafty Sisters.
Wasn't Melinda's barn door tree great?
We loved the inspiration of the barn theme and it reminded us
of another event that happened in a barn long ago....

Every year for Christmas, Candace's mother in law fills her home with the neatest nativity sets.  We absolutely love a couple of her life size mangers. They are sweet reminders of what the season is all about. 
This manger is probably the easiest  manger you could ever build. 
It's not meant to hold real babies..or 2 year olds...just in case any of you do that. ;)
But, a doll will work just fine! Or just use it for decoration.
This is a picture of the actual manger copied.
  Candace's mother in law was sweet enough to let her come over, measure, and draw it down on paper.
Every cedar slat is cut at 30 inches.  Four for the legs, and eight for the top slats.
Cut a 2 inch  notch out of each leg, the thickness of it will
be determined by the thickness of your board..
We cut our notch out with a jigsaw, 16 inches up from the bottom.
Here's what you will end up with.
We really wanted to use old wood, but it's just so easy to find the right size of cedar slats at the store. 
 So, we stained each piece with the new "weathered oak" stain from Min Wax.
Incredible!!!!
It has a gray tone and oh my..it is the perfect shade of old wood! 
Not as good as the real thing, but pretty darn close.
This seriously took 30 minutes to build, and it is a wonderful prop to any Christmas Eve Nativity!

Thanks Melinda for the inspiring theme!

6 comments:

Dawn said...

I love the manger!!! I collect Nativities and this will be great for my Christmas collection. We always dress up on Christmas Eve and act out the Nativity. This little prop and decoration will be perfect!

Krystal said...

Such a cute idea! I have heard of a tradition where during the month of December every member of the family does acts of kindness throughout the month, then they can add one piece of straw to the manger for each thing they do. You try to do enough things to have a soft place for Jesus to lay Christmas day. I've always wanted to do that with my kids and this manger would be the PERFECT prop for that! Love it!

Crafty Homeschool Mama said...

Doing This pronto! Love it, thanks so much!

Barbara Jean said...

much simpler than the one we built years ago.
thanks
Christmas Blessings
Barb

Shelby NTX said...

My husband made me one of these last year and I LOVE it!!! Thanks for sharing! :)

Eliane Sousa said...

Obrigado