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!