How to make a nativity scene from spruce branches. DIY Christmas decorations. Nativity scene with toys

15.03.2022

In Kyiv, until recently it was hot, but now it's getting colder. We got winter clothes, and with it our dreams and New Year and Christmas mood. So I decided to make a mini puppet theater for the kids to tell them a Christmas story and learn carols with them. I also thought that it would be nice to make large coloring pages of Christmas characters so that the little ones, while coloring them, would better remember the names and the story itself. Well, for older children, small characters and a nativity scene for coloring, creating their own crafts or a mini-theater. In general, there is a lot of room for imagination and good Christmas creativity.

By the way, for older children we have on the blog :)

Our mini puppet theater “Christmas Story”

To make it, I glued the sheet with the figurines and the sheet with the nativity scene onto cardboard, then cut out all the elements. The nativity scene was bent in half so that it stood like a postcard. I glued the figures with double-sided tape to children's pencils.

It is convenient to store figurines in cups.

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Today we will learn how to make a nativity scene! Everyone's favorite holiday is approaching - Christmas, therefore, in order to create an appropriate solemn and festive atmosphere in the house, it is advisable to put one of these home-made nativity scenes in the most prominent place:

As you can see, these DIY Christmas decorations are made from a wide variety of materials! This is paper, this is wood, cardboard and even ... fabric!
Human fantasy has no limits! And if, in addition to imagination, skillful hands are added, then all kinds of man-made masterpieces will constantly come out from under them!

To begin with, let's consider the simplest options for creating a Nativity scene from paper - garlands on windows made in the Christmas theme:

You can make them with a white sheet of paper, a simple pencil and scissors! The template can be downloaded from the Internet, and then simply printed, duplicated using paper and hung on the windows - it will be very beautiful and on topic!

Well, in order to be able to play small Christmas performances with the help of the Nativity Scene, you can make such a mini-theatre:

We offer you a very simple template, using which you can easily realize your desire to have a small Christmas puppet theater and often arrange mini-performances for your family and friends!

What is interesting - you can make figures from paper or cardboard and paste over them with bright colored paper, make applications. Or a simpler option - just paint with paints or bright felt-tip pens!

Scheme for the Nativity scene for Christmas

There are many options for making a nativity scene, consider another one, we offer all the necessary schemes with which you can easily do the job and get a lot of fun in the process of creating.

For such a Nativity scene, you need to prepare a dense folding base. For this, thick cardboard folded in half, a candy box of a suitable size, or an old cardboard folding chessboard is suitable. We glue the base with suitable pictures or shiny paper, cut out and color the figures and install them in the designated places.

Sometimes crib games are printed in children's magazines, which are also quite simple to cut out and fold correctly according to the proposed instructions:

Look with your child, it may very well be that you are lucky and together you will make such a miracle for Christmas!

The easiest way to make a Christmas nativity scene is paper. You can make it in the company of a child, using paints, scissors and thick sheets from which paper figures are cut. This option does not need a master class, so we will not consider it, but will give recommendations on how you can create a Christmas nativity scene with your own hands of more complex designs.

How to make a Christmas nativity scene from plasticine? Master Class

To work on creating a cave and figurines of den participants, you will need the following materials:

plasticine (hard and soft),
board,
stacks,
wooden skewers,
lace handkerchief,
narrow golden ribbon
wicker mat or pieces of matting,
toothpicks,
cake stand or pizza wrapper,
star.

The baby figurine is molded without anatomical features, since most of it will be hidden under a blanket (handkerchief). The visible part - the head - is made of plasticine with a special study of details. To create beautiful curls, you need to run the sharp end of the stack over hard plasticine with the same pressure along its entire length, then the cut out strip will turn out to be in the form of a spiral. You can not sculpt the baby's eyes, but make them from beads. The finished figure must be wrapped in a lace scarf and tied with a ribbon bow.

The cradle for the baby is made from a piece of hard plasticine, into which four straws are stuck (a skewer broken into pieces) that act as legs. We make a pillow in the cradle from soft plasticine. The side walls are made of mats, which also need to be fixed to soft plasticine.

The nativity scene itself is made of wooden skewers in the form of a hut. To do this, on a plate, which will be the basis of the composition, 3 sticks are installed, interconnected using hard plasticine. Each of the straws should be equidistant from the next one. After that, the walls are completed by filling the space between the skewers. One side remains open. We take soft plasticine and fasten it over the entrance (open side). Attach a star to it.

If you don’t have such a large plate as in our master class, then you can make a small fence instead of a hut by fastening mats and toothpicks together with soft plasticine and installing the resulting structure along the edge of the base.

We make animal figures and a bird from plasticine, fastening the parts together with toothpicks. We also make paws from toothpicks. We tie a rope to the bird, which will need to be tied on the top of the hut. We make eyes from beads.

Finger puppets. Master Class

Do-it-yourself Christmas nativity scene can be made in the form of a finger theater. To do this, you need pieces of multi-colored felt, fleece and beads to decorate the eyes. Figures are made in the size of 5-6 centimeters. All characters, including the Magi, are attached to the nativity scene with Velcro. The design itself is made of cardboard, sheathed with fabric, and closed with a button.

With wooden figurines. Master Class

You can make a nativity scene with your own hands from a whole shoe box and a lid from another one. The box plays the role of a cave, and both covers are located in the lower and upper parts (horizontally - to accommodate the Magi, vertically - to attach the angel). The boxes are fastened together with a stapler and glue.

The cave is painted with black paint, the covers are glued with sheets of colored paper. The sheet of paper for the top cover is purposefully creased for greater aesthetics. Straw is also placed in the cave, on which the characters land.

Wooden dolls can be made independently, or you can buy a ready-made version and dress them up according to the images. Outfits can be sewn from fabric or glued from paper. Animals can also be taken factory (from children's toys). An angel is attached to the top cover. Gifts are molded from plasticine and added to the composition. To make a projection of a star, you can cut out its outline from an empty egg from a Kinder and project it onto paper using a flashing light from a children's toy.

Crochet characters

You can use crocheted dolls in any of the presented nativity scenes. To do this, you will need cotton yarn of various colors and a small hook. The eyes of the characters can also be crocheted or dark beads can be used. The cradle can be made from pieces of yarn laid in the form of a nest, on which a crocheted baby fits.

nativity scene- this is an image of the scene of the Nativity of Christ through the use of volumetric figures of church characters, various decorations that allow us to convey the atmosphere of the birth of Christ, which we know from the Bible. Nativity scenes adorn shop counters, clearings in front of houses and central squares in almost all Catholic countries in Europe and America, but in Russia such thematic compositions have become common in recent years.

Nativity scene compositions can also be mechanized, in which case some figures move thanks to a hidden mechanism. And for many centuries, in some regions of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine, the crib theater was popular: wandering artists in the central squares set up a special box in which they showed a thematic puppet show. During the Christmas holidays, amateur theaters and creative circles also stage Christmas scenes, where the main characters are played by actors.

nativity scene

Religion is a complex and sensitive issue for every person, and even more so for a child, which is why psychologists and teachers advise parents to tell little children about faith, about God in a playful way. When your whole family gathers together at the festive table on the evening of January 6, the child, of course, will have a question - where did such a holiday come from. Mommy, while doing it, can tell the child that in many countries on the eve of Christmas, houses are decorated with bright toys, decorative boots and candles.

Craft Christmas nativity scene will help parents tell their child about the miracle of the Epiphany, the birth of Christ, Christian traditions and the Bible in a playful way. Firstly, it will be easier for the child to perceive information related to biblical motives if all this takes place in the form of a game, he will not have to imagine what the baby Jesus was like and who surrounded him when he was lying in the cradle. Secondly, together with your child, you can play scenes from the children's Bible using the created figures and scenery of the composition.

If you want to decorate the clearing in front of your house during the holidays Christmas nativity scene, buy figurines are available in some online stores, they also offer crib compositions of small size, where the figurines are made of plastic or ceramics. But it’s better to make such a composition with your own hands for playing with a child and decorating a house, because we already created it ourselves.

When will you do DIY Christmas nativity scene, of course, you need to know which characters should be present in the composition, because this scene does not just record the birth of Jesus, but the totality of the events of these sacred days for every Christian. In particular, in the biblical scene they depict the adoration of shepherds and magi to the cradle of the infant Christ. The key persons of the nativity scene will be the Virgin Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in his cradle. If there are wise men in the plot, then the baby is depicted in the arms of the mother, as on an icon.

Very often in the plot there are animals, for example, a donkey and an ox, which, according to legend, warmed the baby in the manger with their breath. There are also shepherds with a flock of sheep, wise men. Angels are also an integral part of the scene. Of course, the number of characters depends on the scale of your craft. If you want to introduce a child to Christian traditions for the first time, then you should limit yourself to 3-4 characters, and over time you can supplement the composition with new hand-made figures.

How to make a Christmas crib

Looking at various options, how to make a christmas crib, you should separate the two stages of doing the craft: you have to make figurines of biblical characters and animals and separately create an interior for your composition. It is desirable that natural materials be present in the interior - hay, straw, wood, moss and stones, even spruce branches.

Back in the 18th century, figurines were made from a wire frame lined with fabric, the head was made of terracotta, the handles were wooden, and the eyes were glass. A modern needlewoman has a lot of different materials at her disposal. In the simplest version for children's education, figures can be cut out of thick cardboard. Using felt, you can sew the characters of biblical scenes, fix them on small skewers and use them for educational activities. Experienced craftswomen can do modeling: beautiful and neat figures can be made from plastic or plasticine. With the help of such figurines, you can arrange a crib theater at home.

Immediately attracts the attention of young viewers Christmas nativity scene, master class quite complex, so you can invite children to design the finished composition. The children will be able to arrange a nursery made of straw, put them in the center of the box. Decorations can also be printed on a printer, and supplemented with volumetric elements. Be sure to decorate the scene with lights and garlands - when you light the lights, all the figures will come to life, and the Christmas story will begin.

On the eve of the Nativity of Christ, according to pious tradition, Orthodox churches are decorated with nativity scenes.

The word "nativity scene" corresponds to the Latin term "praesepe", which means "manger, feeder for livestock" in translation. In Christian perception, this term has received a generalized meaning as the place of the Nativity of Christ. The nativity scene has no standards either in size, or in the number of characters, or even in time (its main plot can be transferred to the present). The only constant over the centuries is the scene at the manger, where the newborn baby Jesus lies. In addition, theatrical performances on Christmas themes are called nativity scenes.

In Russia, the nativity scene has been known since the 17th century. However, the origins of the puppet Christmas theater are much older. In Ukraine, this theater has been known since the 16th century. It was Little Russia that gave Russia such a unique tradition. The Ukrainian nativity scene, in turn, became the successor to the Polish tradition. And the Christmas puppet theater came to Poland from the Catholic culture of Europe.

At the beginning of the tenth century, there was a tradition in Rome to present scenes from the life of Christ in the temple. This performance lasted several days. But the scene of the Nativity of Christ was never played out in a live plan. She was present in the temple throughout the entire action from the birth to the death of the Savior. The Virgin, Joseph and the Christ Child were depicted by dolls made by famous sculptors. Puppets who had the honor of playing the Virgin Mary were called puppets in Italy.

This is where the tradition of arranging Christmas nativity scenes in Catholic churches came from. Then they began to make nativity scenes of a smaller size. They were placed in boxes made in the form of a temple. So the nativity scene left the temple and came to the man's house. Western nativity scenes were mechanical, the figures in them moved in a circle.

Nativity device

What was the Christmas nativity scene? The nativity scene was a simple wooden box with slots. The peasants, free from their summer agricultural labor, made this theater on long winter evenings. The crib box itself was a two-storey house. The upper tier of this house, in fact, represented the cave of the Nativity. It housed a small manger in which the swaddled Infant Christ lay; figurines of Joseph and the Virgin Mary, bent over mangers; an ox and a donkey warming the Savior with their breath.

These figures could not be called just dolls: they were never played with like dolls, no speeches were made for them. They depicted a nativity scene and were signs, symbols of Christmas. Sometimes, instead of figurines, an icon of the Christmas holiday was placed in the upper tier.

Accordingly, the entire upper tier of the house was designed according to this Christmas scene. It was pasted over with blue paper or painted blue. The Christmas Star of Bethlehem was carved on the roof of the house, announcing to the whole world about the miraculous birth of the Son of God. This Star was through. From the inside of the house it was illuminated with a candle. And she really shone with a shimmering light during the Christmas performance.

From the inside, the box was pasted over with a white hare skin. The white color symbolized purity. At the same time, the hare skin hid the slots in the box through which the figures moved.

The owner of the den usually spoke the text himself and led the puppets. Several choristers - boys who sang in the service, sang Christmas carols. And if the troupe included a musician, then he accompanied the singing and dancing by playing his instrument.

Earthly and heavenly

The tiers divided the house into two spaces. The upper tier denoted the space of heaven. After all, the Christ Child descends from heaven to earth. And the lower tier is the earthly one, in which we, sinful people, live, with all our passions, joys and hopes.

Here, on the lower tier, the theater will present the puppet action itself, which will tell what happened in the year of the birth of Jesus Christ in the city of Bethlehem, a folk mystery drama about the cruel King Herod. It is King Herod and his warriors that the people will bring out as puppet characters and will speak for them. It also implies the third, lower, tier - the underworld, where the devil Herod dragged. So a simple dollhouse grew to the size of the universe.

For several centuries in Moscow, a week before Christmas, the history of the "Stove Action" was played out publicly. It was one of the favorite plots of theatrical performances in Russia in the 16th-17th centuries and before Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka. The rite of the "Stove Action" is an ancient and now completely forgotten tradition of the Church. It takes place on the day of the memory of the prophet Daniel and the three holy youths, that is, December 18 according to the old style and December 30 according to the new one. And if the crib theater was staged mainly for children, then the "Stove Action" did not get tired of watching from year to year, from young to old. The performers of these Christmas performances were not professionals; they provided income for those who remained unemployed for the winter. In the villages they were peasants, in the cities they were amateurs from the middle class.

But the staginess of the puppet action will not become the main thing in the den. Nativity figures will remain an illustration of the spiritual content of the texts. Texts in nativity scenes in the folk tradition were presented in a detached way. They were either sung in spiritual verses, or said, or simply pronounced without any intonation.

The crib theater was a favorite entertainment for children, who in pre-revolutionary Russia were practically not taken to secular theaters. During the year, Christmas theater boxes, along with sets of dolls, were stored somewhere in the attic or in the barn. They went with them from December 25 during Christmas week, and sometimes until Great Lent itself, but after Christmas week it was forbidden to show the spiritual part, only the secular part remained.

Not a game, but an action

What material were crib dolls made of? There were no clear instructions. In the Russian folk tradition, dolls were made both voluminous, from rags, wooden chocks, and flat cardboard figures. But it was impossible to play puppets the way they are now controlled in modern puppet theaters. Folk Orthodox ethics forbade bringing individual, acting figurative play into the nativity scene. The Nativity nativity scene represented the faithful, Orthodox people. The individual actor's craft carried the concept of insincerity and lies. The crying of Rachel, whose baby is killed, cannot be depicted in a den and, finally, it is simply impossible.

All figurines in the den made of any material were static, they moved along the slots with the help of a wooden rod, on which the figurine was attached. The mechanism for driving the figures was hidden in a drawer with a secret bottom. However, during the action itself, the audience had a feeling of a miracle: as if the figures themselves floated out of the doors of the house and, smoothly sliding, spun along the slots in the wooden box.

The texts for the nativity scenes were written by the clergy on the basis of the Holy Scriptures. And the nativity scenes were presented at Christmas time and at Christmas by schoolchildren. So in the old days the pupils of theological seminaries were called. Since the wooden doll house-nativity scene was heavy, the schoolchildren dragged it on a stretcher. And it seemed to float in the frosty Christmas night over the village road, like a saving ark, protecting the earth from everything disturbing and dangerous that is happening in the world.

However, in the detachment of the presentation of the text and the driving of the figures, complete harmony of the integral artistic impression was achieved. It is also necessary to mention that the nativity scenes were performed late at night with lit candles. And the burning candle was a composite image of a puppet Christmas show.

How to touch the miracle of Christmas - especially if there are small children in the house? One possible solution is to make a nativity scene. Working together with children and other household members in any case will bring joy.

“A nursery,” one child dreamed so, “

Can be glued from colored cardboard,

Make paper gold

Shepherds with a Christmas star.

Donkey, ox - what a beauty! -

Stand next to the manger of Christ,

And the Holy Child at this hour,

He is in the hearts of all of us...

Making a nativity scene (various options)

To make a nativity scene, you will need a medium-sized box. The decoration can be pasted over with colored paper or foil. For this case, it is appropriate to drape the structure with a fabric. In this case, a dark blue festive material is well suited for the outside, red for the inside, gray or brown for the ground, floor.

In the depths of the den, in the middle, place a manger with a Baby, made from a small box and strewn with straw or dry grass.

To the right of the manger, seat Mary, well in a red or blue robe, on the left Joseph in brown. There are animals around the nursery. In the foreground are shepherds in gray robes and with staves in their hands. If the nativity scene is made in the form of a house, the Angel can be hung on a string from the roof of the structure to create the impression of floating in the air. If the manger does not have a roof, it can be placed near the shepherds.

In the evenings, a small lamp is lit in the den, and the characters come to life... New Year's garlands are suitable for lighting. In the evening, having turned off the light, it will be possible, sitting comfortably near the nativity scene, to tell Christmas stories to children ...

Nativity scene characters

Mary, Joseph, Baby, angels, shepherds, animals (donkey, lambs, lambs, cow, bull - not everything that can be found (if the toys are purchased), the main thing is that it fits the meaning). The three magi, or "three kings," never appear one at a time.

We will need: salt dough (although these crafts can also be made from plasticine or plastic), a straw, a rolling pin, a teaspoon, a pencil.

Maria

1. Roll up a short, thick sausage for the torso to make it look kneeling.

2. Make the arms and head, mark the mouth and eyes. Roll out a ball of dough for the cover.

3. Throw the cover over the head and torso so that it lies in folds at the back.

Joseph and the shepherd

Make their body a little longer. For the shepherd, roll a tourniquet over your head.

nursery

Roll up a thick sausage. Press deeply into the center with the knuckle of your finger. Roll up a thin sausage for crosses at both ends.

Three kings

Brightly paint their clothes. Roll a tourniquet on your head from balls or twisted sausages.

baby christ

Make the baby Christ.

Roll up a ball for the head and a sausage for the body. Connect. Scratch with a fork at the joints.

Mark the eyes with the tip of a pencil. Roll up a small nose.

For the bedspread, roll out the dough over the film. Make marks with the tip of a pencil.

Remove the film and wrap the baby in a blanket.

Bake in the oven, and then paint the doll. Draw a mouth with a felt-tip pen.

Place the baby in the nursery.

Sheep

Roll up a thick sausage for the body.

Attach four ball-legs to the body.

Roll up the sausage-head and attach it to the body.

Flatten two small sausages to make ears.

Mark the nostrils and eyes with a pencil. Mark the fur with a fork.

For gifts, make bars of thickly rolled dough and decorate them with patterns.

Nativity scene decoration

The nativity scene can be decorated with spruce branches or cones, artificial flowers. You can hang a Christmas star on the edge of the nativity scene. The outer sides of the nativity scene can be decorated with yellow paper or foil stars.

The Christmas nativity scene creates a special atmosphere in the house: it is both a sense of a fairy tale, but at the same time an awareness of the greatness of the event, the anniversary of which the whole world celebrates on Christmas night.

Do-it-yourself den making options

So, we need:

- cardboard and colored paper

- glue, scissors

- Double-sided tape

- gouache, brush

- quail eggs

- pieces of fabric, narrow ribbon

- cardboard box

- white and brown yarn

- toothpicks.

Using a needle, we extract the yolk and protein from three quail eggs. We paint one in white, and the other two in flesh. Skin color will turn out if you add a drop of red and ocher to white. For the convenience of staining, I used sticks. So the color lies more evenly, and the testicle dries evenly.

Cut out circles with a diameter of 15 cm from brown and blue cardboard. Cut out a segment from the circle and roll the cone.

We cut off the top from the cone so that the head-testicle is held more securely. We attach the testicle to the cone with a narrow strip of adhesive tape. We glue the handles cut out of colored cardboard.

From the blue cone, a figurine of the Virgin Mary is obtained. We fix a cape from a piece of fabric on the head. We tie a thin “belt” around the figure - a strip of sequins. We draw eyes. The figurine is ready.

We make a figurine of Joseph from a brown cone. We make hair and a beard from brown yarn. Attach with double sided tape. (you can also use PVA, but it seemed to me that it is more convenient to work with adhesive tape). We tie a piece of fabric around the body and add a belt. The figurine is ready.

From white yarn we wind a ball - the body of a lamb. We fasten the head with a toothpick to the body - a white testicle. Insert toothpicks. Glue a bang of yarn to the head. We draw eyes. The lamb is ready.

We make a nursery. From a rectangular piece of plasticine we make the base. We insert the halves of the toothpicks around the perimeter. Pour some sawdust inside the manger.

The baby Jesus is depicted with a piece of cotton wool wrapped in cloth.

Put the shoebox on its side. Paste the background with blue paper. Glue the "curtain" and the Christmas star.

It remains only to arrange the figures, and sprinkle a little sawdust on the bottom of the box.

Christmas nativity scene is ready!

P.S. I used a similar pattern for making figurines for the Christmas Angel. The same cardboard cone, a chicken egg, a piece of fabric for a raincoat. The wings are made of cardboard pasted over with cotton pads. Hair - New Year's "rain".