Primative Nativity Countdown

When the weather clears and I have good light I will try to get a better photo. :)

After doing the fun Thanksgiving Countdown I just HAD to make a Christmas one! In our home we try to keep the Christ in Christmas so I knew I wanted it to be a Nativity theme. It was really fun to pull out my Kiwi Lane templates and see what I could come up with. It you haven't used the templates before, one of the really awesome things about them is the ability to layout what you are working on and play with it before you ever cut any paper.

After playing around a bit here is my rough design.

Supplies:

Kiwi Templates:

Rings -the background, Mary's head cover, Joseph's face

Tiny Shapes -the manger

Celebrate -body of Mary and Joseph and sheep, baby Jesus

Adventure -Star

Coordinating double sided paper
Ink, Duaber, Adhesive, Desired Emblishements

 Now I am ready to gather my papers and get to work. Just like the Turkey, I am just using scraps from an old paper packet. This paper is from an old Stampin'Up Packet.

First, trace your rings. A quick trick to cutting them easily is,once traced, cut a slit from outer to center ring then cut along the lines. Don't worry, you will be able to hide the slit in your layering. -note if your paper has a special pattern be careful where you cut your slit to make sure it will be hidden.

I forgot to take pictures, but you will also need to trace your Mary, Joseph. and Manger.

For the sheep I thought the "cloud" was too big so I just scaled it down while tracing. First I traced the part I thought would make a cute head and body, then I moved the template over and traced the back end. :)

 

I forgot to take a picture while I was doing it, so here is an after shot to give you an idea of how much I adjusted it.

I was really excited when I realized that if I flipped the "cloud" over I could make my Baby Jesus. Make sure when you do it that you make it a little bigger than I did here. -When I went to put it together I had not really given myself enough room for gluing it on.

As I indicated further up, I forgot to take pictures as I made Mary and Joseph. So here is a bit of a closeup of what I did. With Mary I just played with the smallest ring until it looked good and then trimmed and inked it. For Joseph I took the small circle cut from the smallest ring and when I liked the placement I drew a faint line where I wanted it and cut a slit to slide the circle into.

Ink and distress to your liking. Tuck the pieces as shown in the photo. Glue and add embellishments. I did not add more than the jute bow because I thought it fit the "primitive" feel. As it turned out the star is a sticker from the paper pack so I used it instead of cutting one, as is the 25 December square. Attach paper rings and Enjoy!