Handmade Wooden Nativity Blocks
When my siblings and I were kids our parents always bought us a “special keepsake” Christmas related item/decoration each year for Christmas. Nativities, ceramic houses & churches, etc. I’ll admit, us kids always dreaded those presents because they just were not fun for kids. Every single year my mom would get mad at us for being so bratty and say “one day you will appreciate this. You may not now, but one day when you’re older you will”. Being the very stubborn person that I am, I hate to admit that people were right and I was wrong…but that bratty kid was wrong!…and my mom was right (ahhh!) Each year when I set out our decorations I always love the items that were from my childhood. Funny how things like this happen, huh?
So, Lover Boy and I have planned on doing the same thing for our kids. However, most of their special gifts will be handmade by us…in addition to the store-bought “special keepsake” gifts each year.
This year Lover Boy designed and built the kids an amazing toy box. He designed it with the toy box that he had growing up in mind but in a totally new and unique way. I will post pictures as soon as two of the parts we still need arrive!
As for me, I had a thought late one night while laying in bed. I wanted my special gift to each kid to be usable and not breakable. After lots of ideas, it finally dawned on me. Why not make a wooden block set with the nativity figures on it? I had never seen such a set so I thought that this would be extra special.
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They were so easy to make and the kids love them!
I’ll show you how I made them!
I printed and cut out a nativity set that I had found online. Then I took a really long 1×4 we had in the garage and laid out each character.
Using one of Laughing Coyotes pretend tools I drew my cut lines (I was working on this project really late at night upstairs one night and was way too lazy to go to the garage to get the real tool…so I improvised…haha!)
I left enough space for the thickness of the saw blade, but made sure that they was not a lot of empty space.
I then used Rubber Cement and glued on each of my paper characters to the wood
Then I applied two coats of Polycrylic with a foam brush (Polycrylic dries completely clear, which I wanted)
I used an old hotel room key to help smooth out any air bubbles. I let it dry over night and then the next day I cut them on the Miter saw. I used a rough grit sandpaper and rounded out the edges.
I made two sets, one for each of our kids. Our little guy has blonde hair so his angel has blonde hair while our daughter has brown hair so her angel has brown hair.
I loved making these for the kids and I plan for years to come to make additional pieces to go along with it. Noah’s Ark, Adam & Eve and the Tree, David & Goliath, etc. I hope one day once their older they will look back on these blocks with fond memories of wonderful Christmas celebrations!

I love that you customized the angels to resemble your children. Great idea. I had to laugh at you using the toy tool (whatever that thing is called). Sounds like it worked and saved you from having to trudge to the garage. Perfect. Thanks so much for joining our party.
So cute! You could really take the concept and just go block crazy! I love it:)