Supplies:
- Jenga blocks
- Wood beads. 2 large and one small.
- Paint and paint brushes
- Hot glue and glue gun
- Wood glue
- Twine
- Burlap or ribbon
- Optional: clamps
- optional: lighter
Steps:
- Use wood glue to glue two Jang blocks together to form Mary’s body. Then glue two more Jenga blocks together to form Joseph’s body. Use a clamp to hold the Jenga blocks together tightly while the glue dries. The clamps are not needed but do help hide the seams of the Jenga blocks.
- Paint, stain, or leave as is the two sets of Jenga blocks you just glued together in step 1. I painted both sets of blocks a different color. I then dry brushed a different color of acrylic paint all around particularly around the edges of each piece. To dry brush, you take off most of the wet paint from your stiff bristle paint brush then lightly paint with the remaining small amount of wet paint still on the paint brush. The key is to get as little paint on your paint brush as possible.
- Glue wood bead heads to painted Jenga blocks. I shifted Mary’s head over slightly so Mary and Joseph would sit against each other nicely.
- Measure, cut and glue with hot glue pieces of burlap or ribbon around pieces. For Joseph I made a sash out of a light brown ribbon. For Mary I used the light brown ribbon to make a head piece by draping it over her head. I even covered the back of her head.
- For baby Jesus, wrapped the small wooden bead in some burlap and glued it in place. I finished it off by wrapping and gluing some twine around His body.
- Use your hot glue to glue Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus together. I glued Joseph a little higher than Mary, so it looked like he was taller. I then used baby Jesus to help hide the gap difference at the bottom.
- Lastly, glue a piece of twine to hand your holy family ornament. I used the hole in Joseph’s head to feed my twine through. If your wood bead does not have a hole through it, then you can just glue the twine to the back of his head. I also used a lighter to burn extra loose pieces of twine threads. This just made my twine look a little cleaner.
I like the simplicity of this ornament. You could make an entire nativity, even the animals, using this style. You could turn them into ornaments like I did or set them on a shelf or place them in a little stable.
