Here’s a super-easy wooden holy family craft to add to a Nativity Display and other Christmas Decorations.
Add a touch of magic to your Christmas decorations with this simple wooden holy family nativity craft for kids and adults. Create this easy Holy Family craft to display in a DIY Nativity Scene for your home decor this Christmas season. Wooden peg dolls make creating this simple Christmas nativity craft super easy! You can paint and decorate them, or leave them natural, as shown in the photos for this peg doll nativity DIY. First published on December 6, 2016, this Christmas craft is regularly updated to enhance its content. You might also enjoy Meaningful Christmas Traditions for a Magical Holiday.
Related: Christmas Gifts Kids Can Make Your Family Will Love!
Peg Doll Nativity DIY Christmas Display:
This easy Christmas nativity scene craft requires a few wooden peg dolls, a walnut, and a scrap of fabric. Of course, the instructions below outline how to include additional peg dolls to represent the three wise men, shepherds, and angels, if desired.
After my daughter and I made this craft stick nativity stable, we decided to create this peg doll nativity DIY to complement it. Placing baby Jesus in a walnut half-shell is the perfect way to complete this easy Christmas nativity scene.
When my daughter and I made these easy Christmas crafts, we lived across the street from an almond and walnut orchard. There were always a few stray walnuts that didn’t get picked up by the harvesting equipment.
So they don’t go to waste, the farm owner told us that we were welcome to pick up and take any stray walnuts we find after harvest. Of course, we were more than happy to help. So, my daughter and I decided to make a few crafts with them to share with you.
How to Make a Baby Jesus Craft for the DIY Holy Family
There are two ways to create the Baby Jesus craft for the nativity scene, depending on your available supplies and how you plan to use them. If you want to make Baby Jesus with a small wooden peg doll, as shown in the photographs for this post, follow the step-by-step instructions below.
If, however, you want to learn how to make a Baby Jesus craft with a wooden bead instead of a wooden peg doll, click the link to read the DIY tutorial. It shares instructions on how to create a Baby Jesus Ornament in a half-walnut shell with a wooden bead. Skip the step of adding a twine hanger if you won’t be hanging it as a Christmas ornament.
Or make one without the hanger for your Christmas Nativity Scene, and several more with the hanger to hang on the Christmas tree. You might also enjoy these DIY Christmas Ornaments for kids and adults.
DIY Holy Family Craft Supplies:
- Wooden peg dolls
- 1/2 walnut shell
- To crack walnuts open into perfect halves for this Christmas craft, I recommend using a butter knife or a flat-head screwdriver and this walnut cracking technique.
- Scrap of ivory or brown burlap
- Hot glue, craft glue, or glue tape
The wooden peg doll set recommended on the list above contains enough peg dolls to make this holy family craft, peg doll elf ornaments, rainbow peg dolls, and winter fairy peg dolls! The rainbow peg dolls and winter fairies make great gift ideas for the kids, while elf ornaments make lovely Christmas ornaments and figurines for DIY displays.
How to Make a Wooden Holy Family for a Nativity Scene:
Please read through the step-by-step instructions for making wooden Holy Family crafts before getting started, so you are familiar with the steps involved and what to expect.
1. Crack walnuts for the Baby Jesus peg doll craft:
- Follow the easy walnut cracking instructions HERE to get two usable halves for your Baby Jesus crafts.
- The walnut cracking tutorial features a DIY video to make it easy to learn how to crack a walnut, yielding two whole, usable halves for Baby Jesus crafts. It also includes a link back to this craft tutorial.
- Or, pass the walnut cracking off on the kids. Cracking walnuts is an excellent hand-strengthening activity.
How to Crack Walnuts for Baby Jesus Crafts:
- My daughter loves cracking and eating walnuts, so the first time we made Baby Jesus crafts, I placed a bowl of walnuts in front of her and let her have at them.
- When she was finished, she had a tummy full of walnuts, a pile of shells, and a handful of usable halves.
- If you try this option, just be sure to leave a few walnuts aside in case the kids don’t have any usable halves to make crafts with when they are finished.
- Alternatively, use this walnut-cracking tutorial to crack walnuts into usable halves for the Baby Jesus crafts.
2. Cut burlap squares (or use another type of fabric):
- You will need one square or triangle of burlap (or a different kind of fabric), approximately 3 inches by 3 inches.
- Ensure each fabric scrap is big enough to swaddle the tiny baby Jesus peg doll for each walnut half.
- In the photo below, you can see my daughter cutting a square of burlap from a burlap scrap from the remains of a sewing project; however, any fabric scrap large enough will work.
3. Swaddle or wrap a small baby peg doll in burlap or another fabric:
- Wrap up the baby or most petite wooden peg doll from THIS SET (or use THESE baby peg dolls with rounded edges) in burlap or another fabric scrap.
- We tried this a few times in various ways, using different types of fabric scraps, and they all worked perfectly.
- All you need to do is swaddle the wooden peg doll in burlap or another fabric and glue it down in any way that works.
- It doesn’t need to look pretty because in the next step, you will shove the swaddled baby wooden peg doll into a half-walnut shell, messy side down, to complete the Baby Jesus craft.
- You can see an example of how I wrapped one of our Baby Jesus crafts in the photo below.
- Alternatively, learn how to make this baby Jesus craft with a wooden bead instead of a peg doll; refer to the directions for making Walnut Shell Manger Christmas Ornaments.
4. Glue the Baby Jesus peg doll into the half walnut shell:
- Add a big dollop of glue (or a large piece of glue tape) to the inside of the 1/2 walnut shell.
- Place the swaddled Baby Jesus craft into the walnut shell, messy side down, before the glue begins to dry.
- Put the fabric-wrapped peg doll into the half-walnut shell and tuck the ends of the fabric into the walnut shell.
- Please ensure that children are taught how to use hot glue safely and are well supervised when using it to create this peg doll baby Jesus craft in a walnut shell manger. Alternatively, use glue tape to complete this step.
- I held the walnut shell for my daughter, making it easier for her to add glue to the baby Jesus craft.Â
5. Add a peg doll couple to represent Mary and Joseph for the Holy Family DIY:
- To complete the wooden peg doll holy family craft, select a peg doll couple to represent Mary and Joseph.
- Place Mary on the left and Joseph on the right.
- Next, place the baby Jesus in a walnut shell manger with Mary and Joseph, so that he sits in front of and between them, with Mary sitting to the left of the Baby Jesus’ right hand.
- You can leave the peg doll figures in their natural, raw, unfinished wooden form, as shown in the photographs, or decorate them however you wish.
- To decorate them, use fabric, felt, acrylic paint, or paint pens to make clothing, and use wool roving or paint to create hair.
- For example, you can paint brown hair and a beard, or glue brown wool roving onto the crown of the peg doll’s head and face to create hair and a beard for Joseph.
6. Display the wooden peg doll Holy Family craft in a DIY nativity scene with other Peg Doll Figurines (optional):
- Discover how to set up a Nativity Scene Christmas Display with our step-by-step tutorial.
- I also created a nativity stable craft using popsicle sticks to display alongside this DIY wooden Holy Family for a homemade Nativity Scene display.
- Add more wooden peg dolls to represent the three wise men and shepherds.
- Once again, you can use felt, fabric, or paint to decorate them if you wish.
- Use some of the remaining peg dolls to create wooden angel figurines for the peg doll nativity DIY project.
- The step-by-step craft instructions guide you through making angel ornaments using wooden peg dolls. Omit the hanging loop to create angel figurines for a nativity display.
- You might also enjoy creating a stone advent calendar or an advent spiral to accompany this peg doll nativity DIY.
Wooden Peg Doll Nativity Set:
Add this beautiful, easy DIY wooden Holy Family craft, made with wooden peg dolls, to your Christmas craft list this holiday season. Both kids and adults will enjoy this easy Christmas peg doll nativity craft!
You might also enjoy this list of Christmas Traditions or these winter activities, which include a printable winter bucket list. Learn more about Rhythms of Play HERE!
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