Peg People Nativity Scene

*Affiliate links noted in italics and provided for your convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend! I’m back again this week with another DIY Christmas project for the Deck the Home Blog Hop! This week, we are all sharing a Christmas wood project with you!

I have wanted this Willow Tree nativity set for years, but the price tag is holding me back. Maybe I’ll see if Jeremy wants to slowly gift me the set for Christmas piece by piece over the years. 😉 In the meantime, I was really wanting a nativity to display!

A couple years ago, Bre from Average but Inspired made the cutest peg people family which I promptly had to replicate for Little Girlie’s nursery gallery wall! It dawned on me, I could make a nativity set using the same method! I am really excited about how it turned out!

I found wooden peg people at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby and was planning to make my own stable. But, I was shopping with my friend (Thanks a zillion, Rebecca!) and she suggested checking out Hobby Lobby’s Christmas decorations to see if I could find one premade. Within 30 seconds, she had spotted the stable, on sale for $5, no less! Score!

Jeremy and I had a painting party one night and he painted Imperial Assault game pieces while I painted my peg people. We’re cool like that. 😉 It was actually a fun little date night!

Below, you can see that I painted one color at a time, let it dry, then went in with the next color. The paint dried super fast since I was painting on raw wood. Once I had the clothes painted on, I lightly drew on the hair and faces. I made sure to make the face the part with the circular wood grain. The wood grain gave me natural lines to work off of for the face, hair, and head coverings. I went very simplistic with the designs to mask my lack of advanced painting abilities. Haha!

Here’s my pieces all painted! I cheated and drew on the eyes with a thin line Sharpie. I just have to say, Jeremy gets all the credit for the manger! I had originally bought a tiny box for the manger, but it was still too big. We were searching the Michael’s wood aisle for manger like items and he had the genius idea to use a letter O! It worked like a charm!

The stable was the perfect size and price, but I hated the moss that came glued onto it. I took a putty knife and scraped it all off! It came off much easier than I thought it would!

Instead of moss, I replaced the stable floor with wood shavings I found in the basket filler section at Michael’s. They were really long and in thick bunches, so I cut it up into smaller pieces that were easier to work with. I glued the shavings onto the stable floor with hot glue, then nestled in my peg people and glued them down as well. I glued a painted wooden star on the top and called it done!

Honestly, it turned out even better than I thought it would! Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to attempt some shepherds or animals. Haha!

Do you have a nativity set? I’d love to hear what kind you have!

Be sure to click around to all the other amazing Christmas DIY wood projects in the hop below!