Baby Jesus Ornament

Christmas is fast approaching, and with it brings a plethora of school programs and holiday parties! I (Erin) for some reason, decided to sign up to be a “party mom” for my eldest son’s preschool program and party. Part of the duties of party mom is to make sure the teachers and the kids get little gifts, and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I decided handmade gifts would be wonderful. For the children, I wanted to make them personalized ornaments and include a reference to the Nativity, since they go to a Christian preschool. I can’t wait to show you what I came up with!

Baby Jesus Ornament

Materials:

-Clear Plastic Ornaments (the kind that separate into two halves)

-Hot Glue

-Mod Podge

-Ribbon

-Optional-Epson LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit with Blue Ribbon Cartridge with Gold Ink

-Raffia or Other Material for the “Hay”

-Blue Cardstock

-Tiny Glitter Stars

-Large Star Sticker

-Vinyl (or alphabet stickers) for names

Baby Jesus:

-Wooden Bead for the Head

-Paint For the Head (in your choice of skin color)

-Black Permanent Marker or Paint Pen

-Square of Cloth

-Polyfil or Cotton Ball

-Felt (or any other material for hair)

Starry Sky Instructions:

Steps 1-3: Using the ornament as your stencil, trace and cut a circle out of the blue cardstock. This will need to be a trimmed a little bit to fit INSIDE the ornament. Apply Mod Podge. Sprinkle the stars while the glue is wet and then allow to dry.

Baby Jesus Instructions:

Step 1: Paint the beads whatever skin color you’d like. Since I had to do this in bulk, I just rolled the little beads around in the paint and let them dry.

Step 2: Gather all your materials to assemble the baby-scrap of cloth (about 2″x2″), polyfil, painted head, small piece of felt.

 Steps 3-5: First round three of the corners on the cloth square with scissors. Turn over, glue a small roll of poly fil. Fold up the bottom corner and glue.

Step 6: Form the swaddle. Fold over right side and glue. Fold up bottom right corner and glue. Fold up left corner and glue. Fold over left side and glue. Obviously there are MANY ways to fold the swaddle, and you can choose what looks best. The more I did it, the quicker and smoother it became =)

Steps 7-9: Take a bit of felt (or fur, or whatever you’d like to use for hair) and attach to the top of the head. (I used a bead, so I just stuffed a little hair down into the hole, and didn’t need glue.) Glue head into place. Use the paint pen or marker to add facial features.

Baby Jesus is ready for His home! Let’s assemble the ornament.

Step 1: Sprinkle some stars into one half of the ornament. Place the card stock circle inside, with the starry side facing the round part  of the ornament. Add a large star sticker to the blank side of the circle. I did not need to glue the circle in place, because it fit snugly. Once Baby Jesus was added, it became even more stable.

Steps 2-3: Using some of your manger material, create a flat oval and glue Baby Jesus in the center. Glue the baby into the ornament. I definitely added a bit more straw under his feet and such, until I achieved the desired look. 

Step 4: Attach the front of the ornament.

Step 5: Personalize with a name using vinyl or alphabet stickers on the starry night side. Because these were class gifts, I used my Cameo to cut out all the kids names.

Step 6: Attach ribbon. I wanted to make this personalized, so I used my Epson LabelWorks Printable Ribbon Kit and printed the name of their preschool and year on to the ribbon. I also did a couple that used the lyrics “Away in the Manger…asleep in the the hay”.

I love how these turned out, and I can’t wait for all of Prince C’s classmates to receive their little gifts and place them hang them proudly on their Christmas tree. I always love personalized ornaments, especially with the date, because it helps you recall a special or important moment in your life. Do you have a favorite ornament hanging on your tree?