James Trippett from Bon Air Church of the Nazarene in Kokomo, IN brings us this styrofoam manger scene.
They used black landscape fabric to create a backdrop for cotton balls hung from fishing line. They made 6 trees out of small dead trees found in the woods and spray painted them white and front lit them for effect. Then they created a manger scene out of white styrofoam and create all the characters needed to match with their pastor’s Advent messages. They then placed white sheets around the whole platform to create a snowy look.
How did you make the characters stand up? Looks great!
Hi Amanda, We got the characters to stand up by cutting a piece of Styrofoam and gluing it to the back of the character to form a footer. The taller the character the taller I made the brace on the back. Hope that helps.
Have you already used the set? Would you be willing to loan it out to another church in the area (Lafayette)?
Hi Ryan, We used this set last Advent Season. Unfortunately, we recycled the Styrofoam for other projects. We use Styrofoam for tons of different things because it is easy to work with and pretty cheap.
~James
Where did you get the pattern for the nativity scene?
I would also love to know where you got the patterns and also where you purchased the styrofoam. This looks great and we would love to do something similar.
We bought the Styrofoam from the local Menards. We bought full 4×8 sheets. We made patterns from pictures we found with a Google search. We just searched Google till we found what we wanted. We took the Google images and made transparencies and projected the image on the Styrofoam and traced it. We used a hot knife to cut around the traced image. The images do not need to be perfect, they just need to get the basic shape. We did have to free hand a few places but once it was cut out it all looked great.
~James
ALSO, we did not put every piece of the nativity out on the first day of Advent. I would add a different part of the nativity in accordance with the different sermon topics. Every week there would be more to the nativity and everyone came to church with excitement to see what was added. Very Fun!!
~James
Great idea! I really like that concept – Merry Christmas and wonder full and divine blessings in 2018
wat i hav to type on google to get this smage image.. i hav to do the same for this coming christams…
can i pls know the exact phrase that ur hav typer on google.. to get this image..
Hello! I like the set and they look great! We are a church not too far from you, would you be open to selling or lending them out by any chance if you are not using them this year?
Aaron
Hello, we are doing something similar to the styrofoam nativity. Do you have or would you mind sharing the advent you used for the placement of the nativity