Home-made Trees and a Nativity Scene

Hi friends. So a couple days ago I made five Christmas trees out of cardboard cones that I bought at a craft store. James has a Nativity set he got for confirmation, and it comes with a manger, but this year I wanted to do something a little different. I decided to make a Christmas tree forest behind the scene. 

Here's the first tree I made. I got out my scrap bin and cut triangles out of two different green patterns. You might recognize the darker pattern from the pillowcase tutorial. Anyway, I used some hot glue and attached them.

I decided to make it extra kitschy and add buttons. Next year I might make a white and gold tree like this one with only gold and pearl buttons, but that's another craft for another year.

This tree was literally just cheapy garland from the Dollar Tree and some glittery pom poms that I had for a craft I did years ago. Again, everythhing was hot glued on. Let's actually just assume from this point on that things are hot glued, because that's how I did this whole project.

This tree is all lace and ruffles with eyelets. Click on any of these images to get a closer look, btw. Anyway, I added a couple green ribbons, so e green buttons, and some gold jingle bells. 

This tree is my favorite. It's the plaid ribbon that's all over in my Christmas decor (really!), and it's rustic and homey and I love it. Plaid ribbon and khaki/gray buttons. Cute.

Here's all the trees together. The two that are in fake planters I bought at a second hand wedding shop for 2 bucks a piece, and the red tree with the gold ribbon is just yarn, so I felt like it didn't need an explanation. I'd love to add a couple smaller trees next year; this year I just got the big trees because they were on clearance and thus were cheaper than even the small trees.

Here's our Nativity scene. 

The wise men are to the right, because that's east in a map and it just felt right (it's also east in our apartment).

Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus are of course in the center, and in front of the tree that looks the most like an angel. Someday I'm going to make angels for the Nativity scene, but today is not that day.

Once again, the dinosaurs join us to celebrate the birth of Christ, symbolizing not only my love of dinosaurs, but also that all are welcome in God's family, and if we are truly loving as Christ taught us, we lovingly accept everyone into the faith and into our hearts, especially at Christmas time.

The goat that is/was my dowry of course joins the Manger scene.

So that's our Nativity scene. Someday I'm going to get a different Joseph, one that doesn't look so emo and surly.