Nativity scene with recycled material: ideas and how to do it

There is nothing more Christmassy than Crecheespecially if made according to tradition: but if made with recycled material it can also be a friend of the planet. The problem is that often, with natural materials, not very eco-friendly glues are also used. A detail that can make our lovely Nativity not very green, even if handmade.

The first step is in fact to understand which materials can be used to make our Nativity Scene at home. There is no need to go out shopping, but we will instead have to organize ourselves in advance to collect the necessary. This way Christmas will have a more ecological touch, focusing on recycling to build the structures or to create the characters.

Nativity scene with recycled material: green ideas

Nativity scene, recycled materials for the structure

To play the landscape you can use materials such as cork, bark, straw, gravel or stones of various sizes. But also sand, moss, dried soil, or bundles that can be used for fences and pergolas. The branches and leaves They will be useful to us to reproduce the trees or the green areas of the scenario.

For the sky, the mountains and the ground we just need to buy some in the stationery shop colored sheets of paper that we can install as a background or model for a three-dimensional effect. But if we want to be sure that they have natural colorswe can paint them ourselves, for example using pigments present in fruit and vegetables.

Il verde can be made starting from spinach and chard juice, green tea, algae and mint, depending on the shades we want to achieve. The purple red from beetroot, while from blueberry juice or blue spirulina, we can obtain a bright blue. Spices such as turmeric and saffron they give yellow-orange tones.

For brown we can use cocoa instead. Instead of vinyl synthetic the suggestion is to use a homemade glue made from flour, starch and water, or even a combination of distilled water and glycerin. Otherwise more simply egg white.

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Nativity Scene Characters and Accessories

For the creation of the personages and of the accessories you can really let your imagination run wild. For the first courses you can use materials such as ice cream sticks, suitable for building small structures instead of bundles, or yogurt jars.

Cans, being careful if working with children, toilet paper rolls, but also pine conesshells, stones or hard-boiled eggs can be other valid alternatives. Plastic bottles can also be useful, which we can shape by bringing them close to the stove to give shape to Magi and shepherds.

To decorate them, then, we need some pieces of leftover fabric or wool that can be found around the house. If we wanted to make the project unique, even if less long-lasting, we could also make the characters with cookie dough, perhaps in panpepato. Our Nativity scene in this way will have a scent of spices and winter aromas.

For objects and ornaments the choice is even wider. Metal bottle caps they can become plates, or even pots or lanterns, the nutshells will transform into baskets, while with various pasta shapes or even with dismantled wooden clothes pegs, you can make real constructions.

Read also –> DIY Christmas Centerpiece: 5 Ideas for the Holidays

Paper and cardboard

Cardboard packaging egg holder they can be used both for the creation of characters and for the creation of barrels, supports or supports for houses. Even shells, for their various shapes, can be used in various ways.

Con paper and cardboard there is no shortage of options and if we have old packing boxes that we don’t know where to throw away, we can instead recycle them for these projects. In fact, they can be transformed into the stable that welcomes Baby Jesus, covering the roof with moss and inserting straw in the corners.