Learn how to make a homemade nativity set out of toilet rolls and fabric scraps. This kid-friendly nativity set is a great craft to make for home or the Sunday School Classroom. It will provide hours of imaginative play and learning in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas.
If your kids love playing with your nativity set, acting out the Christmas story and re-arranging the nativity scene, you can either buy them one of these kid-friendly nativity sets of their own, or make a nativity set that they can play with any time they want.
You may also like our kid-friendly advent wreath. Kids can “light” the candles each Sunday in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
This toilet roll nativity set is unbreakable, and the adorable homemade dolls will provide hours of imaginative and open-ended play in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
P.S. If you’re looking for a homemade doll and dollhouse set kids can play with all year round, check out our toilet roll dolls and shoebox dollhouse.
You can find all of our toilet roll crafts here.
How to Make a Toilet Roll Nativity Set for Kids
Below, you’ll find easy, step-by-step instructions for making the following nativity characters and accessories:
- Mary
- Joseph
- Baby Jesus
- Angel
- Shepherd
- Wiseman
- Manger
- Stable/storage case
I have a couple of dollar store nativity sets that my daycare kids have been playing with for years. While they’re sweet, they’re really starting to show their age.
Some of the pieces are chipped, and the donkeys and cows are missing an ear here and a hoof there because they’ve been dropped so many times, so basically, we only use them in our nativity sensory bin anymore.
A few years ago, I put on my thinking cap and came up with this kid-friendly, unbreakable toilet roll nativity set for the kids to play with.
The homemade nativity set was such a hit with the kids that I spent several evenings making each of my daycare hooligans an 8-piece nativity set of their own.
Set aside an evening or two
This homemade nativity set does take some time to make, but if you’re crafty, you’ll have fun with it.
It’s absolutely adorable, and it will provide your little ones with hours of entertainment and imaginative play in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Plus, it’s a great way to use up some of the cardboard rolls you have stashed in your craft room!
Because I made this nativity set long before I started blogging, I didn’t take step-by-step pictures of the process, so I’m just going to tell you what supplies you’ll need, and give you the basic instructions for making all of the figures in the nativity set.
Supplies needed to make this toilet roll nativity set:
- Glue gun
- toilet rolls (or paper towel rolls/wrapping paper rolls)
- card stock or construction paper in skin tones (to cover the head half of the tube)
- fabric scraps for cloaks
- smaller fabric scraps for head coverings
- felt for king’s crown
- elastics (to keep head covering on)
- yarn or trim to cover elastics
- buttons, beads, craft jewels for embellishments on cloaks/crown
- pipe cleaners for shepherd’s hook and halos
- artificial flower for angel’s wings
- fine tip markers for facial features
- pale pink marker or pencil crayon for cheeks
- beige yarn for manger
- shoebox and scrap book paper or wallpaper samples for stable
How to make Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus
To make Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus, cut your cardboard rolls to the height that you want your characters to be.
A trick to make baby Jesus much tinier than the rest of the figures:
For baby Jesus, cut your cardboard tube so it’s about half the height as Mary and Joseph. Now, cut that piece up the middle and squeeze it together to make it smaller. Use a piece of tape to hold the cut edges together.
Start with the faces of your nativity characters :
For each of the figures, cut a strip of skin coloured construction paper or card stock and glue that to the “head” half of your tube. This will be your figure’s face. Leave it blank until your character is fully dressed and decorated. it will give you a better feel for exactly where to draw the facial features.
A halo for Baby Jesus
If you want your baby Jesus to wear a halo, simply wrap a piece of metallic gold pipe cleaner around the top of the cardboard tube, and glue it in place.
Making the robes and tunics:
Now it’s time to make some clothing for your nativity characters. For each figure, cut a rectangle of fabric to wrap around your cardboard tube. You’ll want the length to reach from the characters chin to the bottom of the cardboard tube.
You can measure if you’re really picky, but I just eyeballed everything.
If you’re folding the edges of your fabric under to prevent fraying, allow for that bit of extra that you’re folding. Glue the fabric to your toilet roll.
Note: with some of the more rustic fabrics I used, I actually wanted them to fray so I didn’t bother folding the edges under.
Add buttons or beads to their clothing if desired.
Making the headwear for your nativity characters:
For your figures’ headwear, you can play around with a piece of paper towel to get the shape right, and use that as a pattern.
Cut your head covering out, and using an elastic band, secure it to the top end of the toilet roll. Glue a piece of yarn, ribbon or trim around to cover the elastic.
Draw your characters’ faces on:
Use a fine-tipped marker or pen to draw the eyes, noses and mouths on your nativity figures.
Cheek tip: Do not use a poor-quality, dark coloured marker for the cheeks. I made the mistake of doing that for Mary and Baby Jesus, and it was not the look I was going for. Use a pale pink marker or pencil crayon so your characters’ cheeks will look rosy but subtle.
Toilet Roll Wisemen:
For the wiseman’s crown, cut a length of felt that’s straight along the bottom and zigzagged along the top. Wrap it around your King’s head and glue it in place.
Embellish the crown with craft jewels or sequins. I also added a metallic pipe cleaner necklace with a jewel attached.
How many wisemen are there in the nativity story?
In the traditional nativity story, there are 3 wisemen who bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus. I simplified our homemade nativity set by making only one wiseman, and I didn’t make a gift for him to carry. If you want to make three wisemen, go for it!
Toilet Roll Angel:
For our toilet roll angel angel, I chose a soft pink fabric. White would be lovely too. I glued a small ribbon rosette to the front of the angel’s dress and pearl-like trim to the bottom.
For the angel’s wings, I pulled an artificial flower apart and glued a few petals to our angel’s back.
I finished by gluing a metallic pipe cleaner “halo” around the top of the angel’s head.
Toilet Roll Shepherd:
Make your shepherd the same way you made your Joseph character, but glue a pipe cleaner shepherd’s hook to his body.
Toilet roll sheep
Although we do have an adorable sheep Christmas ornament, I didn’t make a sheep for our nativity set, but you can find instructions for making toilet roll sheep here.
How to make the manger:
For the manger, I cut a toilet roll in half, and then opened it up like a cradle. I cut a couple of small sections of tube, and I cut them again, in half, so they were like a small “u”. I glued those, upside-down, to the bottom of the cradle so it wouldn’t rock.
Then I used a hairbrush to fray some beige wool, and I glued that in the manger to look like straw.
Shoebox stable:
The stable for our nativity set is made from a shoebox that I decorated with wallpaper samples. Ask at your local paint shop if they have any expired wallpaper sample books that you can take off their hands.
Stable doubles as a storage case
Your homemade nativity characters can be stored inside the box when not in use.
These photos were taken 3 years after I made our toilet roll nativity set. My toddlers and preschoolers have played with this set at my house season after season, and they’re still in great shape.
Without a doubt, this project was well-worth the time and effort it took to make it 🙂
Edited to add: It’s been 10 years since I made our homemade nativity sets. The kids still play with mine every year during the Christmas season, and the older hooligans who each received a set of their own, say they still have them and love getting them out and setting them up every year.
You may also like:
Get the 3-5 Playful Preschool e-Book!
25+preschool activities by 25 bloggers, 10 printables, 50 links to activities not featured in the book all for $8.99!
Follow the Hooligans on Facebook
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
