Back in the fall of 1977 a prominent Woman's magazine showed how to make a dough art Nativity characters.?

Does anyone out there remember which magazine showed these remarkable little figurines made out of dough? There was Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, the three Wise Men, the Shepard's, Angels, Camels, Donkeys and Lambs. It gave you pictures of each, how to make the dough, how to paint them, how to make the beards and how to preserve them for years to come.

My friend who lived next door in Charleston, SC, had the magazine and we made them together. I was pregnant with my first child. I put them on our tree every year up until a couple of years ago when I discovered that the box I had them stored in had gotten wet and destroyed them all. So, now I have 4 grandchildren and I want to try and find them again to remake them. Is there someone out there that can help me find the pictures out of this magazine article? Or the name of the Magazine and maybe they still have the story in their archives? Thank you guys in advance and God Bless and Merry Christmas.
I don't know the name of the magazine.

Comments

2 Responses to “Back in the fall of 1977 a prominent Woman's magazine showed how to make a dough art Nativity characters.?”
  1. Diane B. says:
    May 22, 2010 at 4:51 am

    First, good news. There are many places online (and even books) that show how to make small Nativity figures from various clays (my site included–see below).

    The clay you’re referring to was probably "salt dough":
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+salt+dough
    Another, even better homemade air-dry clay would be "bread clay"… it handles slightly better and will take even greater detail:
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+to+bread+clay

    Salt dough and other "air-dry" clays do need to be sealed though after they dry or humidity/water will mess them up, and the air-dry clays made with grains (as opposed to paper products) will also be tempting to critters in storage.
    Just painting them (entirely, leaving no bare areas) with acrylic paints will seal dried air-dry clays, or you can use a clear sealer instead**

    **…the simplest and cheapest would be a permanent white glue (Elmers GlueAll, for example) mixed 3 or 4 to 1 with water to thin it, or a "decoupage medium" like ModPodge or Royal Coat which would be the same thing
    …I’d rather use a clear (gloss) polyurethane though (from the hardware store for sealing bare woods) since it’s tougher and more resistant to scratching and to later clouding from humidity
    …other sealers could be used too, but those 2 would be the most common

    If you want to purchase an air-dry clay, the best quality one would be Creative Paperclay, but there are others that are of somewhat or much less quality too (Crayola’s Air Dry Clay, Model Magic, PlayDoh, Celluclay, etc).

    You’ll notice in those links that air-dry clays can be colored themselves by (most commonly) mixing acrylic paints into them before shaping, as well as just painting on top after they dry.

    As for the figures themselves, you can find a number of lessons and examples for them on a few pages at my site.
    My site is primarily about *polymer* clay rather than air-dry clays, but when doing simple little sculpts the procedures would be pretty much the same (polymer clays are oil-based though and waterproof naturally so don’t need sealing, but do need "baking" at low temp in a home oven to harden them… they come in many colors which can be mixed together if desired or can be colored with artists oil paints or alcohol inks primarily).

    Here are the main pages to check out for those figures, other simple figures, and for ways to make "beards," etc:

    Christmas:
    http://glassattic.com/polymer/Christmas.htm (click on the "Sculpting" category)
    ON THAT PAGE THO’, note several things:
    …http://www.sculpey.com/projects/mini-nativity (I hadn’t added yet)
    …the good lessons by Donna Kato and Michelle Lott for making Nativity figures and animals has been removed or something, but you can still see the "cached" version of at least the instructions on these pages:
    (I’D PRINT OUT THESE PAGES if you want them because they may DISAPPEAR SOON!):
    http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:dFFvdJM03Z4J:www.sculpey.com/projects/projects_nativity.htm+site:www.sculpey.com+Nativity&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
    …and this one by Michelle Lott
    http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:dTTpFOg16aIJ:www.sculpey.com/Projects/projects_ChristmasNativity.htm+site:www.sculpey.com+Nativity&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
    http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:vmafOU8UDxwJ:www.sculpey.com/Projects/projects_ChristmasNativity4.htm+site:www.sculpey.com+Nativity+animals&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
    …link was broken for this one:
    http://www.pigsnstuff.com/pig_nativity.html
    …check out all the lessons on making Santas for lots of tips on making beards

    (*** MANY LINKS at my site and now broken unfortunatley…sorry, not my fault***)

    Sculpting-General:
    http://glassattic.com/polymer/sculpture.htm (click on Websites, then on Whimsical+Simpler)
    Sculpting, Body Parts, etc:
    http://glassattic.com/polymer/sculpting_body_and_tools.htm (under Hair, click on Beards, Mustaches, Etc.)

    Also, check out all these photos:
    http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Nativity+figures+clay

    HTH, and have fun!

    Diane B.

  2. S says:
    May 22, 2010 at 4:51 am

    is the magazine still being published? You can contact them and ask, what the worse they can say they don’t have it?

    The 2 magazines that come to mind are Ladies Home Journal and Woman’s Day.

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