I got to thinking about glitter while I was in NYC. Once home at a family dinner we all decided that a glittered nativity scene would be wonderful. Judy, Lorna’s mom, found this set for me at the Bonham Trade Days last Saturday:

It is ceramic and actually kind of pretty as it is. The tallest figure is 4″ tall. I’ve heard the best glue for glitter is Mod Podge and luckily I had some. My thought was to use the German Glass Glitter that you see in the photo. I was imagining something sort of subtle but sparkly. 

Last night Mom came for dinner and I started glittering. After I got the lamb done she said that the glitter really didn’t show much. I ignored her and kept on glittering. She then suggested that really, some color could look good. Gold perhaps. I got the idea that she really, really thought color would be better.

Mom has good instincts and I will admit that the clear glass glitter was indeed subtle. So I washed the first two pieces and pulled out the Martha Stewart glitter set.

As I was washing off the clear glitter Mom protested that it looked fine but once she saw these she decided that color was better – and there were lots of choices! She wanted gold but I did not so I chose aquamarine.

I do admit that the color is more eye-catching than the clear glitter was. I ran out of aquamarine before I got to the baby Jesus, so he got glittered in silver. But then I noticed that there were some areas that I had missed and I was out of glitter. Oh my. 

I went to JoAnn’s today looking for more glitter and found out that I’d have to buy another $30 set to get that one color. Not doing that. But I did find this MS glitter mixing set.

It works! The bottles are a nice place to mix different colors of glitter to make a new color and the little funnel and scoop are well proportioned. The bottles dispense the glitter pretty well. And the set was 40% off! 

Here’s how the newly glittered nativity set turned out:

OK, gold would also have been pretty. (You are never too old to be reminded that your mother is often right.) That said, I like this color and I like the way the figures catch the light. Steve is less happy with the new dusting of glitter in the breakfast room but he’s sort of resigned to that at Christmas.

So there you go… one more Christmas project idea! You really needed one more, didn’t you?