Happy December! Happy Decorating!

Happy December! Hope everyone is doing well! Things are looking up here. I think I've finally gotten over Bronchitis so that is super helpful and just keeping fingers crossed that the faint, lingering cough doesn't linger much longer! Bleh!

 

So it might look like I'm rushing to get Christmas up and all this year but I'm trying NOT to rush. I can't stand Christmas being so rush, rush, rush! I've been going pretty slow to get it all done. The outside of the house has been decorated for a couple of weeks so I wouldn't have to decorate in the cold. We are all decorated though and now everybody is excited. The stockings are hung, the big tree and four mini trees are up! The kids were excited and asked to do it this weekend and really got into it so it has made it a lot of fun!

 

As far as other stuff, I'm just not worrying about any of it. Christmas card envelopes were addressed and stamped in June, I've just got to get our cards together! Trying to manage the little things by doing a little at a time. That is how I am managing the house chores and it is really working. Anyhow, I can't say how glad I am to be feeling better. For the past couple of weeks I've spent a lot of time sleeping and trying to recover. Finally have my energy back!

 

How are you? Do you have your tree up? If not, when will you put yours up?

 

Happy Monday and Happy December!

 

Here's our house all decked out!

 

Snow Ball Arrangement

What's up? How are you? Things are pretty good here. I'm in a humbled, sort of reflecting kind of mood tonight just thinking about how this day turned out. I try not to share too much personal info but I guess I'll talk about my day a little. 

Today started out good. My husband and I were both off to try and work and get some things done around the house in preparation for Christmas. Things have been very rushed so the kids went to their child care center and I did my grocery shopping "kidless" for a change. While I was at the store my husband played Santa, assembling the toys that needed to be put together so Christmas Eve wouldn't be such a late night. When I got home from the store I walked in to find that my husband was lying on the couch in severe pain. Come to find out he pulled his back out when he was putting something together. We spent two hours at Urgent Care and until today I have never seen my husband in such a helpless state. I pray I never see him like this again. It makes me very thankful that it was as minor as it was, even though he is experienced such pain. With all the hustle and bustle over the holidays, this experience brought both of us back down to earth, so to speak. It reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, family and close friends are utmost important in life. It reiterates the true meaning of Christmas! All the other stuff is just shstuff and not that important. Whew! I am so glad my hubs is okay but what a whirlwind of a day.

Having said that I did get crafty today with some material items because I needed a little release. :)  YAY for crafting and YAY for releases. This project idea evolved from an adorable decoration I saw over the summer when we went browsing in a Christmas store at the beach. What I saw was a bunch of sticks with Styrofoam balls that had red OR green sparkly swirls of paint on them. Each bunch of these cost nearly $20.00, which was quite pricey but they were WAY adorable, hence the need to replicate!

To do this project, all you need is:

Decorative sticks - I used glittery white ones from Dollar Tree - they came in a bunch

Styrofoam balls of different sizes. I used three packs, two from Dollar Tree and one from Hobby Lobby. 

Acrylic paints or glitter glue

Paint brush

Tooth picks to hold the ball when painting and to let dry 

Styrofoam square- as a drying rack

I mixed blue and white acrylic paint until I got the shade of blue I wanted. I covered the balls and let them dry overnight. 

Next I pushed the sticks through the balls and arranged them neatly in a vase. Now I have a contemporary decoration that blends well for Christmas! 

Display Christmas Cards On A Wreath

I did it! I got my Christmas cards made, printed, stuffed in envelopes and stamped to mail out tomorrow. Yippie! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to send them out this year but I'm psyched that they're done! I love sending cards and receiving cards and hearing from friends and family. We got one today from a friend we haven't heard from since last year this time so that was pretty cool! 

I normally put all my cards in a basket or some type of container but the cards aren't displayed that way, which is a big thumbs down! This year I discovered that I can use the mirror over the mantel as an extra decorating spot! I discovered the hangers you use with the removable tape! It's pretty sweet stuff! So I was able to easily attach the wreath to the mirror! Lots of exclamation points!

I had an extra straw wreath from my parent's garage and I wrapped it with thick velvety red ribbon leftover from making window wreaths. I hung the wreath and used push pins to hang the cards on the wreath. I just cover as I go or as I receive cards. :) I love it because it's a nice simple way to display the cards without having to take up a lot of room. The cards are confined to a nice small area on the mirror which is nice and neat!  

Frame Wrapping Paper

I've been wrapping presents for the past two hours and came up with an easy decoration! First off I am in total Christmas mode now! Don't tell my boss! Seriously though I am a little annoyed because I can't seem to find a few packages of gift card holders I bought. I stashed them away and managed to hide them from myself. Hmm. Maybe if I quit thinking about them they'll turn up! Here's hoping because they were just adorable!

Do you like to wrap or would you rather us a gift bag? I like wrapping because I think it's more fun opening a present that was wrapped. Anyhow I finally ran out of the numerous rolls of TARJAY aka Target clearance Christmas wrap so I broke down and bought some at Wally World aka Wal-Mart. I love looking at that kind of stuff. This year I wanted wrapping paper that looked fresh and colorful!

The space above the cabinets in the kitchen needed some color so I used these two frames that I picked up from Ikea and cut my two favorite wrapping paper patterns out and framed them. I turned the one on the left onto its side to offer a little contrast with the one on the right.

These framed graphics make a fresh and modern decoration. After Christmas is over, you can reuse the frames for something else! Or next year you can add a different paper in place! Keep It Simple! I'm sure you'll love it! 

Frosty The Candle!

Wow how the weekend flew. One week until Christmas! How are you doing? I'm definitely in the spirit this year but I have felt way behind this year in all my errands and traditions. Today one of my best friends took some family photogs of us for our Christmas cards this year. We went to one of our favorite places with the kids. Of all the shots taken I don't think we got a single picture where we were all smiling and looking at the camera. It was fun though and my friend has the patience of a saint! Ha ha! I'm thinking that they might get to friends in family by New Years! : ) 

So this week I'm going to be cramming in as many last minute holiday craft projects of home decor and gift ideas as I can fit! Below is a quick tutorial on adding a little wintry mix to make a candle look frosted!

I got this tall blue candle as a Christmas gift a few years back. It came from World Market and I love the color of blue it is. I have a thing for snowmen and so I thought this would be a fun thing to pair up with a snowman tea light holder I have! 

Using Mod Podge I took a brush and swept the glue all around the candle to cover it!

Next using my hand I rubbed Epsom salts on the candle to cover the candle. It didn't take a lot. I let it dry overnight and shook off excess salts!

I think they make a cute pair on one of our end tables!

It is so easy and it will freshen things up with the lavender scent! If you don't like lavender, get the plain Epsom salts and add your essential oil of choice! 

Shake 'N Bake Pine Cones AKA Scented Pine Cones!

As Opposed to Shake 'N Bake Chicken! 

I like bringing nature inside. Let me rephrase that. We have recently had signs of a mouse in our house and I do not like that one bit. I'm terrified of hearing a mouse get caught in a trap. Yuck! Anyhow, I like bringing things inside that make me think of the outdoors for simple decor. It's cheap, easy and more personal.

Did I tell you that we went to the beach over Thanksgiving? It was a wonderful break from reality. I certainly found my share of sea shells (no sand dollars - so surprised aren't you?)  but that isn't all I collected this time! The house we stayed in was surrounded by tall pine trees and there were beautiful pine cones sitting all over the ground. I collected a bag full to try and get crafty with them! 

Above are the pine cones I gathered. They're prickly suckers so careful with your fingers!

 

 

First I put them in the sink and soaked the pine cones to clean them. Next I baked them using a throw away pan I bought and never used for anything else. I baked them at 200 degrees for thirty minutes to kill any critters. After they came out of the oven the pine cones looked like they shrunk up a good bit. I was disappointed but I let them dry for a couple of days and they were back to their regular size. After they dried I prepped them and did the shake down on them!

Once dried I painted on a mix of Mod Podge and water covering the pine cones.

I mixed Cinnamon, Pickling Spice that I ground myself and Ground Nutmeg in a  Ziploc bag.

I shook each pine cone separately in the Ziploc bag and added more spices as I went.  

I let the pine cones sit overnight and gently shook off excess spices before displaying them in a bowl. 

They smell great and make for a warm centerpiece for any room in your house. 

A Glowing Exterior!

Even the exterior of our house has evolved over the years... I used to do nothing but the old school big snoopy colored bulbs. I'm sure they were fine but I started getting nervous about the lights because they got so hot. So for the past two years I've worked to freshen things up a bit.

 

Yay for WREATHS! I have always wanted to put wreaths on the windows! I love they way they look on other houses so I got wreaths for each window on the front side of the house and hung them up. I toyed with placement of the wreaths. I just LOVE the simplicity of a wreath hanging from a ribbon! If you have the type of windows that fold in for easy cleaning, you don't even need hangers to hang your wreath. Simply stand inside and open your window and hang the wreath through the window where you want it on the outside. When you close the window(still holding the wreath by the ribbon) it will hold the ribbon in place. I did take out my screens to do this by the way. If your window lock is in the middle of the window then the lock will puncture through the ribbon but that is okay because the window is locked and your ribbon is secured.

Here is one of my porch trees. The pot is covered in burlap and I put a red bow on top.I would have shown you both porch trees but my front door has all kinds of kid hand prints that need cleaning. ;)

More windows! I love the way everything came together. It's so elegant with the clear lights and red ribbon! Oh I don't have a picture of it yet but I also put some artificial poinsettias in a planter outside. I'm ready for Christmas except that I'm not!

Did you decorate the outside of your home? I want to hear what you did!

I'm linking up to The Blog Entourage this weekend. Come check out some other bloggers with me!

The NEW Tree With Ornaments ON

How was your weekend? Did you get to do anything fun or relaxing? Hopefully a little of both. It was a busy weekend here. It was one of those that was such a blur that I hardly remember what we did. I did get the house mostly decorated for Christmas though! I feel like I can relax more and enjoy things better.


I said I would show you our tree so here it is. :) Don't laugh! I think it's is elegant but also looks like it grew up through the house the way it touches the ceiling so Dr. Seuss comes to mind too! My mother-in-law saw this one in a store and sent me the link and I'm so glad she did. I got a pretty good deal on it and it's very pretty in person, oh and came pre-lit = heaven not to have to add lights! It's slimmer than our old one so it fits in the bay window very well and doesn't take up much room. Gosh I could be a sales person for this tree company! :)


I normally put a silver star on top but since this 9 footer hit the 9 foot ceiling I couldn't. Way to go buying a 9 foot tree with 9 foot ceilings. Not the smartest thing I have done lately but I can take a section off and use it at 7 1/2 feet too. I actually folded down the top of the tree to fit it in the room. Whoops! I added a very wide bow to the top as you can see. The walls in this room are a reddish/brownish/sometimes give a terracotta look, and the blue and silver accents on the tree contrast nicely against the walls.

Now that the tree is done I can focus on other things too. I will be sharing some homemade gifts I am working on and some super simple Christmas decorations anyone can do!

Hope you have a great week!

Dress Up Christmas Porch Trees

WHATTTTUP Peeps? How are things going? I am so psyched because our tree came in the mail today. That sounds terrible, doesn't it!?!?! I know it does but we are doing a pre-lit artificial one this year. So glad it has already got lights on it! We retired our old one where all the branches were color coded and you had to basically build it.

I've been looking for a tree and did buy one a few weeks ago but when I got it home it was too skimpy. So I purchased one online Sunday at midnight just to get that special savings and free shipping. I selected standard shipping and didn't expect it until after the 5th of December. To my surprise it was on our doorstep tonight!!!! Game on! Let the decorating begin SOON! I'll show you how it looks when we get it all set up. Can't wait!

So here is a little project I did because I am a cheapskate! Last year we wanted porch trees to put outside and I swooped this set up at Garden Ridge. 

 

I can't remember how much I paid for them but I do know they were much cheaper than another set I was contemplating getting. The other set was much smaller but in fancier pots. I couldn't see spending nearly double for smaller trees so I got the bigger trees and dressed up the pots with burlap that I sprayed with waterproofing spray so they will weather well.

Just a simple touch adds to the look of the trees and saves so much money! Can I get a big YAY for this one?!?! 

Christmas Eve - Final Touches

Merry Christmas from our home to yours! It's a season of giving and hopefully we all celebrate the TRUE meaning of Christmas. Hopefully everyone will get to be with 
family and loved ones!
 

Snowflakes added to mirror offer vintage charm! All dollar store purchases! The charm of the strands of snowflakes is that you can make them as long or short as you want because of the silver rings that attach the plastic snowflakes! You can scatter them all over the house if you want!



Candle redo - was black before - below


Plastic circle from a scarf I received as a gift from my sister-in-law couldn't be recycled...

so I made a cute jingle wreath for a doorknob out of tinsel and ribbon!


Beads made great additions to garland up the staircase and to an arrangement on the mantel!

Mantel Centerpiece!

 

Saw this posted by Jessica from Craftily Ever After and thought I'd try it with a frame and scrap paper I had! Hers is way cuter b/c of the size of the frame but I like! I'll try this again with a larger size frame and maybe a mat. Oh and by the way, my paper may look rose colored but it is brown! I do LOVE this project idea!

Hope you enjoyed all the pictures! Wishing you a warm and Merry Christmas this year!

Surviving Holiday Mishaps

How is everybody doing? Surviving the holiday crazies? What is a holiday without chaos of some sort? Haha! It has been the week for mishaps in our household, that is for sure! No the cat hasn't climbed the tree and the tree hasn't fallen over this year but still... I made that super simple wreath a week ago and was very excited about having a wreath for the door and then went out the front door to get the mail over the weekend and this is what I found when I opened the door...

Oopsie daisy! Maybe GLASS wasn't the way to go? Hmmm. I still love the wreath so I cleaned up all the broken glass and salvaged the rest and used double the glue and rehung. We're good to go again!

I mentioned in another post that we have TONS of paint in the gay-rage. Well someone in the household accidentally bumped the stacked up paint and knocked over half a can via aw-tow-mow-beel, and what a mess it was to clean up! Too funny! I repurposed a pizza box (how is that for repurposing!?!?!?) as a "dust pan" to carefully sweep the paint into. : ) With a little elbow grease, AKA bathroom scrubber brush + Palmolive dish soap = we have a clean floor again, thank goodness, and a new item for the warm weather to do list -  storage for paint cans to avoid paint spills in the future!

Paint spills is one of my nightmares OR maybe my cat running through paint. He'd be the biggest paint brush ever will his long hair! 

They say things happen in threes so a couple of nights ago I was outside cleaning something and as I was heading in the house there was a very loud thud! Our garage door had fallen off track and came very close to hitting one of the cars. We were very lucky no one was hurt and it didn't do any damage. It was fixed quickly and is up and running again.

Tis the season, right! Busy is what everyone seems to be right now. One of my very wise friends recently told me that if you're not busy with life then you're not really living. I think she has a point and a great perspective on things. It really is more about how you handle things, huh! 

In my next post I'll share my latest simple Christmas decorations that I FINALLY put up!

One Boy's CARS Christmas

WARNING! LOOOOOOONG POST but there are pictures as you scroll!
Is everybody ready for Christmas? Gifts bought and wrapped? Have you finished your shopping, unlike me, who only started my shopping today! Crapola!!! - Today I totally struck out! I took a half day so that I could get some shopping, um I wish I could say DONE, but noooo. I took today so I could START shopping. Way to procrastinate, hu? Well with two little ones this year, I have done what I can and I'm lucky to have the tree up and plugged in! So on my busy day running around, TARJAY did not have the ONE toy my son told Santa he wants MOST for Christmas. I did not expect it to be a hot ticket item but then again I guess I'm not UP on what is popular. Oh well, what is a mother to do? I'll get up in the morning and run to Toys R Us and pray that they have it. I never wanted to be THAT crazy mom trying to find that ONE toy! Ugggh!

It's the Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash dealio. We are crazy about CARS... Matchbox, Hotwheels, "cars with eyes" aka Disney Pixar CARS (Can't wait till the next movie comes out in the Spring)... you name it! His grandfather has even somewhat brainwashed him to like NASCAR. Hmm. Not so sure about that!

This toy will prolly drive me bonkers because it's a loud one, but we can't deprive the child of all the crazy crashing car fun he will have. Afterall he is a boy! Keep your fingers crossed I find it! If not, I will be calling all family members in town to check the store locations near them. I'm just not sure that if I were to order online, I'd get it by Christmas, at this point. Oh I vow never to wait again to buy presents! 

On the upside I did get the Christmas cards in the mail today. Pats on the back for that! Are you mailing Christmas cards? I had contemplated not even doing them this year but didn't want to cut it out because it is a special time of year. Our cards are seriously low budget this year. Construction paper and glue and one picture that my son thinks I butchered. My parent's puppy was in the pic and you could see his rear end so I cut him out and well, it's okay but not great. I think I can get away with it because a four year old helped! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I'm posting some more Christmas decoration pictures. These are of my son's bedroom tree. Since we are so nutty over cars we did a little tree on his desk with a cars theme. Well it's Pixar CARS. He loves his "cars with eyes" so he calls them.  

 

Lightning McQueen! Out of all the rooms in our house I think the kiddos' rooms are my favorite. They are complete and just take me back to childhood in a sense. I'll share more projects in them eventually.

Sally and Mater! The boy was dead set on naming his baby brother Gabriel "Mater" because he loved Mater from the movie and his best little bud's name is Gabe. We swayed away from that one entirely but did give him credit for being excited and involved!

A room decked for Christmas in Lightning McQueen! Gotta love it! I don't want him to grow out of it because I LOVE his room so much! Oh and for the tree skirt I used one of the extra pillow cases to the sheet sets so it flows with the theme of the room and I didn't have to buy anything extra!

Can't wait to share my all time favorite gift idea! It's a fun project for anyone! Until then. I am also working on my current Christmas gifts to grandparents but I have to keep it on the low so nobody finds out. : ) I'll share it AFTER Christmas!

Subtle Accents At Christmas

Red beads add a little color to the room but it's very subtle!

The beads came in small bunches with several strands joined by a stick, kind of how an artificial stem of flowers would come. I carefully cut the wires apart and separated them and used the stick to put the strands in the candle holder randomly pushing them down between the glass and the candles. I like!

The mantel is an ongoing work in progress. There's not much to it. I left all the existing decor and just added some greenery. Maybe next year I'll take everything down and do something more. 

There is lighted garland and I added some silver pearly picks throughout and then also placed some red holly looking ones to add give some color.

As for the candles, I dressed them up with some bling! I picked up some blue/silver glittery beaded garland from Michaels. It came in a single pack with about 5 strands. I used 3 strands to casually wrap the bottoms of the candlesticks to add some shimmer to the mantel.

I used the rest of the strands of beads throughout the greenery to add more depth.

Oh and I used to have big bulky iron stocking holders in different holiday designs and I loved them but they were safety hazards to children. I was terrified my son would pull on a stocking and the whole stocking and holder would come falling down on his head. 

So I got these small metal gripper types of holders at Bed, Bath and Beyond last year. They are very simple too! Yay! 

Easy Wreath

Man oh man this is the first year it has really taken a lot of motivation preparing for Christmas. Do you feel antsy with stress over the holidays or are you zipping thru your Christmas to do list? Whew! Wish I was zipping thru my list of things to do for the holidays. There is so much left to do and the clock is ticking! I think I have somewhat shot myself in the foot b/c I decided to take on several homemade projects for gifts and I haven't made much progress on them lately. I will post them after they are done and after they have been given away! Geesh I haven't even started Christmas shopping!!!!

It has been fun decorating for Christmas, even though it has been a slow process. I have added a few more things around the house. I used to have a wreath on the front door that looked like it was made out of icicles. Last year I chunked it b/c it was falling apart and we were tracking the beads everywhere. It became messy! I then bought a regular green wreath and last year attached some red and silver pearl looking ball ornaments with hooks. I never really liked the way it turned out.

So I pulled the wreath out the other night and fluffed it and attached the ornaments with the hot glue gun so they looked better and would stay put. I really like it! Simple as it is, now the door is no longer bare and it displays a lovely wreath. I could add some other elements but I like it just the way it is and it offers some contrast to the navy blue door. Um the wreath is a little off center b/c I took pictures of it after dark with the door open and I was trying to hurry because it was late. One of our neighbors across the street came outside as I was shooting the pictures with the flash. He must have thought I was a peeping tom or something. No Officer, I was just taking pictures of my Christmas wreath!!!

More Trees

While I was working on some more cone Christmas trees I went back to the first one I did, pictured below, and added some more painted shells and twine to make it a little more beachy. Now to get the stench out of the cabinets... I somehow missed a critter living in one of the shells that I found at the beach a couple weeks ago. Can we say Eww Holy Grossness! I don't have a room designated to crafts so I had the shells in ziplocks in a "craft cabinet" in the kitchen and boy did it stink. I'm not sure how I missed it when I was cleaning the shells but I sure won't make that mistake again! YUCK!



Now here's the big Christmas tree below, all decked out. Yay! I enjoy decorating for Christmas but am not one to put tons of stuff everywhere. The house is already cluttered enough and I just don't like to store too much. I'm afraid if much more goes in the attic, it will end up falling through the garage ceiling onto our cars. ;) Not really but I do try to limit what we store.



With Christmas decor, my main focus is on the tree, the mantel, and the front yard and I just try and spruce it up little by little each year. Here are some pictures of the tree. I'd say it's whimsical but that the ribbon makes it more formal looking. Over the years I've added on small touches. A couple of years ago I started sticking in these silver swirly, glittery branches from the floral section at Michaels and then more floral pieces that came from Pier One. If you do this, just try not to poke your eye out as you walk towards the tree to gaze over it! This year I added the blue snowflakes. Thank goodness it's up!

Below are a couple more styrafoam trees. I painted the foam cones blue just like the first one and I made these so you can see through to the blue paint a little. It gives a wintry cold look. I used the silver garland again, and shiny silver glass ornament balls this time, $1.00 for an 8 pack at Dollar Tree.



Topped with Snowflake!

All you have to do is remove the hooks and glue the tops of the ornaments and give them a twist when pressing them into the the foam. Make sure the balls are flush with the styrafoam. Just be careful b/c they are breakable and are liable to shatter. I would have used plastic shatterproof ball ornaments but all the plastic ones I found had a fine line where they were pieced together when they were made and I didn't think they would look right exposed. I used blue round crafters stones and wrapped each tree in thin, glittery silver ribbon (4 rolls of ribbon were $1.00 at AC Moore) and topped one with a snowflake and one with a star, each $1.00 a piece.

Topped with a Star!

They make a great flashy centerpiece and add a vintage flair! All are very reasonable. Each cost less than $7.00 to make!



A Shot of Trees in the Dark. :)



Another Christmas Tree

Similar to the cone Christmas tree of shells, I made another one using glitter ball ornaments. Don't you just love these things? Last week was vacation time at the beach nice! and I was able to play around and make another tree yippee! when I had some down time one afternoon.

Before vacation I painted this cone with a pale green latex paint we had leftover from painting one of the rooms in our house. There are soooo many half full/half empty paint cans out in the garage. Oh what can I find to paint next?!?!? As silly as it may seem, I just don't want to see the white Styrofoam through any of the materials I put on the tree. I'm weird that way, like it's really hiding what is underneath! Anyhow I let the cone dry before packing it for the road trip, of course. Just had to do a little prepping!  : )

Using the glue gun I covered the cone with furry, silver garland. Then I attached silver, glittery, Styrofoam ball ornaments to the cone, scattering them all over it, but not covering the cone completely. The ornaments originally had tiny plastic toppers that looped pieces of thread so the ornaments could be hung. Well those tore off easily and I was able to put a dollop of glue in the same spot on the ornaments to cover where the pieces had been ripped off. Can we hit the EASY BUTTON for that one? After placing the balls where I wanted them to go, I glued green square crafters stones in between the ornament balls and topped the tree with a silver star. Voila!

These trees are so much fun to make!  They make great center pieces for any room in the house and add a little sparkle. Mine is in the dining room sitting tall with another beaded cone tree I purchased a couple of years ago. I think it adds some elegance if I do say so myself! Who doesn't want something elegant every once in a while!



This cost under $7.00 to make!

I have some more of these to make with some different materials to try so I'll post them in the upcoming weeks. Betcha can't wait, hu! I think I'm going to give some out as gifts too but shhhh! Don't tell!

I also have some more fun gift ideas to share sometime soon too, something people of all ages will enjoy!

Lots in the works before Christmas and lots of fun projects after the holidays are over. Yay!

Personalizing Christmas Stockings

I'm excited about the tiny little project I did tonight! It's the little things, it really is! This week my son has shown lots of concern over his "Christmas sock", as he calls it, that we've already hung by the mantel with care! This year he's got a new baby brother and is afraid Santa won't know whose stocking is whose. He just isn't convinced that Santa will know. He asked me to do something so Santa will know who the stockings belong to!

I thought about it and I didn't even consider using glue and glitter like my mom did when we were kids. Not my taste really. It's fine and all and my handwriting is okay but I just didn't want to even attempt it. I'm too much of a neat freak and like organization, and my trying to use glue and glitter on stockings could turn ugly. Plus what if I messed up?

At the craft store I found some white, lightweight wooden letters but there weren't enough in the store to spell all of our names. So much for that! I kept on trucking and finally found some IRON ON Soft Flock Letters in a font I thought would match pretty well. The letters are 3/4" but come in a variety of sizes. The package reads DOT075LWT Dot at AC Moore in case you want to try it yourself. The font is a simple one with the dots on the ends of the letters, kinda cutesy but still nice and simple. You just follow the directions and it only takes about 22 seconds, at most, for each letter. Pretty sweet. I would do a run through on a test fabric first just so you make sure you get the process b/c once the letters are ironed, they are pretty permanent. Oh, and I had to buy two packages of letters so I had enough of the letters needed. A package was about $4.00 but I had a coupon! The stockings were all bought on clearance during after Christmas sales at different times too. Not too shabby!

Wanna see how the stockings turned out?





  

The result is a Pottery Barnish look with nice, clean, consistent letters to personalize each stocking and point Santa the direction he needs to go!!!