Saturday, February 20, 2016

New Christmas Stockings

One of my really good friend's daughter got married a few weeks ago.  Years ago, when her kids were still little, I made her family some Christmas stockings.  As she added to her family, I added new stockings for each one. 

As her kids have gotten older and gotten married, I've made stockings as part of their wedding presents. 
Her oldest son's stockings are here.

So when I found out her oldest daughter was getting married, I started on the hunt for some new appliqued stocking patterns.  I'm surprised by the lack of patterns around that matched what I wanted.

I ended up making soft muslin stockings with a red velvet cuff with white pom pom's hanging from the cuff.  I've had the stockings made for weeks.  But I was literally paralyzed by the appliques.  I looked, and thought, and searched, and pondered.  I couldn't decide what to do.  I had lots of ideas but I wasn't in love with any of them.
Finally - I was out of time.  I had to do something.  I found these basic patterns and tweaked them to be similar to each other. 

I decided to do initials this time - which I've never done before.  But I was worried about crushing the velvet with the iron.  I actually quite like them this way.
On the Santa, I used a jingle bell for the tip of the hat, and some small red beads on the tree.

And for the angel, there are some tiny red seed beads on the crown. 

I think they turned out pretty darn cute. 

I have some other similar applique patterns by the same designer for future stocking needs.
I hope they love them!
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Friday, February 12, 2016

Valentine's Day 2016

I love making creative and fun Valentine's for my boys to give out to their friends at school.  Each year they pick out the item (I like to go non-candy items if we can) they want to give out and we find a talented blogger who has made a free printable for us to use to go with it.

This year son #1 choose little Valentine rubber ducks and son #2 chose Valentine gliders.  Both items came from Oriental Trading.  Both ideas for the printables came from The Crafting Chicks.  The airplane/glider printable is HERE.  And the duck printable is HERE
I had some difficulty getting their printable files to download - and I was in a hurry to get them done - so I created some simple paper strips with the words on them myself.  Cut them in to long strips - tie or staple them on, and boom, Valentines are done.

For boxes to take to school, son #1 chose to re-use his Football box from last year.  It was a classic and I was very happy not to have to make another new one for him this year.

Son #2 saw a Hot Air Balloon box as I was perusing the internet - so we grabbed a $3 basket from Target and a mylar balloon - tied them together, and there you go.  He loved it.  This idea came from Tatertots and Jello - HERE
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