What I Love Most Today is Crafting!!!

I made these stockings about twelve years ago.  They were in a Martha Stewart magazine, which happened to be a special December/holiday craft issue.  I loved these "nutcracker" type stockings and went ahead and made them.

At the time I only had our first son, Kalen.  The soldier boot is Kirk's, the drummer boy is Kalen's and the ballerina slipper is mine of course.   As the other children have come I have not made any more.  For their stockings I have just used random hand me down's or others that were very inexpensive.

I have wanted to make more of these for years, and years and years and well....finally I had the chance.  Kirk has been home with his broken shoulder and tomorrow he goes back to work.  I knew today was my day.  I had to seize the opportunity!!!!  My sister in law, Kerri is here for Thanksgiving so she helped me do all of this crafting.  I love you Kerri, you're the best.  And my mother in law was the sewing inspiration behind the stockings, as we just did the cutting and sewing on of buttons.

There was one other project at hand, as well.  The two green boards are well...two green boards.  I have wanted to turn them into pretty, decoupaged wall hanging boards for my necklaces and bracelets.  I don't have a lot of jewelry by any means, but the few hanging jewelry I do have gets tangled in my jewelry box.

Alright, so Kerri and I left my house at about 1:00pm, got lunch, went to the fabric store to get all of our supplies.  Check....let's get started.....

Here we have the originals, made twelve years ago...thank you Martha.

Here we have the green boards, soon to be transformed into something functional and decorative.  I love the idea of having something that's pretty and useful.

The essentials for transforming these boards.

The decorative paper I chose to cover the green boards.

This is the felt, buttons, ribbons, etc. needed for the new Christmas stockings.

I love the buttons.

I love the ribbon.

I love it again.

Kerri is painting the boards.

I am cutting out patterns.

I just cut around the existing stockings for the most part, really easy.

This is Georgia's and it's ready to be sewn.

This boot has been half sewn.  I am sewing on the buttons and cording before mom sews the backing on.

Meanwhile, the green boards aren't green anymore.  They are transforming nicely.

Here I am drilling the necessary holes I will need in order to be able to hang jewelry from the board.

Here is the finished green board, transformed.

Here are some of my necklaces hanging from it.  I want to hang it my room or in my bathroom.  I haven't decided yet.

The stockings are being sewn carefully by the master.

Her sewing machine is built into this table because it is a professional seamstresses sewing machine.  She was trained as a seamstress. This thing is like a "runaway train."  She tried to have me sew on it once and it goes so fast!  She maneuvers it with total control.   She makes it look so easy.

They turned out so precious  From left to right we have Kalen's soldier boot, Gwyneth's slipper, Georgia's slipper, Shane's a drummer boy (Reece gets the old red drum stocking) and Summer is the last slipper.  So cute!!!!!!  Kirk stayed home with all of the other kids while Kerri and I crafted away, across the street at mom and dad's.

I spent $35.00 and made five stockings.  That's pretty good and they're beyond cute.  So, What I Love Most today is crafting!!!!!