Thursday, December 22, 2011

On the 11th Day of Christmas Creativity...

Phew!!!  Are we almost there yet?  It's been a fun two weeks counting down the 12 Days of Christmas Creativity with you.  Today is Ileana's turn to host, so be sure to head over there and give her some love!

Today I'm thinking about stockings.  When I was a kid I had this cute felt stocking my Aunt Shelba made for me.  It had santa on it and my name.  I still have it!  We always got an orange in the toe of our stocking, then it was filled part way up with nuts, then some candy.  I recall we always had that hard ribbon candy.  I wonder if you can even get that anymore?  I haven't looked because it wasn't really my favorite.  I doubt that it was in our stockings... too sticky!  When I got married, I picked up my hubby's family stocking traditions.  Among those are to always get a new toothbrush in your stocking.  That still strikes me as a little funny, but I go with it!  Gotta have the marshmallow santa in there, too.  As long as there are Reese's Peanut Butter Trees in there, hubby will be happy, so we're always good.

Speaking of stockings, this year I had this great idea {usually words that cause hubby alarm}.  I wanted to make new stockings for my girls.  My idea was to use my KNK Maxx to cut fabric for appliques.  Sounds great, right?  It actually was great!


They aren't quite done, but I have high hopes for getting them completed by Christmas Eve.  It's the hand stitching that's taking me so long.  Once I get that completed, I can sew them up!


The girls are excited about their new stockings.  I had a hard time deciding what to put on them.  They both wanted something like a princess on it.  Christmas Princesses? What is this, A Very Disney Christmas?  I was trying to convince them that they wanted birds instead of princesses. After all, there are a lot of bird related themes... think 12 Days of Christmas!  Tons of birds there! So, we were looking through my new 12 Days of Christmas Tags and of course, they both wanted the Nine Ladies Dancing design.  I decided that nine  was a lot of ladies to be trouping around on a stocking and settled on three.  I think they have turned out very cute so far.  Here's what I did to cut the fabric.



Cutting Fabric Appliques on the KNK Maxx with the Fabric Blade

Materials:
Cotton quilting weight fabric
Wonder Under
Very sticky cutting mat
Fabric Blade

1. Iron your fabric nice and smooth.
2. Iron Wonder Under or other transfer material to the back side of your fabric.  Do not peel off the paper backing.
3. Place fabric, paper side down, on a very sticky mat.  {I used a brand new Cricut Mat}
4. Cut on a slow speed {100-200} with a pressure of 110-120.
5. Peel paper backing off and iron according to manufacturers instructions.

If you are cutting quite a few different materials, as you go along, your mat will begin to get less sticky.  I found I was able to successfully cut with the fabric side down and mirrored my image. I'm really impressed with the fine details I was able to cut!


Only one more day to enter my drawings!!!!!  Here are all the details:

Here are the prizes:

1) Three Prizes: The whole set of 12 Days of Christmas Tags
2) $10 gift code to Sam & Hailey Designs
3) $10 Michaels Gift Card
4) The December VDBC Grab Bag (or a $7 gift code to Sam & Hailey Designs if you have already purchased it)

How can you win them? On the 12th Day (that will be the 23rd for our little blog-fest) I'll hold a drawing for each one of the prizes (that's four six drawings in one day... I think I can handle it!). All you have to do to enter is comment on my blog to enter. You can comment on my blog on each of the 12 days so you'll have up to 12 entries in the drawings! Each day I'll have a new thing I'll ask you to include in your comment so keep an eye out for that. It's as simple as that!

Today's comment requirement:

Leave a comment with your family stocking traditions!  What goes in them, where do you hang them, etc.?

Be sure to include some way to contact you in case you win the drawing (for example, your VDBC forum name, your email address, etc.). If you don't, I might not be able to get your prize to you!

Oh, before you go, here are the last two 12 Days of Christmas Tags!  They'll be up in the store later today, and I'll have a great deal on them for you this weekend!!!



And here's the whole collection together!

Time to get crafty, people!

15 comments:

Renae said...

My family hangs our stockings on the mantle with a small gift for everyone. I made my children's stockings over the years and I made my own when I was a teenager. My husband's stocking was made by my sister in law when he was small. It is the only stocking that has the toe facing the opposite direction from everyone elses! LOL!

Renae said...

forgot my contact info on the last comment.

rpcrafter at gmail dot com

Denise Foor Studio PA said...

Our tradition is that you open your stocking presents first....they are the appetizer! Thanks for all the great ideas.

Kelly S said...

My sister and I had knit stockings with our names on them (my parents still hang them up). We would always fight over who got the Kermit stocking hanger versus the Santa hanger. :-) The stockings were filled with candy.

debi said...

all my grandkids get a jar of cherries....they love it and expect that...lol...of course oranges...this year I bought the popcorn containers (like at movies) and they are getting all sorts of microwave popcorn, an etched mug, etc...

demodebi@crosstel.net

Pam S said...

I always had red furry stockings with a white top which I hand cut all 5 kids names out of red felt. And we hung them on the fireplace for years and years, till they finally got like 30 to 40 years old, so I just put up for the grandkids now. I usually put a gift card or candy in it now.

momof5 said...

We hang them on the stair railing and use stockings that I have cross stitched for each member of our family. Each year the kids end up getting an orange, toothpaste, perfume, cologne, lotion, etc. and/or other items needed and some extra candy and we always open our stockings first before the presents.

bzyPTmom said...

Thanks for the fabric cutting tips! Our Christmas stockings hang down from the balcony of our 2nd story, you see them when you walk in the front door. On Christmas eve the stockings are taken down and put on our chair's at the kitchen table. Santa always brings us a chocolate orange, the "real" oranges aren't ready yet on the trees--growing up we got a real orange in our stocking and nuts and ribbon candy too!

Lucky Charm Crafts by Lynn Barwald said...

Well, I've never had a stocking because I'm Jewish, but I can tell you what I WOULD like put in mine if I had one! It would be full of paper and ink supplies! The smaller the better because then we could fit lots more in there! Also, a few blades for my KNK. :) Lynn B, Lynn@LuckyCharmCrafts.com.

Esther W-B said...

Those are cool stockings. One of these days I really must try cutting fabric. Thanks for the tut. I collect stockings with Scottie Dogs on them so we hang them over the fireplace just for display. We don't put anything in them.

Caroline said...

The children's Stocking are hung up on the Fireplace or (before we had a fireplace) left on the end of the bed in the middle of the night, filled by Santa. These are to keep the children quiet while the adults have a cuppa and actually wake up LOL

Thanks for the directions for the KNK fabric cutting, I must try this out :)

lilred said...

When my girls when young, as part of their count down to Christmas, I embellished these wonderful red stockings with their favorite of all favorites. One was Eeyore, one was Tiger and the oldest was a Precious Moments. They were felt pieced and glued into place. Even the tiny pieces. Then each year they have been hung over the bannister of our stairway were they are filled by Santa of course with candy/gum, jewelry, deorderant/makeup and a special gift.

kmcilrath said...

We put our stocking under the tree - no fireplace. ALWAYS an orange in them as we live in Florida. And always peanut M & M's.

Anonymous said...

Awesome project,
I also want to cut fabric on my gazelle but havn't tried yet

Anna said...

We used to hang them down the stairs but now I don't put them up LOL And we always put lottery tickets in them.

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