Colorful Christmas Mantle and Homemade Stockings

 Remember the tutorial I did on the painted map? You can find it here.  Well, this is where I ended up using the map for now! Our house is very colorful so I wanted my Christmas decorations to be as equally full of color!  I just love decorating our mantle each season, or whenever the mood strikes.  Our fireplace rock goes all the way up to the ceiling so it really needs something large to make an impact.  

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The mantle is made up of the following: painted map, fabric/yarn-covered trees (tutorial coming soon), stacked vintage books tied with fabric, and candles.  

I also hung our homemade stockings and a garland I quickly sewed together from an old hymnal, in front. 

 I have the neatest homemade stocking from when I was a girl.  So this year I decided I'd make our own family (of four!) stockings.  Making these was quite simple and didn't require special instructions.  I first drew a simple stocking shape on a piece of paper and cut out two matching pieces from felt.  I then brain-stormed how I wanted the front of each stocking to look.  Once I'd decided on my design I cut out the necessary fabric/felt pieces to create the arrangement on the front of each stocking.

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 Next I stitched the designed arrangement on the top piece of each felt stocking.  Last, I laid the top and bottom stocking pieces together and stitched around the edge.  Easy!

 These were so much fun to make!  The rectangular piece of paper on each stocking is to write each person's name in our family. 

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I can't wait to fill these stockings with fun little treats.  I already found several great Hello Kitty items in the Target Dollar Spot for Anna Ruth. 

Do you fill stockings at your house? What is your most favorite stocking stuffer?