Every Mantle Deserves a Little Bling.

When I started decorating for the Christmas season (mentioned here), I neglected our fireplace mantle.  It took me 5 days before Christmas day to get ‘er done.  Last year I fell in love with a really cool monogrammed Mud Pie brand Elf Stocking at some random store in Atlanta.  (this stocking was found here)

Of course the only initial they had was ‘R’ and I wanted a second matching ‘M’.  I ended up not buying it since I was only able to find one to my set.  My mother (unknown to me) went back to that store and purchased the ‘R’ stocking.  She held on to it in for a year in hopes she could find me that darn ‘M’.   Well, she didn’t.  While shopping in Lexington over this past Thanksgiving, she  randomly ran into these stockings again.  But there was no ‘M’.  My aunt noticed a ‘W’ and that a ‘W’ upsidedown could be a ‘M’!  So mom bought 2 ‘W’ stockings and decided that she could sew something together by cutting out one ‘W’, turning it around and sew it back on the second stocking.  (Yes, this is where I have learned all things sewing and craft-related!).   That newly designed elf stocking, along with the original ‘R’ showed up in the mail on Monday.

In the package my mother also included the third stocking she cut the  ‘W’ out of and the trim she used to finish it off.  Mom knows how crafty I can be and thought I just might want to do something with it!

After looking at it for a bit, I decided to search for some left over white fabric in my scrap bin.  I could use my sewing/embroidery machine (mentioned here) to monogram and (hopefully) piece together a matching stocking for our pups!

I luckily have the “twisty curls” font for my sewing machine, so the lettering matched perfectly.  To get the circle cut out to the right size I used a martini glass and traced around it.

I had some craft glue on hand, so I generously applied it to the back of my custom made patch and pressed it into place in the hole on cut up stocking.

Using the same gluing method, I cut the green trim piece to size and delicately applied the glue to the back of the trim.

I let the glue sit overnight.  Here is my finished product:

Not too shabby for a cut up stocking most people would have thrown away!  Having all three (much desired) matching Mud Pie elf stockings, I decided to finally decorate our fireplace mantle for the Holidays.  To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to do so, since Christmas is only five days away, but these little beauties deserve a little bling!  I stopped at Rite Aid on my way home from work, and with God on my side, they had one box of matching bright red ornaments!  They also had some silver pearl beading which I decided to throw in the cart as well.  Not too shabby for some last minute drug store finds!

Christmas decoration is now complete!  At least I have about a week to enjoy it before I have to take it all down!

P.S.  did you notice the white ceramic dog on the fireplace hearth that resembles our pup, Tulipai?  That was a random find at Homegoods I couldn’t leave without.  In case you didn’t know, I have a slight addiction to ceramic animals (I posted about one of our ceramic animals, our piglet, here).

Do you dig what I created from my leftover elf stocking?  Have you crafted together something by turning a letter upside down?  Did you wait until this week to decorate your mantle too?  Let us know by leaving a comment below!