by Sharon | Dec 4, 2014
I like the rustic look of these stockings. At your favorite craft store you can get wooden letters to adorn them or put names on them using fabric paints. These letters have been “glitterized”. Glitter isn’t my thing, it gets all over everything, but for those of you who are into it — go to town!
As you’ve probably guessed these Christmas Stockings are made from burlap, but you can use whatever fabric you choose. I know of a woman who used leather and vintage fur and baubles to dress them up. She also got into a denim style with pockets. There are no limits to what you can do with stockings.
I think a “western” style might be nice with interesting handkerchiefs for adornment and use denim, too. I like the idea of having pockets on the outside where you can tuck in little goodies and also put in candy canes. They make such a nice variety of them in all color combinations and flavors.
Here’s another image showing off the mantle in a rustic style. It’s nice to bring the outdoors in with your decorating. I do like pine cones and the “southwestern” style this gives. It’s amazing what can be done with garden or artificial clippings, ribbon and imagination. It’s also nice to be able to bring in some family heirlooms or go to a thrift store to find just the right things. I know many from different cultures who like to bring that into their decorating, too. People who travel have some items they picked up and this is a perfect way to display them, too.
I know I moved away from stockings, but the whole mantle comes into play as you try to tie everything together to make an interesting focal point that attracts the eye of your visitors and guests.
I do have some free templates for you. They’re of the stockings in three sizes:
Large Stocking Template
Medium Stocking Template
Small Stockings Template
Now, for the cuff, you’ll need to work that out and the burlap loop. The loop is no big deal, just a strip of fabric and sew it on your stocking. I was thinking about the cuff. You could fold it down and then sew fabric on it. You can also add to the top of the template — if it doesn’t fit on the size paper you use in your printer, you can print out another one and tape the extra section on your template to make it longer or free hand it.
You may want to do some interesting decorating with bells, garland strips, fake fur and who knows what you’ll find that will make these stockings special. I do like giving you the basics and then you get your imagination and creativity into high gear.
I hope this Rustic Christmas Stocking images and the mantle were food for thought and the article was helpful. We always get ideas from seeing what others do and then make our own to fit our taste and preference.
I included three sizes of stocking templates. You may be able to re-size them to create the size you want. I thought the small ones would be nice to put silverware in for your Christmas dinner. There are lots of things people do for that purpose. They’d also make excellent hostess gifts filled with goodies.
Thanks for stopping by!
by Sharon | Dec 3, 2014
Your Christmas Tree is the focal point of your Christmas decorating. Here’s an image that gives you some basic pointers:
For every foot of tree height, you need 100 lights, 9 feet of garland and 20 ornaments. I have a friend with a 7 foot Christmas tree. So that means 700 lights, 63 feet of garland and 140 ornaments.
I suppose that does work out as a rule of thumb. But you can add more or less of each to your taste. Maybe garland isn’t your thing, so you add more ornaments.
It’s always fun to see how friends and family decorate their Christmas trees. Some people have more than one, depending upon the size of their house. When I had a two story house, I had a tree downstairs in the living room and one upstairs in the sitting room as my mother called it and I called it my loft. It was also interesting how I decorated them. The one in the living room was more traditional with some vintage ornaments from over the years. The one upstairs was a bit whimsical with all kinds of ornaments I picked up over the years with a particular flavor from pop culture. As I reflect on that and now have just one tree, a 4 to 5 foot tree, I go traditional and a bit whimsical and nostalgic. I go with what inspires me at the moment, not what would be a decorator’s suggestion.
I’m into pleasing me, not anyone else. From what I’ve seen, many have settled into that same mode while others are into impressing others. It’s all what one wants and feels they need to do. I enjoy hearing what every ornament means to a particular individual. It makes it much more personal and interesting than saying “My tree was designed by fancy pants decorator from fancy pants hoity toity location.” Basically, they had nothing to do with it and didn’t have time to bother with it. That’s not the message they were going for, but it was my take on it. Now, there were many who shared their vision and may have been saying to themselves, “I wish I could afford to do that.”
I was listening to a TED Talk the other day that focused on “why.” Well, that’s my take on it, it’s what I got out of it and started thinking about. Someone else may listen to it and get an entirely different message . . . but I digress . . .
“Why” gets into your feelings and core beliefs. In attaching it to tree decorating at Christmas I’m into the family traditions and the “me” element, reflecting my life. Anyone who knows me, can see in every ornament why I chose it . . . and they can relate to it, too. As I said earlier, I’m into pleasing myself. I’m living with this tree for several weeks and I want to walk past it or sit enjoying it with a smile on my face and with gladness in my heart. I can reflect on my life and those who had the most influence on me. I see it and feel it.
I also hope it reflects within TwoCansOnAString.com. I hadn’t really thought about it until now. I know when I first started the blog, it included a little bit of everything — which has now spun off into other niche websites. Although I like the other websites, this one is the one I love the most. It may have been my personal experiment into internet marketing . . . just trying it out . . . getting my feet wet. It’s not what my “marketing” friends would call a niche. I tried that after I moved the website to other hosting and lost my content, but it didn’t feel right . . . it didn’t ring true . . . it didn’t feel like “home.” My “marketing” acquaintances may not “get it”, but my friends and family do . . . and new visitors who come and feel it. . . return to this eclectic blend that could only be called “Two Cans On A String.”
by Sharon | Dec 2, 2014
Aren’t these ornaments the best!!! And they’re so easy to make. I think it will take you longer to gather up your supplies than it will take you to make these adorable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Ornaments.
The materials you’ll need are obvious, but humor me:
- Green Round Ornaments
- Felt Squares: red, blue, purple and orange Or you may be able to find Felt Strips
- Glue of your choice
- Wiggly Eyes
How to assembly them is also easy, but I’ll write them out:
- Cut a strip out of your felt square about an inch wide — depends on the size of your ornaments and the size of your wiggly eyes.
- Run glue all the way around the ball-shaped ornament.
- Wrap the felt strip around the ornament on top of the glue. You can overlap the felt strip by gluing the pieces together. Cut off excess if necessary.
- Put glue on the back of a wiggly eye and put it in place on the felt. Do the same with the other eye.
- Now repeat steps 1 through 4 for the rest of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Ornaments.
These would make great gifts for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fans.
It’s so much fun to make them yourself!
Thanks for stopping by!
by Sharon | Dec 1, 2014
December, the last month of 2014. Just 30 days away from 2015, not counting today.
Remember those New Year’s Resolutions you abandoned back in January, 2014? You have 30 days to complete one or two of them . . . or give yourself a new challenge. Is there something you want to accomplish before the new year?
There’s a man I know who took a 30 day challenge to write 5000 words a day. He wrote a book that he’s now editing that will come out in January, 2015.
I remember reading somewhere that we can change old habits in 30 days. I believe the article went on to say we can change our behavior in 30 days. There does seem to be something magical about 30 days. It seems like such a short period of time, but too often after 15 more or less days we give it up. Either we didn’t really want to do it or it was too difficult to achieve.
I usually don’t do the New Year’s Resolution thing. I guess when you get as old as I am that you know you won’t follow through. I usually don’t have things I feel that committed to changing. I’m far from perfect, but I don’t know what I’d like to change.
With four websites, I would love to add to each one on a daily basis, but I know that won’t happen. I’ve been able to do it for awhile, then one of them is left out. I am disappointed, but there are things that need to get done. I had noticed one of them hadn’t been updated for 5 days. That was unacceptable to me, but it is what it is. I’ve had gaps here and on the other two. I do want to add to them daily, but then I won’t have time for other things . . . like laundry, cleaning the house and running errands. And the Christmas shopping . . .
Do you see what I just did? I have one excuse after another why I can’t do a 30 day challenge with my websites, but is there something I can do? Is there something I want to change? Is there something I want to accomplish?
Are you thinking right along with me?
Thirty days . . . I don’t have a 30 day challenge for you, other than asking you what, if anything you’d like to change or accomplish in your life during the next 30 days.
I’m sure there are 30 new things I can learn in the next 30 days. I can concentrate on one website that I’ll add to daily for the next 30 days. This one would be an excellent choice, then you can see if I did it or not . . . and when I slipped up.
As I see it, it has to be something you want to do and even mark out a time when you’ll work on it. I can see doing that with this website. I don’t know what will transpire from day to day throughout December . . . and December is a busy month.
Hummm, I don’t know, but I’ll give it a try.
What are you going to do in the next 30 days? You don’t want to do the challenge? It is possible, since there are no rules to this challenge that you can have a goal you want to accomplish during December. You may achieve that goal before the 30 days. Are there several goals you’d like to accomplish during the 30 day period?
I have plenty of goals I’d like to accomplish during December. Some I don’t really want to tackle during December, maybe in January or some other time. That’s known as “kicking the can down the road.” I’ve done that for what has ended up being a number of years. I’m just not ready to do it . . .
It’s difficult to commit to something. Awhile back, I was thinking of putting 100 cookie recipes on my website. I believe I have 100 cookie recipes I could publish here, but for some reason I haven’t done it. If that would be my challenge, then that would mean I’d have to do 3 daily for the 30 days and then for 10 days have 4 cookie recipes. I guess what I didn’t want to do was focus on cookie recipes for 30 days. This challenge is more difficult than writing something new for 30 days. I can always come up with something . . . And for December, I doubt my family, friends and new visitors would want to have just one topic to look at for 30 days. I like TwoCansOnAString.com to be unique . . . different from my other websites.
Back to the 100 cookie recipes, I thought with the cookie exchanges people do, that most of these take place before Christmas . . . This year Christmas is on a Thursday. That would mean this cookie exchange thing has to be done by the preceding Thursday . . . and if you’re using my recipes I should have started already. Gosh, I’m already behind on that goal! That would also mean that I’d have to do 10 cookie recipes for the next ten days. That’s a lot more work than doing one new post here for the next 30 days.
I’m beginning to see that this daily posting isn’t as difficult as some other things I’ve shared.
Are you beginning to think that doing something once a day isn’t all that difficult for 30 days? It could be listening to a motivational or inspirational tape for 30 days. It could be anything, really. I have a friend who listens to a TED tape every morning. He has been doing that for several months. It has become a part of his daily routine. Many watch their soaps . . . except for weekends. With YouTube you can find something that you could do consistently.
I got my cousin watching craft videos every evening or when she had free time. There were cooking videos, too, that I got her interested in. So YouTube videos is a do-able 30 day challenge. The thing for me is, I can’t usually stop at one. Then for the other days of the challenge I’ve run out of what I was watching, but you don’t need to limit yourself or stick with specific ones.
I’ve basically talked this one to death. If you’ve read this far I do appreciate it, it makes me think you may give it a try. I wish you all the best in meeting this challenge or whatever goals you have to accomplish during this busy month of December.
