A new stocking

I knew the newest member of our family would need a stocking this Christmas, so I got to work one quiet afternoon when Sean and the boys were at Lagoon. 

I think it turned out really cute! 

We're excited to be able to hang our stockings from an actual mantel for the first time! 

Hard to believe there are five stockings to hang this year. I know I have mentioned this before, but for a long time there were only two, and we are so grateful our family has expanded so much since then.

When I first made stockings for Sean, Jackson, and I after Jackson was born, I patterned them after some I saw in a Crate & Barrel catalog. I have held on to that Christmas 2009 catalog ever since because there were so many cute things and ideas in it. One of the things I've always loved and had bookmarked is a felt tree skirt that matched our stockings. Crate & Barrel wanted $80 for it, but there was no way I was going to pay that much. I have always wanted to re-create it, but year after year I never got around to it. Now that we are in a bigger place and I had a space to work other than a tiny kitchen table, I decided this would be the year. I spent quite a bit of time working on it through November.

Here is the picture of the one in the Crate & Barrel catalog: 

And here is mine!

I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of work cutting out those little circles and embroidering stars, etc. on them (especially since I have zero experience with that sort of thing), but it was good for me to have a project to take my mind off of worrying about the end of my pregnancy with the whole cholestasis business. I'm loving how cheery it makes our tree!