Bug and Belle's new STOCKINGS

So, after Christmas LAST year (2011), I hit up Target for the Christmas Clearance.    I fell in love with these stockings, and seriously they were like $2.50.     Check me out!  I'm so Thrifty!

But then... "I wonder how I will get their names on these?   Maybe I can have them embroidered down the front"   (ironic since the lady that short saled the house to us ran an embroider business out of the living room).

So I take it to the embroidery place by my work.    No Can Do.    Unless I take the stockings apart for them, and hand them just the front panel.    Yeah, I don't trust myself to get them back together nicely.     So I think to myself that I have like 10 months to figure this out.    The stocking hang out all year in a Target bag in my trunk.

December 2012:   Oh Crap!   I need to do SOMETHING with these stockings!   Suddenly, I get the realization that I can get plain material (or maybe a fun xmas print) and have the names embroidered on there, then hand stitch them onto the front of the stocking with maybe a lace border.    I hit up JoAnns with my stockings in hand.   Christmas prints are too busy.    I buy a little quarter yard thing of plain white.     Go home and cut out the size I want it to be.   Lay it on the stocking and realize it looks like a big old band-aid on the red stocking.

Back to JoAnns for plain red fabric.    Amazingly, there is no solid plain red in those little quarter yard size pieces.   There are varying reds (orangy to cranberry) with every sort of print you can imagine.   I choose one with the least swirly print I can find and hope it's as close to the color red I need.    It's turns out to be perfect.   I haul it to the embroidery place.   They tell me it's $30 and will take 2 weeks!!!!    That will have it back to me just before xmas - leaving not much time to sew them on.   Another strike of brillance, I'll buy that iron on adhesivey stuff.   Back to JoAnn's I go looking for that iron stuff, and something to trim it with.   They had no red lace, so I opted for red Ric Rac.

Needless to say, my nice "Thrifty" clearance rack stockings are now running me close to $20-$25 each, after all is said and done.    But I do LOVE LOVE LOVE how they turned out.

And for the record, I was cutting and ironing for 2 hours as the sun went down on xmas eve.    Nothing like getting it done at the last moment.

both cut out - ric rac stuff is on Annabelle's

putting the iron on adhesive on the back - getting ready to iron



look how good these look!