Christmas Stockings 2/5

While I was blog hopping this morning, I came across a blog called The Bird's Papaya. She made this ADORABLE ruffled cowl scarf (which is my next project) and I decided that was the perfect idea for my next stocking. Off to work I went and this is what I came up with. I know the white kind of stands out a little bit but I think it's fun. It kind of reminds me of Santa's beard.

2 stockings down, 3 to go! The only problem is, I'm trying to make them match while making them all different. Any ideas are very welcome!

Decorative Pillows

The Before:


The After:


I bought these white pillows a long time ago to go with my black and white duvet. But I've never loved them and always wanted to do something different with them. I found this fabric at Joann's and didn't immediately think of the pillows but when I did, I knew I had to do it. I also saw this flower ribbon at Joann's and fell in love. I knew exactly what I was going to do when I saw it. Now I just need a new duvet to match :)

My next set of Decorative Pillows that needed a touch, came from our guest bedroom.
The Before:

The After:

I made fabric flowers from scrap fabric like I did with the Christmas Stockings.  Instead of using buttons, I used a brad and poked it through the center.  It was so easy!  I used a safety pin to fasten these to the pillows so I can change them out whenever I want!

You can get the tutorial for the flowers from My Blonde Ambitions, she does a much better job explaining and takes much better pictures than I do.  There is one thing that I do differently, though.  Instead of hand sewing it, I throw it under the sewing machine.  It doesn't look as neat or nice but it's fast and very secure.  I'm not the best hand sewer.

Christmas Stockings

The new baby won't be here by this Christmas (hopefully) but I wanted our family to have new matching stockings.  I wanted to do this last year and just never got to it.

This is one of five that I need to make.  Actually I wanted to make more just in case of future kids, then I would have matching ones, but now I'm not so sure.  It's not that it was hard, it's just that it was more time consuming than I expected and I'm a very impatient person :)

I want to make each one different but I'm not sure what I'm going to do on the others yet.  I was going to wait to post this until I had all of them done but it might take me a while and I wanted to post this just in case anyone wanted the idea for their own!  But I will post the others when they're finished.

I took 4 pieces of paper and taped them together.  I drew the pattern free handed (if you couldn't tell) and cut the pattern out.  I cut the decorative piece out and put all of the outside stuff on first.  Then I sewed that to a piece of felt that would make the front inside.  I cut out another piece of felt to make the back.

UPDATE:
After I posted this, I wasn't loving the button look on the pleats at the top.  It was too plain.  Then I remembered a tutorial from My Blonde Ambitions to make super easy flowers.  I hadn't ever made them before and now I love them! They are really easy and I just used scrap fabric that I had.