A JOYful Christmas Mantel

I hope everyone had a safe and lovely Christmas!

One of my favorite sayings is “Better late than never.”

Christmas time requires more than what we normally do on a day to day basis.  I apologize for not being able to post these photos before Christmas.

Welcome to our home for Christmas 2012…

I got a wild hair and decided to make some new Christmas stockings this year.  I almost bought some burlap stockings but decided denim was more me.

I couldn’t find any online I liked so why not make them?

I took my pattern off our old stockings on size.  I figured out how to do a cuff based on the old ones as well, but decided to make them all different.  The red gingham ones are the boys.  The white cuffed ones are the girls.  It took me longer to blanket stitch the loop hangers than it did for me to make all 5 stockings.  I still think it was worth it, though. ;)  I bought the letters/ornaments at Pottery Barn to place on the kid’s packages.  I decided they looked cute on the stockings and wished I would have bought one for me and the mr.  {Thus the 2 stockings without initials on them}

I was so excited to find this unique nativity at a holiday bazaar I went to with my Mom.  It’s made out of metal and came with the pretty background.  You can find one of these at EverThineHome.com

I channeled a little creativity by covering up some Styrofoam trees {below}.  I used denim scraps left over from making the stockings to ruffle around one of the trees.  It was as simple as using pins and hot glue.  I covered the large tree by wrapping it with red yarn.  The smallest tree was decorated by using kraft wrapping paper.  I used my circle punch and pinned the circles on the tree.

The wreath below was also purchased at the Ever Thine Home booth I spoke of earlier.  I love how the leaves are made out of hymns.

The JOY letters are the ones I decorated with sweater material at Whatever Craft Weekend.  I changed the embellishments to be more Christmas like.  Thanks to A Cottage Life I used her mini bunting she gave as swag for Whatever Craft Weekend on the O.  On the J I used the same red yarn I used to wrap around the tree and a couple of cute pins JCPenney’s was handing out this year for the Y.  I saved the old window frame I bought at the barn while at Whatever Craft Weekend just for this Christmas mantel.

At the last minute I decided to make the lighted garland.  I added red and white tulle to a battery operated led light strand…just tied them on.  I tied a few snowflake ornaments {12 for $1 at Dollar Tree} to complete the look.

So glad you stopped by!

Let there be JOY,