Easy ways to dress up your own Christmas stockings

Once the Christmas stockings are hung by the chimney with care, it feels like the holiday season officially is here. Vintage stockings from holidays past remind us of Christmas memories and are cherished, but sometimes making new ones can create traditions, too.

New stockings can provide some overflow space on Christmas morning while also updating and personalizing holiday decor for the home. Stockings also make a wonderful concept for gift-giving.

There’s a stocking design for all levels of expertise, and it is fun to use unique materials to create something that’s one of a kind.

Luckily, with craft-store aisles chock-full of stockings, you don’t have to start from scratch to whip one up. Buy a simple one in the style you like best, then customize it to your own tastes.

Here are some great ideas to make your own stockings this year and fun things to keep an eye out for when filling them.

Let’s make a snowman

Make a snowman surrounded by snowballs using a minimal materials list. This is so fun for children to make that you might want to make a holiday party out of it.

A simple red or green stocking can cost less than $2, so it makes this craft project a very affordable one for a large group.

Materials:

• Plain red, white or green felt holiday stocking
• Roll of craft faux-fur trim in white
• Scissors
• Glue gun (low heat) and glue sticks (or fabric glue for little ones)
• Large, medium and small white pompoms
• 1 sheet of black felt
• Bag of small multicolored pompoms
• 1 sheet of orange felt
• Bag of tiny white pompoms
• Black marker

1. Lay the stocking on a flat surface and measure how much faux-fur trim you will need to go around the cuff. Cut two strips to make the fur trim thicker, like Santa’s boots. These strips can go all the way around the top, or you can use just enough to cover the front and around the sides a little bit. Attach the trim using glue, keeping the seams of the fur strips on the back.

2. Glue two large white pompoms together to create one large snowball, which will be the base of the snowman.

3. Glue the medium pompom on next and then the smaller pompom for the head.

4. Cut a little black hat out of felt. Glue in a small pompom over the snowman’s head and then glue down the hat on the pom. This gives the hat a little relief — it sits over the snowman’s head rather than flat against the stocking.

5. To finish, cut out and glue on an orange felt carrot nose, then glue tiny white pompoms on the ground under the snowman and all around it. Use the marker to add two dots for the eyes.

Start simple

Buy a linen, burlap or cotton muslin stocking and you’ll have a blank canvas to make a romantic-looking, stylish stocking. I found one that was plain but already had some shine and a fringe trim on it. The stocking was on sale — less than $8.

But I couldn’t leave well-enough alone and decided to customize it by adhering a monogram.

Outdoor enthusiasm

It can be hard to make a stocking for a person who loves the outdoors, but not this year. The craft stores are filled with all things nature-oriented.

Find a cozy plaid stocking that resembles a handsome jacket or flannel shirt.

Next, take a look at all of the outdoorsy ornaments and choose an item to become a focal point. I found a section that had woodland-animal ornaments like deer, bears and squirrels. The details were adorable and there was a bit of holiday shimmer added.

The deer was a perfect addition to the cozy wildlife lover’s stocking, and it glued on right above the string tie. For little cost and effort, I had created a stocking to give to someone who will know it was made just for their interests.

Sparkle and shine

You might know that special someone for whom nothing less than a glamorous holiday stocking will do.

Craft stores carry a nice selection of silvery, metallic and sometimes even sequined stockings. Grab one of those, but don’t let the glam end there. You have work to do to bring it up to diva-speed.

The best stockings for this project are ones that have a plain cuff on which you can pin things.

Collect a handful of brooches from your own stash or from garage sales, antique malls or flea markets. Pin a collage of unique brooches to the folded cuff of the stocking boot. You can do a few large brooches or a lot of different-sized ones as close together as you like. The recipient can use the brooches with scarves or shawls this winter.

Fill the stocking with all things glamorous. World Market, for example, has a variety of interesting bottle openers like a shabby-chic Eiffel Tower. Find unique accessories at discount and specialty retailers.

This is an extravagant-looking gift, but if you keep an eye out for unique finds starting now, you can pull it all together by the end of the year and make a big impact.

DIY party time

Buy ready-made stockings for under $2 each for a group of your kids’ friends. Have everyone invited bring three to five flat ornaments. Lay out big baskets that can hold the ornaments and be passed around for the kids to rifle through.

You can buy a few extra ornaments to supplement the selections. Have the children add simple holiday ornaments to the outside of their stockings. Look for flat ornaments that can be glued on. You can provide pompoms, glitter pens, textile trims, ribbons and low-heat glue supplies to put them together.

Let the kids pass around the baskets and select an item to place on the stocking in a collage. The result will be a work of Christmas-ornament art that any kid will be proud to claim or gift to someone who needs a smile during the holidays.

Turn the whole event into a charitable activity and ask the children to bring things to stuff inside the stockings to give to charity organizations or assisted-living centers.

Stitch situation

For needlepoint and embroidery lovers, make an advanced-level holiday stocking that can become a family heirloom by using needlepoint or embroidery on the cuff of a ready-made stocking. You can work right on the cuff or sew on a piece that you made on your own loop.

Another heirloom idea is to use sentimental handkerchiefs to create a holiday stocking. Sew them onto a stocking blank, connecting them in a quiltlike pattern. There are tutorials for this project online and various methods for making this, but it can be basically like connecting quilt squares and then attaching them to the stocking.

This story was originally published November 28, 2016 at 12:18 PM with the headline "Easy ways to dress up your own Christmas stockings."