Denim Stockings, Cards

These aren't your typical Christmas stockings. Caller Holly Bourner collected old jeans with the intention of making a quilt. Well, the quilt never came to be, but these fabulous stockings did.

Make a pattern and cut it out of kraft paper or a paper bag. Position it onto the back of the jean as the back pocket determines the width of the stocking. Be sure the toe is toward the inside seam of the jeans. Trace around the pattern and cut it out.

Repeat on the front, including the small front pocket in the design. Avoid placing the cut-line at the rivet located near the small pocket and be sure to turn the toe toward the inside seam. Trace around pattern and cut it out.

Put the pieces right sides together and sew around the edge, leaving a 1/4-inch seam allowance. Turn the stocking inside out and steam it to get the stocking shape.

Line the stocking if desired using the same pattern as you created for the stocking. Cut out flannel or holiday-themed fabric and attach it to the inside of the stocking using fusible hem tape.

Caller Cathy O'Neil teams up with her poetic sister Patti to make holiday cards. Cathy provides the art by drawing a scene that she has made into a rubber stamp. Here's the process she went through for designing the stamp for last year's card.

Cathy started by making a pencil sketch of the design she wanted.

Next, she traced over it using a permanent ink marker. She also filled in most of the trees.

Cathy's next step was to take her art to a local business store that makes business rubber stamps. They reduced the image to approximately a four-inch square then sent it off to have it made into a rubber stamp.

With her new rubber stamp in hand, Cathy experimented to find the just right combination of ink color, etc. for the card. In the final card design (seen in the first image above), she first stamped a purchased, solid rubber stamp tree design on the card using watercolors (technique seen on CDS-630), then stamped over the trees with her design, using a frosty white color. The results are wonderful.

Another of Cathy O'Neil's designs.