Disney Christmas

For the past couple Christmases I have been on the hunt for a nice set of matching family stockings. There are a lot of lovely options out there, but so far I haven’t found anything I have absolutely loved enough to pay $20+ per stocking for.

Every time we head to the Christmas aisle to browse the stockings, my son heads straight to the tackiest screen printed or plush character stockings he can find. I normally have nothing against character merchandise, but I just can’t wrap my head around paying $10 for an Optimus Prime or Ninja Turtle stocking that is going to stick out like a sore thumb amongst my other Christmas décor and will likely only be used once as his interests change and he’s begs me for something different next Christmas.

I wasn’t planning to make new stockings for my kids, but as my son reached for one of those tacky stockings next to the plain $1 felt stockings in Target, inspiration hit.

“How would you like mommy to make you a Ninja Turtle stocking instead?”

“Yeah!! That sounds pretty cool.”

“Okay, grab me one of those plain green stockings and I can make it look like a Turtle for you.”

At $1 each, the basic felt stockings seemed like the perfect solution. Typically you can find them in red, but I was excited to see that Target had a few color options I could easily customize to create unique character stockings at a fraction of the cost. One quick (ha!) trip to Michael’s to load up on some sheets of felt, fabric paint and hot glue sticks and I was ready to get to work on my creations.

Leonardo Ninja Turtle Stocking

Using a bit of blue, white and black felt, this Ninja Turtle stocking couldn’t have been much easier. I began by tracing the sides of the stocking on plain white paper to make sure my mask template was the right size, and then sketched out a turtle mask. Once satisfied with my mask design, I used scotch tape to adhere the paper template to the blue felt and then cut around it with a pair of sharp scissors. I repeated the same process to draw and cut out the mouth pieces and eyes.

Once all my pieces were cut, I simply hot glued them all onto the felt stocking.

Michelangelo is my son’s favorite turtle so I am still not sure why he chose Leonardo for his stocking, but I was happy to oblige since he worked best with the red, blue and green color scheme I have been going for.

Mini Turtle Stockings

Once I had the idea to do the big Leonardo stocking for my son, I also spotted the mini version stockings on the store racks. They came in packs of 2 red and 2 green for $2.00 so I decided to grab two packs and attempt a full set of Turtle’s as part of a gift for my husband’s coworker.

They were actually a bit harder to make because of all the tiny felt pieces to cut, but overall I am happy with the final set. The stockings are a great size to fill with chocolates, gift cards and other small treats.

Mini Mario Stocking

Since I already had the small red stockings that came with those I used for the Ninja Turtle set, I decided to make one into a Mario themed stocking for my son. This was the quickest of the stockings I made and would be cute for any Nintendo lover. You could even make one of the small green stockings into an accompanying “Luigi”.

I think I have way too many stocking stuffers for my as it is, so Santa may use this one as overflow and put some of the tiny Mario figures into it come Christmas Eve.

Frozen Anna Inspired Stocking

I picked up both a pink and blue stocking for my daughter because I still wasn’t sure what I was making for her when we were in the store. Like every other little girl, she is into Frozen this year and the majority of gifts going under the tree and into her stocking will be Frozen merchandise. The light blue stocking would have worked well with an Elsa twist, but I know her favorite character is Anna so I decided to use her dress as the inspiration for my stocking.

This stocking was a bit more complex then the Ninja Turtle one because it required fabric paint and a very steady hand to put the floral patterns on the dress. I used plain white chalk to draw the patterns on before tracing them out using Neon Green, Gold and Grape Tulip brand fabric paint. After letting the paint set fully overnight, I was able to easily wipe off the remaining chalk lines with a damp cloth.

I hot glued the bodice and toe portion onto the stocking, and then embellished it with some gold beaded trim at the end of the bodice and wrapped a bit of sparkly pink felt around the top of the stocking to represent Anna’s trademark cape. The finishing touch was an Anna pin that I borrowed from one of the dress-up costumes Santa will be bringing her Christmas morning. The stocking is a little more figurative, but I think my Frozen fan is still very happy with the end result. Just wait until she sees what it will be filled with Christmas morning!

Mickey and Minnie Stockings

And just in case you missed the Mickey and Minnie stockings I made up last year, I am sharing them again as more inspiration for transforming cheap felt stockings. I actually made these using old red felt stockings I already had hanging around my house so all they cost me was the price of the sheets of felt!

You can read about how I created my Mickey and Minnie stockings here. I had actually already hung them up and was happy to use them again this year, but I am glad the kids convinced me to make new ones.

All in all my custom stocking took far less time then I was expecting and the end result was two very excited little kids. My head is already spinning with ideas for future stockings and I still have that pink one I might just try to turn into something Sleeping Beauty or Princess Peach inspired.

These would be cheap and easy gifts to make and fill for the favorite people in your life, and I love that the stockings come in both small and large versions depending on your gift giving needs. My stockings are just a small glimpse at the infinite possibilities out there if you are creative and willing to do a little cutting and gluing.

Happy Crafting!

Celebrations, Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized

Around the Year in 100 Posts!

August 7, 2014 chantelledoll

Today marks one year since I decided to start sharing my ideas with the world through Dolled Up Design and what better way to share then in my 100th post!

I started this blog as an outlet for my creative ideas. I love reading other blogs and seeing their great parties, interior decorating and creative food ideas. I waste way too much time on Pinterest and decided I needed to start sharing back some of my own ideas rather then just creating board upon board of other people’s ideas.

This is a creative outlet for me. I enjoyed my previous job as a graphic designer, but when I made the switch to being at home with the kids I felt my skills starting to fall to the wayside. I began this blog as a way to try and establish myself as more then just “Camden and Keira’s mom” and am hoping in the process I might inspire other people to bring out their creative side.

I am surprised to see my post count as high as it is because it honestly doesn’t feel like I am able to spend as much time on my blog as I would like. Between keeping up with the kids and moving this past year, this is definitely an accomplishment for me. I am also proud and excited to have been chosen to join Moms & Munchkins as a Party Tip contributor so hopefully that gives me the push to come up with even more great ideas in the year ahead. I have tons of projects floating around in my head, but it is always a matter of finding the time to execute and document these great ideas!

Like a lot of my projects, my blog is a work in progress. The overall look of the blog still leaves something to be desired and the linking up to all the different avenues of social media makes my head spin! There is definite room for improvement and I hope as I move forward and my blog continues to grow that it only continues to become better.

So, in celebration of One year and 100 posts, here are my top 10 favorite Dolled Up projects from the past year. Click on the links to view the full posts!

And, because it is Thursday, it only seems fitting that I throwback and link to my very first blog post – my Love is Sweet personal candy buffet.

I would like to finish this post with a big thank you to all my readers old and new!

You are the main motivation for this blog and I can’t wait to share more projects and ideas with you in the year ahead.

Big Hands, Celebrations, Crafts

And the Mickey and Minnie Stockings were hung by the chimney with care…

December 6, 2013March 28, 2017 chantelledoll

SONY DSC

My daughter’s stocking last year was a small pink “Baby’s First Christmas” stocking with a teddy bear on it. It is cute, but no longer appropriate. I am on the hunt for a set of matching family stockings, but since I still haven’t found anything I love I needed a solution for a stocking for Keira to use this Christmas. I have seen a few different styles of Disney themed stockings in stores and cute versions on Etsy, but decided I could come up with something I liked better and would probably cost less.

I think these may be my favorite thing I have created for our Mickey and Minnie themed Christmas. They turned out a lot nicer then I expected and total cost to me was less then $3 for the black and white felt I bought to cut out the embellishments. I was lucky and already had the stockings from a Christmas advertisement I had created for work several years ago, but you can buy these basic felt stockings for around $1 at any Dollar Store or Department store such as Walmart. Continue reading “And the Mickey and Minnie Stockings were hung by the chimney with care…” →

Big Hands, Celebrations, Crafts

Mickey Paper Wreaths

December 5, 2013December 5, 2013 chantelledoll

We have a very large corner mantle over our fireplace that normally gets filled by my Christmas village for the holiday season. I absolutely love my Christmas village, but each building is boxed up individually and it is a ton of work to bring up from the basement, set out and arrange. Just like a lot of the other Christmas décor, we decided to keep the Christmas village packed up and that left me to figure out a new way to decorate that space for the holidays.

My initial idea for the mantle was to do a large wreath. I had seen other crafters versions where they had various sized artificial wreaths zipped tied together to form a Mickey shape and thought that would be easy enough. Unfortunately I didn’t have any luck finding smaller sized wreaths for ears, so I went to my plan B which was to buy foam wreath forms from Michaels and wrap them in green garland. Well, the price on the styrofoam shapes was more then I was expecting so I decided it just wasn’t worth it and moved on to a plan C – cutting and crafting my own paper wreaths from Dollar Store posterboard. And, because I had done Mickey and Minnie versions of everything else, it only made sense that I would make 2 versions of the wreaths.

A paper wreath is nice and all, but I was worried it still was going to look pretty plain. I needed some way to dress them up and that is when I recalled these:

For each of my baby’s first Christmases, I ordered them personalized Santa hats from a wonderful eBay seller out of the UK. They no longer fit Camden’s or Keira’s head, so I was happy to find a way to repurpose them and put them on display.

I found and followed the Construction Paper Wreath Tutorial from Our Small-Town Idaho Life, with mine just being on a bit larger scale. The posterboard was a bit awkward to work with due to it’s size and stiffness, but it was worth it for the impact the finished wreaths make.

For each of the large wreaths, I began by cutting a full sized piece of posterboard in half lengthwise and then folding each half again lengthwise.

Along the non-folded edge, I marked out 1.25 ” strip that would later be used as my gluing area. I then marked along the fold in 1″ intervals and used my ruler to draw in straight guide lines perpendicular to my glue strip.

I then cut along each of the lines from the fold upwards, making sure to stop cutting when I reached the glue strip guideline I first marked out.

Once all strips were cut, it was time to flip my cut posterboard sheet inside out and join the glue strip on each side together to form a cylindrical tube. I chose to work with rubber cement because it is fairly forgiving if you need to reposition a little, but it creates a quick, permanent bond (so long as you coat both sides of the paper you are bonding together.)

Once my tube was formed, I inserted the last ring on one end into the last ring on the other end to create a circle. If you didn’t want a Mickey shaped wreath, you could now decorate your wreath.

For the ears, I repeated the same cutting and gluing process to 4 sheets of posterboard I had cut down to 8″ x 11″. Once I had my tubes, I trimmed each of 4 loops from one end, leaving the glued strip so I had something to attach the ear onto the big wreath form with. I then fed it through 3 of the loops on the big wreath and attached it on itself on the other side to form the ear.

I fit the kids Santa hats onto the loops to find the spacing I needed between the ears and then attached the second ear on the other side of the Santa hat. I was lucky that the hats fit snugly on the loops and I was able to keep them on without gluing or damaging them.

I then hot glued on some red pom pom’s to both wreaths to create hidden Mickey holly berry bunches. To differentiate between the Mickey and the Minnie wreath, I also added a red bow to Minnie.

The wreaths were a little flimsy on their own, so for my final step I cut a piece of wrapping paper to fit inside two large square picture frames (from Ikea) and hot glued the wreaths directly onto the wrapping paper. This will allow me to remove the wreaths and still use the photo frames after Christmas. I am sure the wreaths would be fine hanging directly on a door or wall, but this seemed to be the best solution for displaying them on my corner shaped mantle.

The framed wreaths fill our large mantle up nicely and I love the personal touch they have with the kids names on the Santa hats! The large stuffed Mickey and Minnie also on the mantle are toys the kids received last Christmas. They work perfect up there, but it has been a battle with my 3 year old to allow me to keep his Mickey up there.

Make sure to check back tomorrow to see the Mickey and Minnie stockings I crafted for the kids!

Mickey Christmas Wreath Tutorial (amanandhismouse.net)

Big Hands, Celebrations, Crafts

Tabletop Decorations: Merry Mickey Snowman and Tabletop Trees

December 4, 2013March 28, 2017 chantelledoll

Today I am sharing a couple quick projects I did to spruce up our kitchen table and add some decoration to the side buffet in our dining nook.

SONY DSC

The inspiration for this Mickey project came largely from the Mickey Tree Topper I shared yesterday and the images of Mickey snowmen I kept coming across on the internet. I was downstairs searching through my Christmas stuff and there he was just staring at me from the shelf begging for a set of mouse ears! I bought him several years ago, and I still really like him so I was happy to find a way to fit him into my holiday décor and theme.

Continue reading “Tabletop Decorations: Merry Mickey Snowman and Tabletop Trees” →