Personalized Stocking Holders

The only sale I ever really go to during Black Friday weekend is for the craft stores. I anticipated the one this year since I have a Cricut now and cartridges are priced really low at this time. The best deal I could find was that Michaels would have cartridges at 60% off, so they'd be $27.99 or $35.99. Fortunately, they would be open on Thanksgiving day starting at 5 p.m. =) So I went and got 4 cartridges: Calligraphy, Life's a Beach, Pagoda, and Winter Woodland. The last three are newer, so they were $35.99 each. Joanns would have their sale starting Saturday, with cartridges at $28.99! One of my friends went to that sale - she told me they didn't have as big of a selection like Michaels, BUT Michaels would price match if you brought in the ad! So I did just that and got the last three for $28.99 each! Can't beat that, even on eBay!

At Michaels, I also bought four stocking holders shaped like snowflakes, and you can put a 3" x 3" photo in the middle. I've wanted these type of holders for a while now, but never got them because they were either too expensive or there weren't enough in stock - I need four for my family. Well, Michaels had them during the weekend on clearance for $9.99, and with a coupon, it made them a lot less!

Instead of putting pictures in the middle, I decided to personalize them instead... so Santa won't get our stocking mixed up when filling them up =) I used my Winter Woodland cartridge. I love that it has a fancy alphabet font in addition to all the winter images! I replaced my blade with a black Cricut marker and came up with the following:



I had to draw my letters at 1" since I didn't have a big area to work with. If you increase the size, the letters become much more elegant. I used my Stampin' Up! markers to color them as well. I think I'll use the alphabet for an upcoming project, so stay tuned!