Christmas Stockings!

My Secret Santa Swap present came today!

Two beautiful Christmas stockings made by Vivian!

My husband and I have the Christmas stockings that we made when we first got married hanging in our bedroom (yes, I said we - my husband stitched his - the only embroidery he has ever done). I made replacement stockings for us, to go with our children's stockings, which I hang on the mantle, and I have been thinking of making stockings for my children to hang in their bedrooms like ours - thanks to Vivian I don't have to! ♥♥

I have put the new stockings in their bedrooms -


They go perfectly with our other decorations, and I was so thrilled when I opened the box - Thanks Vivian!!

I decorated the house for Christmas this week, and here are a few pictures -

Our family room.
The stockings we have are all different types of embroidery - crazy quilting for my youngest, my oldest has a cross stitch one (my Father did the cross stitching), mine is hardanger and my husband's is canvas work (the fanciest one! ie - the one that took me the longest to make!).


Our dining room.

Our skinny tree with lots of hand made decorations.

We also have a tradition of buying Christmas ornaments on our travels -

one of the first, from Germany over twenty years ago

one from our trip to the east coast five years ago

we chose this one because we saw a whale when we were in Newport, Oregon two summers ago

and from this past summer in Italy

The next picture is of my favorite piece of stained glass -

I made it about 12 years ago, the pattern is from the fall 1992 issue of Glass Patterns Quarterly magazine.

That's just some of my decorations, I love having things change in the house at this time of the year!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!! ♦ ♥ ♦