If you would like to try your hand at personalizing your own stocking, here is how to make personalized Christmas stocking:

Personalize your Christmas Stocking with glue and glitter:

SUPPLIES

Iron-on letters can be bought around Christmas time in many craft or Christmas Stores. Some stores even carry a stocking that includes a set of iron on letters. Simply select the letters and arrange on the stocking and iron on.

Glitter and Glue Technique is the most popular way to personalize Christmas Stockings..

• There are Glitter and Glue Pens available in many Craft stores in various colors and sizes.

• We personally prefer using a separate glue bottle and sprinkling on the glitter after the name is written in the glue. This technique will give you best looking writing since the glitter shine is not dulled by the glue as the glitter is on top of the glue – not mixed with the glue. We use small Elmers paper glue bottles. Elmers paper glue is non toxic, soluble in water and dries clear. Glitter is available in most craft stores in many colors and sizes. Pick the smallest size of the glitter you can find. By size we mean the size of the glitter square. The smaller the glitter speck, the nicer the final product looks. With larger glitter specks the letter appear bulky and lack the smooth flow as well as shine.

HOW TO:

If you never personalized Christmas Stockings before, it is a good idea to :

• Practice on other material
  • First so you may want to get the feel for the flow of the glue and right size of the lettering . The secret to a good looking inscription on your stocking or a hat is SYMMETRY. The writing looks good if it is positioned in the center of an area and written in a neat way so the letters are same size, width, direction.• Our expert writer recommends taking a paper towel or any soft kind of paper. Fold it so you would have approximately same space area as it would be on your stocking or a hat. Than take your glue bottle or glitter pen and try writing. You’ll see… first time your glue might not flow properly… so adjust your glue flow opening and pressure. By practicing on the paper, your stocking or a hat will be spared the first attempt mistakes.• You may also take a pencil and outline your letters on the paper first. Once your practice letters look good on the paper, it’s time to —
• Try writing on the stocking.• If you write on the white part of the stocking, you may outline the name by a pencil and then just follow your outline with a glue. If your background is of dark color, use chalk (sewing shops have chalks that write on fabric). Then just follow your outline with a glue.• Some stocking fabrics are made from textured material with lot of threads on the materials’ surface. Your glue pen will drag the thread and most likely smudge the glue in other directions. To prevent this from happening Try to: Keep the glue tip Clean! If the glue tip has extra glue it catches the fabric threads and drags the threads with it. Keep your tip slightly above the fabric material… the glue will lay onto the fabric and your tip will not touch the threads. Use even pressure on the glue bottle to even out the flow of the glue.
• There is a special way to write some letters• To write “e”, “l”, “k”, “h” or any letters having a loop if you choose to hand script your names. Here is a small illustration how to prevent smudging of your loops:

Use the special way, if you can; not crossing the loops will prevent smudging or closing of the loop and the final effect looks the same. This technique is good for all letters with loops, such as e, l, h, k, b, f. If you used Elmer’s paper glue and messed up…. check if your stocking is washable… if yes, simply submerge the are with glue in cold water and the glue will dissolve…. be careful, do not rub the area so the material texture would not get damaged. If the writing on your stocking looks good,

The final step

• Sprinkle your written word with glitter, turn the stocking face down (use a newspaper or a pan underneath the stocking), shake off the excess glitter- and your personalized stockings are done!

• Make sure to read your glue’s directions for drying times and let the product dry for sufficient time so your masterpiece does not get smudged after all that effort went into it.

Personalize your Christmas Stockings with Alphabet Beads

Think alphabet or letter beads! Personalizing your stockings this way is easy and fun. You can buy alphabet beads online, just search Google for Letter Beads, and you will find lots of stores who sell them.

Get enough letters to cover your whole family and get some spare ones because there will be new people joining your family in the future and you want to make sure you have the opportunity to personalize stocking for them as well…. or if you want to, you can get nice mix of the letter alphabet beads so if in the future you need to personalize more Christmas stockings for the growing family, buying different name beads will fit into the intended design.

Google will help you find some really fancy beads alphabet beads or you can go for nice ceramic letter beads, we found a good source at CraftAmerica

Once your alphabet beards arrive,  simply string them onto a nice string: those gold or Christmas metallic red or green ropes that are used to hang Christmas ornaments or wrap Christmas presents may be perfect fit and usually available in spools in Christmas Giftwrap or Bow and Ribbon section in your store.

Finally you just attach the name on the string to your stocking (you can use tiny safety pins if you do not want to permanently attach the name string to the stocking by stitching ) and your personalized stockings are ready to hang on the fireplace.

Christmas stockings personalized in embroidery:

Embroidering your own Christmas stockings is for experts only if you do hand embroidering. If you have an embroidery machine, you can personalize most stockings that have a space for the name on the stocking cuff, providing your embroidery machine can get inside of the stocking without sewing the stocking together. You can also take your blank stockings to an embroidery store nearby and ask if they would put names on your stockings. Most embroidery shops prefer not to do embroidery on customer’s items simply because if something goes wrong while embroidering them, they have no way of replacing your stocking with another one from their stock.

If you like personalized stockings by embroidery or monogramming – you can check out our Christmas Stocking selection. We have posted just a few featured products here  but our store has a wide selection of Christmas stockings that can be personalized in embroidery script or block.
Here is a little widget to list through our Personalized Christmas Stockings

Creativity is a key

to make your Company Christmas Party

a memorable experience…

Every year we get lots of requests to help out with hints and tips on how to plan a Company Christmas Party. So we have gathered our resources to provide you with lots of ideas to make this year’s holiday party safe, fun and memorable experience for you and your co-workers. These ideas are designed for both large companies with great budgets as well as small businesses with minimum resources.

Don’ts

Do not focus your energy solely on the buffet, thinking food is what draws workers to the Christmas parties, the attendance will drop off because those parties are predictable.

The most deadly type of holiday party is a sit-down dinner at the boss’s house, which often has a pressure-filled conservative atmosphere. Try having a different entertainment each year. Holiday party hosts can play a major role in keeping their friends and families safe by looking at alternatives to alcoholic beverages. There are a few common sense rules that should be followed when hosting a holiday party. If alcohol is going to be served at a party, this Safe Holiday Party Guide will give you a few pointers when planning an event.

Organize & Prepare

You can start by sending out the invitations with a note included that there will be a prize for the person that decks out in the most Christmas gear. This can include anything from a Christmas costume to guests wearing garments that display cheerful holiday clothing, jewelry, hats, or anything that their imagination can dream up. The person that shows up to your party that is voted by all as wearing the “best dressed” Christmas outfit wins a wrapped gift of their choice from the gift table.

You can have a designated receptionist announce the names of each new arrival, crown them with a Santa hat with their name, while reading something humorous about them. This works great especially at large Corporate parties when customers or large number of employees participate and not everyone knows each other. First names on Santa Hats work much better than name badges and the hats then double as party favors everyone gladly takes home.

But the energy of the party starts with the invitations…. or Christmas Greeting cards… one of our customers had a great idea to take a picture of all employees in Santa hats, personalized with employees names and use the postcard as a corporate Christmas card as well as Christmas party invitation for their customers. The Hats were then saved for the holiday party gala.

Entertainment:

Make sure you have some fun program with games and activities for your Holiday Party. Our holiday party activity guide has many Christmas party games to spruce up the event. Also make sure you have some great Christmas Party music. Most Christmas CD’s on the market are geared towards slow tunes, not much of a Party time material, so we have compiled some really original Christmas party tunes that will make you a star Christmas party DJ! If you head over to our MySpace page, we have some really cool Christmas music there. You need to click on the MENU button to move around the playlist: lots of fun Christmas mixes and remixes to choose from!

If you like this Christmas party music mix - You can play it at your Christmas Party! Just head over to our MySpace where you can find info on our blog how to save these songs on your computer and use your laptop to DJ your Christmas Party. …. and don’t forget to say high there!

Party Favors

Also, don’t forget to wrap the party up with a take-home gift party favor, such as a personalized stocking or a custom logo Christmas stocking with a gift certificate, a turkey or even an ornament with the company logo.

Those custom imprint Christmas Stockings with your company logo are perfect decorations in the Christmas partry room and then when it’s time to leave you can give the stockings with Christmas bonus checks or Gift Certificates to your employees and some fun goodies like Company Logo ornaments for your customers and guests.

[ad#blog]

We have a fun area where you can upload your logo and design your logo ornament online. These make an awesome favor for all the guests at your Christmas Party.
Resources: Our Favorite Christmas Party Games Safe Holiday Party Guide with drink recipes Personalized Santa Hats Personalized Stockings Custom Christmas Ornaments Corporate LOGO Christmas Stockings	Finally, gather as many pictures from the party as possible, post them on the company bulletin board or a corporate website so the employees can share the experience with their families, customers or anyone who missed the party. We’d love to hear from you, you can post your comments and ideas here

�

�

�