As many of you know, we’ve had quite the experience with Christmas stockings at our house. Remember last year? And this year (which are now on clearance for $13.95!!) And how many do we get? Will I need to buy them all upfront so they match, or could I find a way to make mismatched stockings look cool?

Here’s my wishlist in a Christmas stocking: I’ve always wanted something modern and bright, and not necessarily in the traditional red and greens of the season. It has to be more on the plain side. If a modern stocking was out of our budget, a solid knit would be the least offensive to my personal tastes. And you don’t need to tell me: I know. I’m weird and picky and impossible to please.

So when I found this tutorial for the “Helvetica Stocking” via apartmenttherapy (via Teal and Lime), I knew these were the ones. I mulled it over in my head for about a week, and finally returned our Black Friday impulse-buy Target stockings. After spending a mere $20 at JoAnn’s, (compared to $13 per stocking at Target) I came out with enough supplies for 6 stockings, a savings of  $58. I got straight to work that afternoon and completed each in about a half hour. Not bad for a first-timer, eh?

Do you love them as much as I do? My only concern is the colors. I knew I wanted each stocking color to fit the personality of the individual, but it looks primary to me right now with the blue, pink and yellow. (Tyler wanted a manly color, I felt like pink said “mama” to me, and Jack just had to have yellow because he’s a little ball of sunshine in our family.) The plan is that as we add more kids (thus adding reds, purples, greens, etc.) the colors won’t look so “planned” out, and we’ll have a nice range of colors that adorn our fireplace.

And if I really do hate these colors by next year, it’s a cheap, half-hour switch up to make a new one. But the point is I love the style of the stockings and am glad we finally fixed our Christmas dilemma!