Every year I fall in love with photos of beautifully decorated mantles with Christmas stockings carefully hung up ready to be filled with little gifts. I have always always wanted to have a fireplace just to hang pretty stockings on at Christmastime {oh yeah, I’d enjoy the warmth in winter too, if I had one!} but sadly we don’t have one in our home.
Over the last 2 years I have just kind of skipped the stocking hanging as our new house just didn’t have anywhere for it and I was searching and searching for some beautiful weighted stocking holders to hang them from on one of our ‘half walls’ that separates the dining and games room. {Have you seen, if you can find them, they are like $40 EACH?} 
But this year I found my forever stockings – I have been looking for stockings like these for years and I finally found them at Pottery Barn. Yay :o} I bought them in Ivory and I bought the ‘pet’ version which are slightly smaller! 
So of course I had to work out a way to display them. I wanted it to be gorgeous. I wanted to love it. And I didn’t want it to break the bank.
We moved our lounge room around when I did a big spring clean of the house a couple of months ago and I hadn’t gotten around to figuring out what to do with this wall … The TV used to be here, and the photos used to frame the TV. Without the TV there, it looked awkward with such a big white space.
So I bought a RIBBA picture ledge from IKEA ($20) and hubby hung it up on the wall for me. 
We hung it upside down so the ‘lip’ would semi-hide the 3M hooks I was going to use to hang the stockings.
I decided to use 3M hooks so that I could remove them later and use the shelf for photos for the rest of the year by flipping the shelf so it is right side up and then as a mantle again next Christmas :o}

And then I decorated using decorations I already had + a new glass jar from Target this year filled with gumnuts spray painted gold. I decided my round wreath would look better here so I swapped them.
And added a little bit of light using a small battery operated light set from Ikea. I have also seen them at Kmart and Big W all for around the $2 mark. The gold santa is actually a tea-light holder so I was able to shove the battery pack in there so it was out of sight :o}
One of my favourite decorations on the ‘mantle’ {aside from the wreath which I bought from Myer last year} are these pinecones the kids and I collected and hubby spray painted with a hint of gold – so as just to add a little bit of shine but not too much. 
I added gold ribbon to the stockings to pretty them up a little bit {they are just plain white otherwise} but have not yet finished the little wooden letters that are to be attached to each stocking. 
So I am in love with our ‘mantle’ and am happy happy that I have a gorgeous place to hang our stockings. I stare at this wall while I am in the kitchen so I have to be happy with it! The kids love it too – and to be honest it’s just perfect for what I wanted and can be used all year round. Now if only my couch wasn’t blue … can’t wait to replace those … one day!
 How do you display your stockings? 
Feel free to share photos on my Facebook wall! 
Photobucket