Designer Tips to Style Your Christmas DIY Stocking Holder

After teaching you how to make your own Christmas DIY Stocking Holder in our last post, we want to show you how to customize and style it! There are endless possibilities when it comes to your stocking holder, so get inspired and be creative!

Step 1: Choose your plaque. Craft stores and home improvement stores have different pre-cut wood plaques for sale. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and they are relatively inexpensive. We chose an oblong plaque with rounded ends. Don’t limit yourself to what you can buy pre-cut at the store, however. If you’re handy with a saw, feel free to cut your own board. Additionally, don’t be afraid to search antique stores and vintage markets for boards and other items that you can repurpose! Just make sure your end result is a plaque big enough to fit all the stockings your family needs!

Step 2: Pick 2 paint colors. We chose a traditional Christmas red for our board, but neutral and metallic hues are popular this holiday season. The type of paint you use doesn’t matter so much, but try to stick to paints with matte finishes. Satin or glossy finishes are harder to stencil over and they’re not as easy to distress. For stenciling, choose a paint color that will stand out against the background color of your board. High contrast colors add style and will make your designs pop! Examples of high contrast color combinations are white on red and black on white. When used together, these paint colors make it easy to see the words and designs you decide to put on your plaque!

Step 3: Choose or design your stencils. We know that some of you out there might have access to vinyl cutting machines. If you do, create a stencil of whatever saying or design that fits your style! If you don’t have access to one of these machines, you can purchase pre-cut stencils on sites like Etsy with many different sayings and designs to choose from. A third option and the one we chose: you can purchase pre-cut individual letter stencils from a craft store. The style and font options for stencils tend to be limited in-store, so check online if you can’t find what you’re looking for! As we mentioned in our DIY Stocking Holder tutorial post, placing the individual stencils is tricky so keep that in mind when you line them up!

Step 4: Find your knobs or hooks. Knobs and hooks can be found at local home improvement stores, home decor stores, or even large box stores. Choose knobs that match your personal style, or pick up some plain wood knobs to paint and customize yourself! In our tutorial, we used traditional screw-in knobs that required us to drill holes in our board before being able to install them, but you can use self-adhesive knobs and hooks  if you’re not comfortable using a drill.

Step 5: Decide how you want dazzle-up your Christmas DIY stocking holder. We used self-adhering gems we found at a craft store because we wanted to add some sparkle and shine to our stocking holder. If you prefer a more rustic look, we suggest grabbing some sandpaper to distress your board and some stain to antique the raw wood where you sand it. Have fun with glitter paints, ribbon, burlap, buttons, etc.!

That’s all, folks! We’ve given you some FAB tips to make your Christmas DIY Stocking Holder not just complete but stylish to boot! Have fun crafting your very own Stocking Holder and feel free to share your creations with us!

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Ready to make your own Christmas DIY stocking holder?