Several years ago in my old job, we were given plain dollar store stockings to decorate and hang around a “fireplace” in the office as part of a team building activity thing. We were supposed to customize it so it said something about us. Most people understood that as the simple assignment it was meant to be: stick on a few things about your favorite sport or hobby, apply lots of glitter glue, done.

Not me. My interests are many, and I can’t just slap a few rando things on there and call it good. And because I try to keep my consumer footprint small, especially around the holidays, I decided I’d make it a challenge to myself to decorate my stocking with only repurposed items. Hi, have we met? This is how I do things.

I’d just gotten a Moonstruck chocolate bar as an early gift from one of my staff, and I’ve always thought their packaging is so lovely, especially since it features my bridge. So I started thinking…what if I reused the entire chocolate bar wrapper for my stocking design? Not just the outer wrapper, but the foil and card stock backer piece inside? I could make something whimsical, with a bit of sparkle and maybe a little star worked in there somewhere. Good chocolate, recycling, St. Johns Bridge, arts and crafts…what more is there to know about me, really?

Thus, my holiday fairy came to life. I used the card stock to make her head, arms, legs, and the letters of my name at the top. The foil became her wings and frames for the letters. And of course the wrapper itself made her dress, carefully cut out so the bridge featured prominently in the center. The wrapper even inspired the color scheme of red, brown, and white.

Some watercolor pencils, a few letter stamps, a bit of thread, a little star charm from my stash, and a bit of glitter (because everything is better with glitter) and voila! A festive stocking decoration that says a little something about me. (Including a few extra layers if you know me well enough. So meta.)

I never get tired of the challenge of using what you have at hand to make something, whether it’s something for dinner or something to wear or something to hang on the wall (or mantle). It helps train your brain to look at things differently — literally and figuratively — and to think about everything as something with potential. Even candy bar wrappers.