My Home for the Holidays

The halls have been decked and the stockings are hung so here’s a look at what the inside of my home looks like this Christmas!
I’m linking up with Jen, Caroline and Natalie for their Home for the Holidays link up.
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If you were to walk in my front door the first thing you’d see would be the tree. It’s a fake, pre-lit Christmas tree that my parents gifted to me the first Christmas I had my own home. It’s just a little guy, but I love it.

The angel on the right was a gift from my aunt many years ago. My sister, Kayli, has a matching one.

The tree is decorated in red and silver balls. The gold star matches the gold and red tree skirt that belonged to my mother in law. There are also a few random ornaments the hubs and I have collected over the last couple of years. A couple of handmade beaded snowflakes from a past coworker friend, stockings I made for Penny and Pandy (our dogs) and my favorite, our wedding ornament. I received it as part of a review last year.

If you were to look to your left you’d see the other little Christmas tree. It was my very first tree when I went off to college. Back then I decorated it in pink ornaments, but now I have red ornaments and red chile peppers (nod to NM, where I’m from!) that my nana gave me to dress up my little tree.

chile pepper Christmas tree

To your right is my Christmas mantel. It includes my Santa count down to Christmas, the boot stockings I made for me and the hubs last year, a few little Christmas nick knacks like this snow globe and my Precious Moments nativity set. The candles were a craft from last year as well.

Did you know that I’m a Scentsy Consultant?! That might help explain the various Christmas themed Scentsy warmers you’ll find around my house. One in the living room and a couple in the kitchen. Those don’t include the ones that stay out year round…

You’ll find a few more nods to the Christmas holiday if you were to keep glancing about including on the coffee table, side table and TV.

Since you’re still standing in the front door…. my apologies, where are my manners!?! Won’t you sit down? ;) But before you do, a quick turn back to the front door shows a fabric wreath that my mom made, a pink Santa hat and the Christmas card holder I made two years ago.

Shout out to my blog girl, Nicole! Thanks for the Christmas card two years running! ;) Hoping to get a few more up there in the coming weeks.

Now if you’d like, you can take the Christmas tour from last year, but you’d have dejavu… They’re basically the same plus a fresh coat of paint on all the walls. ;) Maybe it’s time for a few new Christmas crafts and decorations.

Do you stick to a single theme with your Christmas decorations? Do you have a favorite decoration???

Kassi @ Truly Lovely

Holiday Cards from Shutterfly and a Giveaway!

I love sending and receiving mail!!!
It’s another of those traits my sweet Granny instilled in me…
Sending and receiving holiday cards especially is at the top of my snail mail list!

You might be thinking it’s a little early to be talking holiday cards, but if you’re going to take a family photo, order and have them printed, stuff, address, and mail them… Now is the time to get started!!!

I think Photo Christmas Cards are definitely my favorite. I love to choose my favorite photos from the last year and send them along with a holiday message to our nearest and dearest! Last year it was wedding photos… the year before, engagement photos… this year might be tougher to choose because we’ve done so many fun things!

Every year I order our holiday cards through Shutterfly! I love the fun themes they have that can easily be customized with your own photos.

A few of my favorites for this year are…


Surrounded with Love


Sparkling Snowflakes


Bright Merry Wishes

I can’t wait to get our 2012 Holiday cards ordered and sent to friends!!!

Shutterfly has a special offers page you should definitely check out! It has deals on cards and other stationary items, but also discounts for fun photo gifts for the holiday season!

AND they’re giving one lucky Truly Lovely winner $50 off your total Shutterfly order!
{Does not include shipping and cannot be combined with any other promos.}
Enter using the Rafflectoper form below. Entries will be verified and a winner chosen on October 29, 2012!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for entering lovelies and good luck!!!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Shutterfly. As always opinions shared are 100% my own!

Kassi @ Truly Lovely

Our first family Christmas party

A few days before Christmas last week we had our local family members over for a Christmas party of sorts. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but my husband’s older brother and his wife bought a home directly behind, catty corner to ours. 
They just moved in over this last month. 
This was our first real, of many I’m sure, get together as neighbors!! 

We had ham and mashed potatoes that my SIL Brianne made and brought over.
I whipped up my friend Meg’s recipe for a yummy chile/corn side dish, and we had Snicker Salad for dessert! 
We actually took these post opening presents, thus the reason the presents are shown in the pictures haha.
Guess you know you did well when they don’t want to put them down… ;)
While we were getting dinner finished up the kiddos, (Corryn and Chancey) made some ice cream cone Christmas trees. They decorated their trees with M&Ms after their momma iced them. 

Chancey and his tree. 
Corryn and her tree. 
Once we’d finished eating it was time to open presents!
Chancey got some little trucks and Corryn, a Barbie doll and doll clothes. 

Brianne, Chancey, Corryn (Hubs and BIL in the background)

My FIL and his wife, Tammy. 

Like Uncle like Nephew… ;)

Opening their bigger presents. 
A game for Chancey. 

And a Piggy Scentsy Buddy for Corryn. 

It was really fun to have our first Christmas get together with our nearest family. 
I’m sure they’ll grow through the years, but as our first married Christmas, it was nice to have a small get together and enjoy the ones we love in our new home. 

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my parents and family in my hometown. 
For one reason or another I didn’t take any pictures! BAH!!  :) I still have a few things I’ll share about that later as well as how AWESOME the hubs did for his first Christmas as a married man. ;)  

We hope your Christmas was MERRY and BRIGHT and spent with the ones YOU love. 

P.S. We’re looking to schedule some FUN NEW Bloggie Besties!!! Interested??
Leave a comment with your email address or email us at trulylovely.laney @ gmail.com (no spaces). 

Christmas at Kassi’s

So I had mentioned awhile back that I had a post planned to show you the Christmas decor at my house… Let’s just say it’s been tough getting things I HAD to have done, done… much less take good pictures of the decor and what not… haha. It’s just that time of the year!! :)

But here’s a few pictures I did get before the craziness set in…

Our little Christmas tree.
It’s a pre-lit tree with colored lights. My parents got it for me several Christmases ago. 
I love it!
The star was also a gift from my mom. I got the gold tinsel string on sale a few post-Christmases ago for $0.50! 
Thought I needed some gold to match the star. 
The red tree skirt belonged to my mother-in-law. 
It was a perfect addition with its gold glitter!

The angel in the gold dress (on the right) has a twin that belongs to Kayli. :)

The top left ornament is for our first married Christmas (talked about here). 
The top right is two little stockings I made for our doggies a few years ago. Just wrote their names in puff paint. 
And the bottom pic is a hand beaded ornament from a sweet lady at work. She has given me one or two every year so far. 

Funny story…. Our four year old nephew found a Cars gift bag and filled it with odds and ends for his “girlfriend’s” Christmas present, then put it under the tree. 
It has a plant holder, some rolley wheels, a State Farm stuffed dog, some fake flowers and a plant food stake in it. 
Hubs said at least he did good with the stuffed dog and fake flowers. ;)

This little tree was my very first Christmas tree when I went off to college.
I had a teeny tiny apartment and it was all I could fit (and afford). I have a set of pink ornaments for it too, but sometimes I interchange the red and chile pepper ornaments (a gift from my Nana) for a different look.  
It even has it’s own string of clear lights. 

The snow globe came from this review! :)

You saw the mantel in the post where I shared our Cowboy Boot Stockings, but here it is again. I fancied up those candles here
The little wooden Santa is an advent that you slide the beads from one side to the other to countdown the days until Christmas. I’ve had that since I was a kiddo.
The nativity is a Precious Moments set that I’ve had since I was little as well. 
LOVE IT!!!
FYI – I collect Precious Moments pretties. ;)
The card display that I made last year is overflowing with cards! We’ve received several from friends over the last few weeks! I LOVE getting them in the mail and hanging them on our card holder. 

(Don’t mind the filled in nail holes… We have yet to paint in the living room….)
Kayli and our brother’s (Brent’s) girlfriend, Jessie helped me hang multi-colored icicle lights around the top edge of our house outside a few weekends ago. 
Luckily the people that had lived there before had hung lights at some point so there were already nails… We just had to climb the ladder and hang the lights. ;)
There you can also see the Christmas Rope Wreath I made last year hanging for the first time on our very own front door! :)
Well, that’s pretty much it! 
Thanks for stopping by Kassi’s at Christmas! ;)
We wish you the most AMAZING of holiday seasons! 
And TODAY a Happy Hanukkah!!!

By the way, there won’t be a Fancy This Fridays link up this week, but be sure to come back  next week! 
We’re taking a little holiday vacation through Monday! 
We will be responding to emails and you might see an occasional Facebook/Twitter update… but other than that it’s FAMILY FOCUS time!

I will, however, be back tomorrow to show you our Christmas cards! :)  
Until then have a lovely day dolls!!!


Lovely Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

OK… So I know we’re not even quite past Halloween yet… 
And I LOVE Halloween, I do. 
But we are less than TWO months away from Christmas!
Holy, reality check.
That means there’s lots to do, lots to buy, lots to bake… 
All before Christmas rolls around! 

Our 2010 Christmas Card
On that note… I am SUPER excited about Christmas cards this year!
We ordered our greeting cards from Shutterfly last year, and I LOVED them. 
I used some of our engagement pictures and sent them out to a few family and friends. But this year… It’ll be the first time we can send out cards from The M’s. My new last name!

So naturally, we’ll be ordering our cards from Shutterfly again and there are a few of their Christmas photo cards in particular that are calling my name!

Wouldn’t this one be fun to highlight the name change! 


Or this one would look really nice with a certain wedding picture I have in mind… 


This one would look lovely with a wedding picture and our M inside the wreath!


Oooh! Or this one!!! 


There are so many different holiday cards to choose from at Shutterfly! 
You’re sure to find one that fits your tastes and highlights your reason for the season! :)

And while you’re there check out their fun selection of personalized photo gifts!! 
I just might get some of these lovely initial notepads to send notes to friends and family for the rest of the year!


So what about you?? Are you sending Christmas cards this year?
Or maybe a Christmas newsletter??


P.S. Fancy This Fridays is STILL going on here
Or just scroll down to link up your lovelies!!

*I was not monetarily compensated for this post. I did receive a promotional code from Shutterfly for 25 free cards, but all opinions shared here are my own!

Christmas in August?

So… Due to my lack of better planning, (oops sorry) there’s no Bloggie Bestie for this week… However, if you’re interested in being the Bloggie Bestie, shoot me an email and we’ll get it set up!!! 

Until then I have a fun little review to share with you!!! 

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Well, we had Christmas in June
So might as well have a Christmas in August, don’t you think!
I love Christmas and Christmas decorations!
This will be mine and my new husband’s first Christmas as a married couple, so of course, we want to make it a special one! 
I have been stock piling Christmas decorations little by little since I first moved off to college. 
My parents bought me a Christmas tree one year. 
And I have mine and my hubs’ childhood Christmas ornaments to display on the tree. 
But I really think it’s the little things around the house that really make it feel like Christmas!

So when given the opportunity to review an item from ChristmasOrnaments.com, I decided I’d choose a little something to decorate our house. 
I looked through their amazing collection of couples ornaments, but in my Christmas in June review I was able to choose a couple’s first Christmas ornament for our tree… 
So I moved on to their assortment of hobby ornaments
They were darling… but not what I was looking for right at the moment. 
I even browsed the site’s articles and found some great gift wrapping tips

Finally I found just the thing…
I chose an adorable little snow globe!
Sorry for the icky photos… My camera is a little cheapo and it seems to focus on everything but what I want… Egh… 


It has a Mr. and Mrs. Snowman all dressed for the holiday inside.  
I think it will make an adorable addition to our mantel at Christmas time and is another sweet memento of our first married Christmas!


Just to give you a better idea of it’s size, here it is in proximity to my hand… Again sorry for the blur!!!


It is intricately painted, beautifully staged and so precious overall really!
It is a tiny little thing though. But for the price, it’s just right!

Get started early! Christmas will be here before you know it!!! 


*Thanks to ChristmasOrnaments.com for the chance to review an item from their website. 
I received the snow globe to review however all opinions expressed here are my own. 
I was not compensated in any other way for this review. 

P.S. There’s only TWO more days to get entered in the Mark Montano book giveaway!!! :) Go here to enter!

The 12 Days of Christmas with Poem

I know we’re already into the New Year, and Christmas posts are past… But I couldn’t share this one in December for fear of ruining the surprise for the receiver… So here it is..
The 12 Days of Christmas!
Mine and Kayli’s little Granny, who we dedicate this lovely little blog to (read more here), had the tradition of doing the 12 Days of Christmas for someone every year. When we were little she would do it for us, but as we got older and started figuring out it was always Granny that was our Christmas Spirit… We began helping her give to others.

Granny and Kassi

Granny passed away this last August… And we knew we wanted to keep the tradition alive in her honor! This year we chose my soon to be sister-in-law as our person! She is a sweetheart, with two little ones that run her ragged… So of course, we decided she was the one deserving a Christmas Surprise!

How to do the 12 Days of Christmas, Granny Nell Style!
  • Choose a family member, friend, neighbor, or someone less fortunate that deserves a little Christmas pick me up!
  • Purchase 12 gifts, of small value, so that each day of the 12 days they will receive a nice little surprise.
  • Enlist the help of others if need be to get the gifts to your person without them knowing where they’re coming from.
  • Include a little note on the first day, explaining the 12 days
  • Start 12 days out from either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
  • Enjoy sneaking a gift every day until Christmas Eve or Day to your chosen person!
  • Choose to share your identity with your person, or keep the secret as their anonymous Christmas Spirit. Your choice.
Again, we chose Brianne, my future sis-in-law. We purchased 12 little gifts. Our gifts included:
  1. Sugar Cookie Mix and Sprinkles
  2. Christmas Cookie Cutters
  3. A DVD
  4. Upside Down Tomato Plant
  5. Rooster Table Runner
  6. Rooster oven mitt (her kitchen is roosters)
  7. Nail kit and one nail polish
  8. Christmas Drink Coasters
  9. Gingerbread dip tray
  10. Small kitchen towel
  11. Family picture frame
  12. Red sweater jacket
Each of our gifts was around $5-6.
We wrapped the gifts up, using Christmas paper just for her, in case she came over and saw the Christmas paper under our tree…
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Trust me… my brother used that once to discover it was Granny because she used the same paper under her tree that our Christmas Spirit was using… heehee.
The next year, his gifts were wrapped in newspaper… She showed him! :)

I typed up a little poem for Brianne’s letter and even typed her name on the envelope, so she wouldn’t recognize the handwriting.
Photobucket
The poem went something like…
Happy Holidays Brianne!
There’s 12 days left ’til Christmas!
The 12 days of Christmas you see!
Every day from now ’til Christmas Eve you’ll get a little gift
You’re a great mama and a sweet lady
So you deserve a little lift!
On the first day of Christmas your Christmas Spirits hope you enjoy
A little present to share with your little girl and boy
Guess and guess until you’re sure
But we won’t tell our secret ’til the 24th!

We enlisted my future brother-in-law, Brianne’s hubs, to help us deliver her gifts! And he did an awesome job! He told her that her Spirits were leaving a gift in his pickup at work everyday…
She had NO idea! :)

I printed out the numbers 1-12 and cut and then taped them onto each present so that he would know which one to take which day.

It was so fun Christmas Eve getting to tell her that it had been us! :)
So, just an idea to share the Christmas Spirit next year! Feel free to borrow our little poem and edit it to your liking! If you do, hope you’ll let us know! We love hearing 12 days stories!

Happy Holidays everyone! From Truly Lovely!

AND



My First Work Christmas Party…

This last Friday was my VERY, FIRST EVER “real world” Work Christmas Party.
I mean, since graduating from college and getting a “real” job!
So of course… I was hoping to make a good impression!
The invite said to bring…
1) A Guest
2) White Elephant Gift $15 Value
3) Dessert or Appetizer
So I brought…
1) My sweetheart of a fiance as my guest… ;)
Even though he was REALLY hesitant to go… Not his thing!

2) A Heavenly Plug-in and Embers Scentsy Bar for my Gift!
(I sell Scentsy as one of my many ongoing adventures! Check out my website here!!)
3) Chocolate No Bake Cookies! My first attempt at them by the way! And I think they were delicious!!! :)
Armed with my newly acquired Christmas jewelry from AliLilly, I feel like my first “real” job Christmas party was a SUCCESS!!! At least I had a really good time, and so did my fiance! And I acquired a sweet set of makeup in the gift I ended up with from the gift exchange!! So win, win!!! :)
AliLilly Christmas Bracelet
AliLilly Christmas Earrings
I wrapped my gift in a red gift bag, and cut out some poinsettias from some wrapping paper I had left over… Just for something extra… :) I think everything turned out very nice!
And thanks to Wal-Mart for the $3 dessert carrier! :)
Any work Christmas parties happening for you this year?? What did you take??

Christmas Cards!!!

The Christmas cards I ordered from Shutterfly came in today! Yay!!
And I love them!!! I especially love that I received 10 Christmas cards for $6.20! Yeah, I got 10 cards for FREE and just had to pay shipping!
I love the specials online stores have around Christmas time!!!
Honestly, I wasn’t even really planning on sending cards out, but I found the special at Shutterfly and couldn’t resist! Granted, I only have 10, but that’ll cover the ones we’ve received as well as a few for special family and friends.
So here they are!!! What do you think??
Shutterfly was totally right! I was stoked to see that bright orange package in the mail!!! (In they’re shipping e-mail they say, “Exciting news: A bright-orange Shutterfly package is on its way, with unbelievable memories inside.”
 And in that bright orange package are 10 perfectly personalized Christmas cards with crisp white envelopes!!!
Here is the front of our cards! I chose the Snow Flurries Cocoa folding cards. Folding because then they can hang over those nifty Christmas card holders everyone seems to have these days! And the Snow Flurries in Cocoa simply because I liked the style…. And I got to use THREE pictures! :)
I used three of my favorite engagement pictures. They were taken by Karen at Treehouse Photography who did an amazing job!! I keep finding uses for them because I love them SO much!!

This is the inside of the card. Apologies for the blur… It reads,
“And a Happy Holidays to you and yours!!!
Always, Nate & Kassi”
Yeah, I wrote that… I know. I’m a poet. ;)

As soon as I got the package I realized I was getting low in the stamp department… So I ran out to the local USPS and purchased some cheery Holiday Evergreens stamps! Aren’t they festive?!?! 
SOURCE
So now I can’t wait to get my address book and send out our Christmas cards. Our very FIRST Christmas cards as a couple by the way!!! Exciting right?!?! Well… It is to me! ;)
AND FYI, Shutterfly did an amazing job on the printing, and the shipping!
The cards weren’t even scheduled to be here for another two days!
(I’m late… I know… First time, give me a break! :)
So go check them out! Maybe you’ll get lucky and find a super deal like I did!
Merry Christmas!!!

P.S. I’m linking my Christmas cards up at these linky parties!

Christmas Nativities

Ever since I was little I have LOVED Nativity scenes! My mother has a beautiful ceramic nativity set that is painted a light Christmas blue and has that Christmas sparkle. I just love it. Several Christmas’s ago my grandmother bought us a “manger” made out of wood and fake moss stuff to look like hay… A.D.O.R.E.
BUT… I have since moved away from home and had to leave mom’s nativity behind… (I did help my sister set it up while I was home for Thanksgiving though… :) Sadly, I didn’t snap a picture of it ’cause it’s beautiful. Maybe I can get my sister to upload one sometime soon… *wink* *wink*…
I do however have some pictures of the nativities at my house! Yay!
So I would love to share them with you!
I’m linkin this post up to the Nativity Parade at the Crap I’ve Made Blog. There are some beautiful nativities there, so you should go check them out!!

 

This is my very first Nativity! I have collected Precious Moments items since I was a little girl and at some point my mom got this Precious Moments nativity. It was always my favorite Christmas decoration to set up. When I moved away to college, my mom informed me that it was mine, and I could take it to add to my small collection of Christmas decor.
I was elated!!!! So here it is, in all it’s glory, set up on the mantel of my current home…

This bear family nativity belonged to my fiance’s mother. I think it’s SO adorable!! My mom really likes bears too, so I’m sure she would love this nativity as well!
There’s actually another bear angel that goes with it, but he lost a wing at some point… so he was retired this year.
And finally, this music box nativity. It plays a lullaby if it’s wound up. It too belonged to my finace’s mother. You can see it has the baby Jesus, the animals and the little drummer boy. Sorry for the low quality… I took this pic with my cell and it didn’t come out very well… 
So there’s my nativities on parade! I would love to see yours, so go link up over at
Crap I’ve Made… Funny name, huh! Love it!
Merry Christmas!!
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