Holidays

Holiday Gift Ideas and The Life of Pi

November 20, 2012 6 Comments

With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away we’re already in the full swing of this year’s holiday season!
The holidays are a very special time of year in my family. I have personally always loved seeing the decorations start to go up around town, to be able to decorate the inside of my own home and the holiday lights are a definite favorite!!!

Every single year the entire family gets together and exchanges gifts, enjoys a home cooked, extra special holiday meal and spends quality time together. And every single holiday season I promise myself that I won’t wait until the last minute to finish my holiday shopping…
Well, THIS year might finally be the one! I’ve been looking for a one stop shop to get the majority of my gifts, gifts that my loved ones will love and I’ve finally found it at World Market. Win-win, am I right!

I’ve even created an inspiration board of fun gifts that I know will be absolute crowd-pleasers at this year’s holiday celebrations!

World Market Gift Ideas by kassi-mortensen on Polyvore

Light Natural Cowhide Rug | World Market / Faux Cowhide Toss Pillow / Owl Cookie Jars, Set of 2 | World Market / Hammered Copper Tea Kettle | World Market / Multicolor Stacking Mugs or Espresso Cups Sets of 6 | World Market / candles holders | World Market / 6 Bud Vases with Wire Caddy | World Market / Nico Nesting Tables, Set of 3

World Market has unique rustic items like the cowhide accessories, cute items like the cookie jars, bright colors for the bold ones in my life, and fun decorations for the world travelers, like the NY word sign! A gift for everyone on my h0liday shopping list all at one location! I’m excited to get my holiday shopping finished early and then have time for other fun holiday activities! Like going to the movies for example…

I am right in the middle of reading the book, The Life of Pi. The story is about a young Indian boy named Pi, of course, who through some tragic events ends up stranded in the ocean all alone except for a Bengal tiger!! Pi’s story will debut on the big screen starting November 21st (TOMORROW!) and I can’t wait to see it!

Now, how does the Life of Pi coincide with World Market you ask? Well, on Black Friday (November 23) the first 100 customers to shop, in store at World Market, will receive a FREE Limited Edition Life of Pi ornament and a FREE Life of Pi movie ticket. The first 100 customers to shop in-store on Saturday, November 24 and Sunday, November 25 will receive a FREE Limited Edition Life of Pi Tote Bag and a movie ticket.

Holiday shopping done AND a FREE movie plus other fun goodies!?!? I’m sold!!!

They’re also hosting a HUGE Life of Pi Sweepstakes! Enter here on their sweepstakes site or .

Oh! And just a little heads up… If you share the sweepstakes with 5 of your friends (via FB share or email) you can receive 5 additional bonus entries. You can also enter daily for more chances to win!!

And while you’re getting entered, stay up to date with all future World Market fun all across the web!!!
Website | | | |

Disclosure: This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group™, but all my opinions are my own.http://cmp.ly/3/KqtZiE.

Filed Under: Holidays, Sponsored Tagged With: gift ideas, Movies

Fall Ribbon Candles and a Discount Code

November 19, 2012 4 Comments

Thanksgiving is only a few days away!
Are you ready?? Do you have your centerpiece for your Thanksgiving table? A few cute decorations around the house?
Here’s a SUPER easy craft you can whip up in just a few minutes to add some fall fun to your celebration!

These fun candles only require a few materials:

Two (or more) pillar candles
Fall themed ribbon
Glue dots
Scissors

I used two plain brown pillar candles… Ones that were already a part of my living room decor actually. You might remember them from my living room makeover. That’s what makes the glue dots so useful… Once fall is over you can just remove the ribbon and keep on using the plain candles! Or even change out the ribbon for more winter themed colors if you’d like!

Step 1: Measure out lengths of ribbon to wrap around each candle. I chose yellow, brown, white and orange ribbon for fall.

Step 2: Wrap each ribbon around the candle securing both ends with a glue dot like so….

Step 3: Do the same with the other candle(s), until they’re all are wrapped with ribbon.

Step 4: Display as decorations on their own, or group together in the center of your Thanksgiving table for a unique centerpiece idea!

There you go lovelies! A quick easy way to add a pop of fall to your decor!
OH! And about that discount code I promised in the title… Since we’re sharing quick and easy as a sort of theme today… Go ahead and mark off another to do on your holiday list by quickly and easily creating then sending a personalized greeting card from Treat (a brand new Shutterfly greeting card brand) for FREE!!!!! That’s right, tell the neighbors Happy Holidays, wish a Happy Birthday to a friend, it’s up to you!!!
Use the code TREATBLOGR today and tomorrow!

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

Wishing you and yours a Happy Fall and a Happy Thanksgiving from Truly Lovely!!!

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Filed Under: Crafts, Holidays Tagged With: candles, Fall, Ribbon, Thanksgiving

Turkey Pillow Cover

November 13, 2012 21 Comments

Cute pillow covers for the holidays, and just in general, have kind of become my thing as of late… Making the pillow cover itself is super easy, especially if you use this Envelope Pillow Tutorial that I always use from Marissa at Rae Gun Ramblings. I made a western welcome pillow and a team roping pillow cover for everyday, then I made puffy paint Halloween covers for Halloween of course… Which brings me to the next holiday on my list, Thanksgiving.

I initially made this turkey pillow cover last November, but missed getting around to posting it before Thanksgiving 2011.
{Thus the horrible pictures for the tutorial steps… so please be forgiving of the blurriness.}

To make your own turkey pillow you’ll need:

Turkey body stencil
Turkey feather stencil
Fabric for your pillow cover (I use half a yard for a 16 inch pillow, following the tutorial mentioned above)
A few different fabrics for your feathers (I got a 1/4 yard of four prints that I thought looked fall-ish)
Fabric for your turkey body (I used brown)
Googly eyes
Glue Gun
Sewing machine

To make the cute turkey I designed the body on my Silhouette software using ovals welded together. Then I designed a turkey feather shape just modifying an oval to have sort of a feathery point. I cut those shapes out on vinyl to make my stencil.

I cut the turkey body out of the brown fabric.

And then the feathers from the varying fabrics prints. I just laid my feather stencil on the fabrics, traced a few feathers with a pencil and then cut them out. Sorry for the blurry photo, but you get the point, right? 😉

I decided where I wanted my turkey to be (the center of my pillow cover), then pinned each of the feathers where I wanted them making sure the turkey body covered the points when laid on top. Then I sewed around the edge of each feather.

I pinned and sewed around my turkey body next adding a little orange triangle for the beak, a little red for the waddle, and hot glued on two beady eyes.

Now… that was where I stopped last year… but this year when I got it out to decorate I felt like it needed something more. An added touch of cuteness.
So I cut out a little orange bow to make it a cute ‘girl’ turkey and cut a strip of orange leaf fabric for her to ‘rest’ in. 😉 Again, I just used my sewing machine to sew around the edges.

With a good washing the cute feathers now have ‘feathery’ edges.

Tell me lovelies? Do you decorate for Thanksgiving?
I only have a few items…but I think it’s fun to decorate for every major holiday.

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Filed Under: Crafts, Holidays, Home Decor, Tutorials Tagged With: Fabric, Fall, Sewing, Silhouette, Thanksgiving, Vinyl

Thank the Troops – Veteran’s Day

November 10, 2012 2 Comments

Monday is Veteran’s Day. A day to celebrate and thank those that defend and protect our country. Our freedom. America.

Let us take this opportunity to say thank you to our Veteran’s. We appreciate your sacrifice and support you!

Thank you Veteran’s!

Friends, did you know Shutterfly has a campaign right now to say thank you to our troops. , it is so aptly named. There’s a Facebook app where you choose your card; there are four patriotic designs to choose from.

Then you can customize it with a personal message from you and even a photo if you’d like. Once you’re finished you can choose to share on your Facebook page and invite your friends and family to create and send their own Thank You to our troops!

I made a card and shared it with my friends and family… Won’t you join me today in saying thank you to those that give more than we could ever dream of so that we have the freedom to pursue our own dreams!

Thank the troops!

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

Filed Under: Holidays, Sponsored

Happy Halloween!!!

October 31, 2012 4 Comments

Happy Halloween lovelies!!!!
To celebrate one of my most favorite holidays, here’s a couple of the CUTE pumpkin photos I took of my friend, Meghan Jo’s baby boy!

He was an absolute sweetheart for these fun photos… Guess he felt really secure cradled in the pumpkin.

Such a sweet boy!

Have a SAFE and Happy Halloween friends!
Preferably with lots of candy! 😉

Filed Under: Holidays Tagged With: Fall, Halloween, Kassi's Photography, Pumpkin

Halloween No Tricks Just Treats Jar

October 30, 2012 10 Comments

Happy Halloween Week lovelies!!!

Since Halloween is tomorrow, here’s a quick and easy craft you can whip up this evening!
A No Tricks, Just Treats Jar!
I made mine as a cute place to stash those candies that come unwrapped…
Things like candy corn. FYI – I love candy corn.

You only need a few materials for this cute craft!

Small jar with a lid (again, I chose one with a lid to store candies that aren’t wrapped)
Small sheet of black vinyl or stickers if you don’t have a craft cutter
Glow in the dark spider ring
Glue gun

I designed my vinyl using my Silhouette SD software. The font is Chiller, a fun font for Halloween projects!
The spiderweb was a free shape in the software.

I cut my design out using my Silhouette SD, then used transfer paper to apply the teeny tiny lettering and the spider web, an intricate design, to my jar. Sure, you could peel and stick, but with something as small as this, it’s just WAY easier to use transfer paper!
{See all those teeny tiny cutouts for the web!!!}

To add another touch of cuteness/fun I hot glued a spider to the lid of my jar, after applying the web.
I just cut the ring part off the spider then glued it down. {Like I did with these spiders…}

Next, fill your cute treat jar with cute treats!!!! 😉

Happy Halloween friends!!!!

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P.S. Hope you enjoyed this post! If so, we’d love if !

Filed Under: Crafts, Holidays, Tutorials Tagged With: Glue Gun, Halloween, Vinyl

Halloween Puffy Paint Pillow Covers

October 9, 2012 20 Comments

So the month of October is admittedly my favorite…
My birthday was last week, Pumpkin Spice lattes are back and Halloween is right around the corner!
Before October even rolled around I already had my Halloween stash out and scattered all over the house! Turns out though, I don’t really have all that much in the way of decorations… Needless to say I was pumped when I received a fun set of Glow in the Dark Puffy Paints via iLoveToCreate to try out!

I don’t know about you, but glow in the dark screams Halloween decorating to me! 😉

Materials Needed for Halloween Puffy Paint Pillow Covers:

Glow Puffy Paints
1 yard of black fabric
Glow in the dark spider rings
Glue gun
Scissors
Sewing Machine

{If you don’t want to sew your pillow covers, you could easily purchase some pre-made from the craft or department store.}

I always use this tutorial when making simple envelope pillow covers. I made two 16′ pillow covers so I cut and measured my fabric accordingly and pinned the two sides and seems.
Then I sewed the top and bottom edges of my pillow face so I would know where to paint on my Halloween pictures.

For pillow cover #1 I decided on a spiderweb. I used the Gray Glow Puffy Paint to freehand my web. Drawing (in this case Puffy painting) a spider web is fairly easy. Start with several crisscrossing lines, like so…

Then ~~draw~~ paint curved lines between each of your crossed lines… Like so….

For pillow cover #2 I hand wrote the words Happy Halloween using the Orange Glow puffy Paint. Each of my pillow faces were left to dry overnight… The Puffy Paint dries in four hours according to the package, but I wanted to be on the safe side.

Each pillow received a couple of glow in the dark spiders… I just cut the ring part off each spider ring, then hot glued them where I wanted them.

The final step was sewing the sides of my pillow covers closed then flipping them inside out. I stuffed a 16′ pillow inside each one and viola!

Glow in the dark Halloween pillow covers! And more fun Halloween decorations for casa de Kassi!

You can find all kinds of fun craft supplies and ideas at iLoveToCreate!
Find them on , and as well!

Disclosure: I received the product mentioned as part of a campaign via iLoveToCreate and The Blue Print Social. As always the opinions shared are 100% my own!

Check out some of the other fun ideas shared through this campaign below!

Filed Under: Holidays, Home Decor, Tutorials, Uncategorized Tagged With: Craft Paint, Halloween, Sewing

No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

September 24, 2012 18 Comments

Since we have officially declared this last week of September, the first week of Autumn… as…

Let’s get things rolling today with one of my favorite pumpkin recipes!
No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake!
(Get your very own Pumpkin Week Button here!)

The ingredients needed for Pumpkin Cheesecake are:

1 8 oz. package of softened cream cheese
1 cup of canned pumpkin (about half a 15 oz can)
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp of ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp of ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 graham cracker pie crust
1 tub of whipped cream topping

Quick Tip: Make SURE your cream cheese is REALLY soft! If not, it will make for a very lumpy cheesecake!

Combine all ingredients, minus the whipped cream in a large bowl. I used my KitchenAid mixer.

Mix all ingredients together until fully combined. Now, fold in about half the tub of whipped cream topping. {Save the rest for cheesecake topping later on.}
Spread your cheesecake mix into the graham cracker pie crust.

At this point you can take cool cheesecake reflection pictures in your metal mixing bowl if your like me… 😉
Or just refrigerate your pretty orange cheesecake for at LEAST 3 hours. Otherwise, it’s really hard to get out a decent slice…

Once you do cut a slice, top with a dollop of the left over whipped cream topping and enjoy!

Happy Pumpkin Week pretties!!!
Don’t forget to get YOUR pumpkin posts together to link with us on the 28th!

Linking this here and here and .

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Filed Under: Holidays, Recipes Tagged With: Fall, Pumpkin Week

Happy 4th of July! Plus a Pennant Rope Wreath

July 4, 2012 16 Comments

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY LOVELIES!!!

I hope you’re enjoying the day with your family and friends!

I wanted to share my patriotic wreath with you dolls today, just for fun…

Here’s my front door – one patriotic rope wreath, two flags from Wal-Mart and a cute doggie later. 😉

To make the rope wreath I used one of the hubs’ old discarded ropes. I’ve talked about them before here.
Then I used some old denim jeans and some red/white bandanna paisley fabric to make the pennants.

You can see my “pattern” in the above photo. I just cut a triangle out of cardboard then cut around it through the fabric.
I placed two pieces of denim for one pennant then two pieces of the paisley front to back to make each of the alternating pennants. Then I sewed up the sides leaving the top quarter inch on each side un-sewn.

I used some red cord and sewed the top of each pennant closed with the cord towards the inside. See the photo above.
I sewed a hanger from the paisley fabric, wrapped it around the rope and sewed it closed by hand.

That’s it! Super easy and fairly quick!

Please ignore the scratches on the door… They’re from my barbed wire wreath…
Guess the door needs .

Enjoy the rest of your Fourth celebrations friends!

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Filed Under: Crafts, Holidays, Home Decor Tagged With: Fabric, Outside, Sewing, Wreaths

Patriotic Firework Cake

June 26, 2012 13 Comments

Hey dolls! Sorry so late with the post today… We had two yesterday since we announced the Sittin’ in the Sun Summer Package exchange, (have you joined yet?), so I’m a little behind today!

Do you realize Independence Day is next week! Yes! Already!

Here’s a delicious and patriotic 4th of July Firework cake to help you celebrate!

To make this fun firework cake you only need a few ingredients.
White cake mix and all the fixings called for on the box (eggs, water, oil {or apple sauce})
Red and blue sprinkles
Two round cake pans
White icing

Mix up the cake mix like normal, then pour half the mix into each of your round cake pans. Add red sprinkles to one of the cake mix filled pans and blue sprinkles to the other.
Stir the sprinkles around so they spread throughout the mix. The color will probably bleed, that’s ok!

Bake according to the cake mix instructions. Allow your two cakes to cool just for a minute, admire the firework quality they already have… 😉 then turn them out onto a plate to cool the rest of the way.
Turning them out before they’ve cooled completely works the best, FYI… don’t wait too long!

Once they’ve cooled, completely, stack and then ice in the white icing. Sprinkle some red and blue sprinkles on top. More in the center and less on the edges makes a nice firework affect… just sayin’… 😉

Cut yourself and a friend a slice of delicious patriotic firework cake!
Again, admire the fun firework affect in the middle and eat up!

Thanks for baking with me today lovelies!

Do you have any special Independence Day traditions?
Any patriotic treats on your menu this coming week?

Linking this here and here and .

P.S. Hope you enjoyed this post! If so, we’d love if !

Filed Under: Holidays, Recipes Tagged With: 4th of July, Cake, Independence Day

Holiday Gift Ideas and The Life of Pi

Fall Ribbon Candles and a Discount Code

Turkey Pillow Cover

Thank the Troops – Veteran’s Day

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween No Tricks Just Treats Jar

Halloween Puffy Paint Pillow Covers

No Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

Happy 4th of July! Plus a Pennant Rope Wreath

Patriotic Firework Cake

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