I hope everyone’s week is off to a good start!   This past weekend was nice and chilly and I spent a lot of time knitting for the holidays (a certain nephew needs a hand-knit stocking for his first Christmas).  Anyway, I have a little gift for you…

I’m giving away a bunch of “Our Tree Dresses” holiday cards!   A blank card for you to keep or use.

Instead of selecting 1 winner for a big prize I’ve decided to have a lot of little prizes for many of you this year.

SO, here’s how it works:

• Leave a comment: You don’t have to say anything in particular BUT I would love to know what you’re looking forward to this season. It could be holiday or non-holiday specific!
• Make sure the email address you enter is correct.  I’ll collect the emails and send you all a message (from dearliette {AT} gmail {DOT} com) at the end of the giveaway.
• Reply back with your mailing address.  (Don’t worry, your personal info is safe with me and won’t be sold, distributed, etc.)

The giveaway closes Sunday night, November 22th OR when I run out of giveaway cards, whichever happens first.  One card per reader; open to everyone.

Happy Commenting!

Update: Silly me, as Tracey kindly pointed out, I never mentioned what I was looking forward to this season!  Two every exciting things are happening: 1) My husband and I are celebrating our marriage (Reception #2) with my in-laws and 2) My dear little nephew’s first Christmas!

One of the best things about our little house is the lighting in the kitchen.  This main window faces the north/northwest and the light does not change much the whole day.  Even on the grayest of days there is plenty of light and I’m ever so grateful for this; I’ve lived in places that were dark and, really, I found it depressing.   This is the light in our kitchen right now: very bright and soft and white.  Yes, some of the doors are hanging off their hinges, the 80+ year old sink has seen better days but it’s really quite cozy, especially now.

My parents got us this Kitchen-Aid mixer as a wedding gift.   I know, I’m super fancy now.   I mean WE are super fancy.  So far I’ve made rapid rise bread with it (from the recipe book that came in the box;  pretty good but I’d like to try others) and some super fluffy cake frosting.   You know what would be really cool?  The pasta attachment.  Then I could make homemade pasta to go with my homemade lamb ragu (a household favorite).

And right now the weather in L.A. is perfect.  Very comfortable in the high 60s, bright and sunny, but not too hot to turn up the oven.  I’ve been brewing up all kinds of things lately which inspired me to make some fall-ish recipe cards.  I decided to post them as PDFs for free because, you know, I like you that much!

We’ve got a 4″x6″ recipe card:

And a 3″x5″ one too:

(Click images or links below to download.)  Just print them on your color printer, “best” setting, cut and go.

» Download: 4″x6″ Recipe Card

» Download: 3″x5″ Recipe Card

Oh, by the way, THANK YOU for the swan-love!  I’m so pleased you liked her.   She’ll have some friends soon.

Have a lovely fall-ish weekend!

Yay!  I’m super excited about these!  I’m totally thrilled with how they turned out; I hope you like them.

“Our Tree Dresses” is my latest hand-drawn illustration, set on lovely light blue-gray Canson paper.   Pretty gold glitter toppers too.  I would love a hat like that!

The size A1 (3.5×5″) cards are professionally printed on 100% recycled card stock with soy inks.  Each card has a matching kraft envelope which is also 100% recycled.  I guess you could say I was going for a “green” Christmas, hee hee.

Oh!  And included in each set are red & white candy button seals to pretty up your envelopes.

I have sets in 2 sizes: 5 card and 10 card sets.  The 5 card sets come specially wrapped like a sweet treat:

Quantities are limited this year.  Ah, here’s the back view:

If you want 3 or more of the 5 card sets, please let me know, and I can give you a fabled needle discount.  Just email me or contact me through le form.

» See “Our Tree Dresses” 5 Card Sets here.

» And see the 10 Card Sets here.

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNcPK7tI/AAAAAAAAA9w/sL0gONWEr2M/s1600-h/free-spring-download2.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 348px; height: 400px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNcPK7tI/AAAAAAAAA9w/sL0gONWEr2M/s400/free-spring-download2.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315170281471012562″ border=”0″ //aThank goodness it’s spring, right? I’m looking forward to eternal sandal-wearing, salad-eating weather. (It seems like it can never end when you are experiencing it.) It’s very late in the evening — rather, very early in the morning? — and I’m heading off to sleep soon, after a cup of tea (chamomile of course!).br /br /So, anyway, I’ve made some decisions this week that are kind of big. One of which is to take a break from the blog for a while. span style=”font-style: italic;”br /br /Egads, there, I said it!/spanbr /br /Not just a week or two, I’m not sure how long, a couple of months maybe. Enough time to get my bearings, and focus on my work and things that I want to do for a href=”http://loveliette.com/”the shop/a. You know how it is, I’m sure; There are just so many wonderful things to do that one might try to do them all and then crash and burn and feel like nothing is really getting done. My decision may seem very sudden, what with my abundance of posting of late, and maybe it is, a little. I’ve been feeling, lately, a little overwhelmed and after much thinking I came to the conclusion that I can’t really do everything, at least not right now. Once I decided to put the blog on hiatus, I knew it was the right thing to do.br /br /But I’m excited! I have lots of ideas I want to pursue and I’ll have the opportunity to think more about those things. It just so happens that I enjoy blogging so much that I often think about it more than the projects I span style=”font-style: italic;”should/span be working on.br /br /Anyway, just wanted to let you know, as opposed to just disappearing for a while. And I want to let you know that this is spanonly temporary/span! br /br /I have appreciated your support and friendship throughout the life of this blog. And I hope to keep in touch with all of you while I focus on work and once I get a href=”http://loveliette.com/”my shop/a going and start posting again, I really do!br /br /So I have created a href=”http://loveliette.com”a mailing list/a. This way I can let you all know when I’m officially back and when the a href=”http://loveliette.com/”new site/a is up. (Please see the sign-up module to the right or visit a href=”http://loveliette.com”loveliette.com/a!)br /br /As a thank you I created a printable pdf of gift tags and egg stands with the theme of the moment - Spring! Miss Violet and Mr. Henry Bunny have recently gotten their portraits painted and wanted so much to meet you.br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNWbOpjI/AAAAAAAAA9o/fdnFoBEGMlA/s1600-h/free-spring-download3.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 301px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNWbOpjI/AAAAAAAAA9o/fdnFoBEGMlA/s400/free-spring-download3.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315170279910975026″ border=”0″ //aI had such fun drawing these rabbit friends in their spring outfits. Speaking of outfits, I also recently posted photos of my entire collection of a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/faeriefurballs/sets/72157615226191678/”vintage sewing patterns to flickr/a which you may find enjoyable. And I’ll continue to post other images to flickr - like that a href=”http://thefabledneedle.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-mondays.html”vintage dress/a I plan to sew!br /br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNt1XGsI/AAAAAAAAA94/G10xlm6X4q0/s1600-h/free-spring-download1.jpg”img style=”margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 400px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_M5dKBd5_Vfk/ScNHNt1XGsI/AAAAAAAAA94/G10xlm6X4q0/s400/free-spring-download1.jpg” alt=”" id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315170286194596546″ border=”0″ //aAgain, thank you so much for being here and visiting me in blogland. Hope to see you soon!br /br /xo, jen