Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas and had a wonderful time with family and friends! I wish to thank each and everyone of you for the Christmas cards you sent. They are absolutely beautiful and I'm making a special board to keep them on!

After our power outage was restored it only lasted a couple of days till we lost it again, LOL! But I'm glad it's back on again and hope all others have theirs restored also. Seems people everywhere were hit pretty bad with that storm and we have yet another one coming this week end. Just hope it isn't as bad as the last. I've been very busy with several things now that Christmas is over. I decided to post all my tutorials on my site (since I have plenty space there) and link to them from here. So far I have 12 of them finished and instead of giving individual links, the link I place here will take you to one page (Tutorials) where you can browse them. I'm making it like an everyday web page with a menu on the left side listing all the tutorials. I think this way it will make things much easier for me to add newer ones as I go along. Like many of you I've also been cleaning, rearranging my crafting rooms. This morning I've been busy washing silicone molds and I didn't realize I had collected sooooo many of them, LOL! (But I LOVE those designer tart molds!) I think I'll take the next month or two off from crafting so I can get things as I want them around here. But of course I already have Valentine's Day and Easter things in the making. I also want to take that time for my blog and website. I have several things planned and hope I can get them all rolling for the new year. I do have to get busy again and will say to keep watch for the link, hopefully to be posted in a couple days. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year! Warm hugs and blessing sent your way, Libby.

Very Bad Storm

I know you've all heard by now that the east coast was hit with a very heavy snow storm. To some of you 18+ inches of snow may seem like nothing, but for us, that was a pretty big one so early in the year. It put down trees on power lines everywhere, knocked out our cable, phones and even caused problems with water lines. Our power went out Friday evening and they finally got it back on yesterday. I know the crews worked very hard during this time (and still are) to get everyone's power back on and I applaud each and every one of them. While some are still without and more restored today, we need to remember these people in our prayers. I've heard of a lot of elderly needing oxygen, dialysis patients needing treatments, plus countless others with health problems needing help. They've set up help centers all around to give a place to stay with heat, food, and water but there has been many not able to travel out for that help, literally stuck at their homes. The areas have ran out of kerosene while people stood in long lines trying to get some for heat. But I think the biggest problem was on our part of not being prepared for such a storm despite the warnings. As for me and my family, I thank God we were able to keep warm, cook, and have water through it all. And let me tell you....it's amazing what you can do when a situation like this happens. We are all so used to having things so modern, we sometimes forget how to survive without all the comforts we can take for granted everyday. From the last report I heard yesterday it would be Christmas day before all the power was expected to be restored. That's a long time to do without certain things or having no way out, being confined to your home. I also saw where we have yet another heavy snow storm heading our way for Sunday and Monday. I haven't watched the update on that one today so I have no idea of what they're talking about for our area. I can only pray that it somehow passes us instead of being hit again so quickly. Please remember to take some time out during the day and pray for all those that are in these badly hit areas and states.

I'd also like to say with all the unexpected snowfall and problems, I haven't been able to post the tutorials as I was hoping. I will try to get to them as soon as possible. I want to thank each and everyone of you that is/has been following my blog and wish you a very Merry Christmas and blessed New Year! 

Tutorials

I'll start by saying it is soooooo good to be back online, and I truly appreciate everyone's help and well wishes! Still having sinus problems but much better, thanks to all. After posting the "Tutorials - What To Do?," I shut down for the nite and turned off my system, (something I seldom do). To my surprise, the next morning it wouldn't start at all. Turns out I had a bad crash and it ruined my computer. But my sweet, wonderful hubs got me a new one last night! Yeah! (I'm doing my Happy Dance!) So I'm thanking God and my hubby for it! It's very sad that people do things to cause others problems like this, but guess that's just life on the net, lol. I would hate to be in their shoes when it all comes back around, and really feel sorry for them. That must be a really sad and pitiful life to have nothing better to do? 

Luckily, (and thanking God again!), I had just saved all those tuts on a cd before shutting down and was able to save my hard work! So now that I'm back online I'll be getting those listed for you. Please note these were my older tuts, tips & techniques and I haven't started on the newer ones yet, but hope someone will get some use from them. They are mixed tuts and some are candle making while others are general crafts. And please note that some of these tuts have been posted on APJ, (A Primitive Journey Community). As we post our tuts in the forum everyone can make comments, ask questions, and add suggestions/ideas. So it's great to see them on the forum and read all the replies to the post to see what we're doing and coming up with. The girls on there are awesome and such creative minds! I have a banner link to the forum on the right side, so be sure to check it out!

I have lots of work to get done and will post an update when I get the tutorials available. Thanks again to all for your patience and well wishes, you girls are the best!

Big Warm Prim Hugs, Libby

Tutorials - What to do?

Hi everyone!

I just finished completing 27 tutorials and making them into PDF files! That's taken me 2 days but I'm glad I got those finished. I have more but I wanted to get the older ones completed first. Now the question is, how do I need to list them? Do I put them on my blog or put them on my web server giving links from my blog? I know that my share box will only hold a certain limit and don't want to over load it, so I'm puzzled with this one. If any of you have any suggestions of how I should work this, please leave me comments. I would greatly appreciate it as I'm new to this blogging thing, lol!

Haven't been feeling up to par today, have head congestion and sinuses acting up, grrrrrr! Just hoping this doesn't turn into a nasty flu bug! And hoping I feel much better tomorrow. I'd like to get all my tutorials done and ready for sharing before Christmas. I should have already had these completed and saved, then as I made new ones it wouldn't be hard to keep up with. I did have a start on them before but having to reinstall my OS recently caused me to lose a lot of things, including those. But I am thankful I was able to salvage my pics, lol! I hope you all are doing well and excited about Christmas. I'll await to hear everyone's suggestions on how to post those tutorials and will thank you in advance. Be blessed and enjoy your day, hugs, Libby.

More graphics in share box...

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you all know I've added some more freebie graphics in my share box. I have a Santa graphic sheet that has a color Santa, an outline Santa, and outline Santa face, a sheet of 4 cute spice cabinets, outline fixin's sheet, outline fixin's pans sheet, and a sheet of coffee stain tags. Play around with these and use them however you wish, just don't claim them as your own. These graphics can be used in so many ways; on websites, blogs, stitcheries, tags, cards, and so on. Also the coffee stain tags would look cute with some of Colleen's Christmas graphics on them! Just resize the graphics and paste on the tags, then print them out! Use the fixins & fixin pans graphics to color yourself and mix together for your own pan of fixins graphic. Have fun in what ever you use them for!

Winter Wood Staining Tutuorial

Most of us crafters have a certain area where we like to stain our wood. Some have their own wood shops, others use their garage, storage building, tool sheds, or just outside for this project. In the summer I like working outside in the open, but when Winter's here I use hubby's work shop. I had got some nice new wood boxes made and wanted to stain them for making Christmas box lamps one year, but didn't want to go pre-heat hub's shed. (Yes, I was being lazy, LOL!) No way I could use wood stain inside the house so I had to think of another way that I could stain the wood. Below are my results and it worked beautifully! So if you're having a day as I did and a little lazy, or maybe you don't have an area during the Winter, give this a try....

What you'll need:
Your wood item to be stained (of course)
Instant coffee
Hot water
Sponge brush painter
Newspapers

First if you have new wood items (as I did) but want them to look aged/antiqued, you can do that by using a hammer, screwdriver, meat hammer, small chain, and other items. Make some knicks and bangs on the wood here and there to make it look aged/used. (I did not do that to my boxes in the pics.) Now spread some newspapers out over your work area. Next you'll need to mix up some coffee stain mix. I suggest trying a small spot to see if the mix is dark enough before painting the item. If your mix isn't as dark as you'd like, add more instant coffee till you get the desired shade. If painting objects like my boxes, you'll want to paint the inside first and allow that to dry.

Once dry paint the outside and allow to dry again.

Once it's completely dry, usually overnite, you can seal the coffee stain with a coat of clear Arcylic spray paint, Mod Podge, or your favorite sealer. Now you have a nice alternative to staining wood items inside, without the mess of wood staining products!

Free Blog Backgrounds

As I'm learning more about blogging I've started creating some "freebie" backgrounds and headers. These were made and intended to use with the "Minima" template. I'm showing a sample of the background with matching header but you'll need to click on the individual background and header graphics to view full size, then save those to your computer/hard drive. All I ask is that you don't claim my graphics as your own. You can alter the headers to add your own blog name and/or information but no other alterations are allowed without my prior approval. I've added categories for the Backgrounds on the top right side menu. I currently have sets in the New Year's, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's, Christmas, and Everyday Prim links. I'll be making more new sets and posting them in the links so keep check on those. I LOVE using Colleen's (Harvest House Primitives) graphics in these sets so you'll be seeing a lot of vintage style backgrounds, enjoy!

2 New Simple Crafts

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday and had a wonderful time with family and friends!  I'm posting previews of 2 new simple crafts! To get these and other freebies download the latest Prim Sisters Gazette.  This is an awesome new issue and I'm sure you'll enjoy every page and article! Be sure to read "Bring Our Memories"...pg 3 by Dawn Pitzer, "Christmas Tradition"...pg 4 by Nancy DeRosa, and "Artist Interview"...pg 9 on Diane Bowling! This is packed with so many wonderful goodies you'll want to grab a nice cup of java and take your time to browse through to end!
The first craft is my latest Christmas Story Book which is so very simple and easy to make. And as stated in the tutorial you can get the free graphics for it from Colleen at: Harvest House Primitives. These books can be made for any holiday/occasion so let your imagination go!

Next is a Chenille Heart for Valentine's Day. This is made using a graphic sheet that I've posted in previous post, and also comes from Colleen's graphics. Again, this heart door hanger can be made for various holidays/occasions. As always I encourage you to use your imagination!

That's it for now but I'm working on some new graphics for blog backgrounds and I'll try to post them soon. (All free, of course!)  Sending prim hugs till next post, Libby