Easter Cookies

Swedish Pepper Cookies are one of our favorite recipes ever!  Today I whipped up a batch of bunnies, and thought I'd share the recipe. (Click on recipe to enlarge, and then right click to save recipe to your computer).

These cookies are so yummy! Half of them never even make it to the cookie jar!  I made them for our daughter's wedding last March, as well as for our son's wedding in July.  They were a hit, and I think you'll like them too!

Happy Easter! 

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

P.S.  Here's a photo of one of our new lambs!

How cute is this?!

Browsing through Etsy last night I ran across this print for sale of a Raggedy Ann & Andy set that I made a few years ago.  Isn't this just adorable?

Never know where my dolls are going to show up!  I was at an estate sale last summer and found a raggedy doll that I made 20 years ago for sale.  It was in among a bunch of very nice porcelain dolls. First I felt sorry for the poor little thing...then I realized she was in some good company! 

These little guys sold really well.  I think I need to make some more of them for my fall shows.  They are based on the little Annie in this pattern - Maddie Ann & Jayne.

Lambing time is in full swing here on Prindle Mountain!  7 little lambs and counting! Pictures coming soon!

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

Chalkboard signs

Like I mentioned in my last post, I found out how fun and easy it is to make some very-popular chalkboard signs.  First you'll need to "season" your chalkboard, which simply means that you rub it all over with chalk. Then wipe it off with a paper towel, leaving some of the white chalk residue behind.  Next I designed on the computer the words that I wanted.  Use some fun fonts.  I transferred this design onto my chalkboard, using white transfer paper, which I found at my local craft store. Then, just fill in the lettering with either a white chalk pen, such as the one shown here:

or if you'd rather it be more permanent, you may wish to use a white Sharpie marker.  Once done, rub it with chalk again. Simple!  Below are some examples of some chalkboard signs that I made for Emily's wedding.

(The sign shown above was based on a design I found online)

The fonts I used are Simon Script, Pea Ellie Bellie, and Janda Stylish Script.  (Each is available for free download by clicking on the font name, which will take you to a free download.)  Enjoy!

I also made some chalkboard props for our photo booth at the wedding. These I designed using a chalkboard background (see previous post) and the font Schalk in white.  

The top photo is with the bride - our daughter Emily - with our twins - Kari and Kaitlyn (two of the six bridesmaids), and her sweet little twin flower girls, who happen to have their 6th birthday today! Oh, by the way, I sewed the little flower girl dresses.  So much fun, and I really miss sewing cute little girl clothing!

The photo booth was a big hit at the wedding, and a wedding gift provided by some dear friends of ours.  The guests were provided with hard copies of their photos, as well as a business card with a link to all the photos online.

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

P.S.  We have 18 lambs now!

Springtime at Prindle Mountain!

It's been way too long since I've posted on my blog! A month ago we had the lovely wedding of our daughter and new son-in-law, and now we've moved on to lambing here on our farm.

Emily was our first child to marry, and throwing a wedding was time-consuming, but something that I thoroughly enjoyed!  In the next few posts, I will focus on some of the DIY projects we did for her wedding.

First, here are the invitations we designed.  Invitations have changed considerably since my husband and I were married 30 years ago.  No longer are they necessarily ordered from a company with 2 envelopes, the paper liner, and as formal as they used to be.  Many brides just use postcards or even wedding websites to correspond with their guests.  We designed these on my computer using various graphics and fonts, and ordered them from Overnight Prints.  I am crazy about this company and all of the products and great prices that they offer!  I used textured navy cardstock and made folders with a flap to hold the RSVP postcard, an info card, and an engagement photo of the couple. It was tied up with ribbon.

With shipping included, 125 5x7 invitations, 125 4 x 6 RSVP cards, 125 business card size details card, and half-size business card name plates for the front of the invitations was less than $75!

Other postcards we made and ordered from Overnight Prints include Emily's December Bridal Shower invitations.....

.....Wedding programs......

.....and thank you cards......

There is one other thing we ordered from Overnight Prints, which was a super good deal!  Emily and I loved the chalkboard look, and before I realized that it was possible and really fun to make chalkboards, I ordered a poster sized print of a chalkboard that I designed on PicMonkey.  It was super fun to make! 

PicMonkey is a great website for altering photos. To make this, I looked online for a chalkboard background and found one in a large resolution.  I trimmed it on PicMonkey to be the start size that Overnight Prints suggests for their posters.  (These posters were only $2.99 at the time I ordered - and that's a big 18" x 24" size!)  Next I downloaded fonts that I liked free on the internet.  Below are some great free fonts, and you can find out how to download them here.

Anyway, from PicMonkey, you can use their fonts or your own.  Arrange your chalkboard how you like using the fonts and graphics of your choosing.  Change them to white.  Once the poster arrived, I mounted it on some stained wood and rubbed over it with some chalk to make it look more like it was hand-lettered.

Like I said, "before I realized that it was possible and really fun to make chalkboards.....", in my next post I will show you and tell you how I learned how fun it is, (and how easy too!) to make some cool looking chalkboard art.

Oh yes....I mentioned it is lambing time here on the farm.  We have currently 9 little lambs (5 born in the last 2 hours!)  Here is a photo of Emily with a lamb this evening. (While she is married now, and lives in an apartment in town, you can't take the farmgirl out of the farm, and she's back for her farm fix lots....much to our great happiness!)

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

I'm back....!

In the past month I have been lying around recovering from surgery, and planning my next projects!  I can't wait to start sewing some Easter bunnies, but in the meantime, I finished some burlap banners that I put on my Etsy.  You can see them here.  These were kind of fun!  I made some for my Christmas shows, and thought I'd see how they do on Etsy.

We had a week of some real nasty snow, and drifts up to 6' high!  Finally got it plowed and now it's warmed up and raining.  Just in time for our lambs to start showing up!  Today our first little lamb was born, and more are sure to be arriving any time!

Today would've been my Grandma's 98th birthday!  I've always loved this picture of her that was taken years ago on the prairie in Montana.  I especially love how happy she looks holding up her two lambs!  Guess it was in my genes!

Hope you're enjoying this President's Day!

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

Happy Valentine's Day!

No new posts from Christmas to Valentine's Day!?  That's not right!  We're right in the middle of lambing season here on Prindle Mountain, and it's been an eventful almost-two months since my last post!  I've finished up my craft room (love!) and I'll post pictures next week!  Also, big stuff happening is our son proposed to his girlfriend a few days ago (YAY!), my husband turned 50, and our twins - the babies - turned 18!  Got caught up on a lot of January to-do things, so I'll be posting some new crafts and patterns soon!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Daughter, Kaitlyn, and our tiniest triplet lamb!

Primitive blessings!

~Laurie

Happy Spring!

Spring on Prindle Mountain!

After a long, wet winter/spring, we've finally had some good weather in our neck of the woods!  Last weekend was actually 80 degrees!  I've been taking advantage of our taste of summer, and doing lots and lots of yard work and landscaping, and now that it's rainy and April again, I'm back in the crafting room!

Yesterday I found some great upholstery remnants for super cheap at my favorite fabric store:  Fabric Depot in Portland, Oregon.  It's advertised as the largest fabric store in the nation (over 1.5 acres!) You could literally spend days in this store, and still not see everything!  My mind started thinking of what I could make with these great pieces, and I think I'm going to try my hand at some bags.  I've found some great blogs with free tutorials (I love tutorials! Not just a pattern, but PICTURES!)  Take a look here and here and here.  I'm excited to get started and see what I come up with!  I'll post pictures when I've got a bag done! 

I was happy to get an e-mail from one of my best, long-time customers, Lori King!  She has her own Etsy shop now, and wanted me to see the lamb she made with some of the sheep's wool I sell on my website.  She used my "MaryAnn and Hope" pattern.  Isn't this little lamb adorable!?

 

Here's a link to her Etsy Shop.

Prim blessings,

~Laurie

It's Finally March!

It's been a little while since I've posted. February was quite a month for us, and we're certainly glad to put it behind us! Started out February with two daughters, my husband, and myself sick. Relapses followed a few days later. Just about that same time we started lambing. We had 29 lambs born in 7 days! At one point, we had 10 in about 20 hours! This is exhausting even when you aren't sick, especially since we have to check the ewes for lambing problems about every 3 hours around the clock! And problems do arrive! We lost three lambs total this year, from mal-presentation (triplet stuck...was able to save the other two), to two trying to be born at the same time (saved one...lost Mom also). We had a lapse of 10 days, but had 4 lambs born last night, and have just one ewe left to lamb. We're certainly ready to be done! We are also bottle-feeding the lamb who lost his mother.

Also this month, one of our twins had to be rushed to the hospital and ended up having emergency surgery! She's on the mend now, but it's been one month we were certainly glad to see end!

Thinking about wondering back into the crafting room, so watch for some new patterns soon! Think Spring!

Primitive blessings,

~Laurie

New Puppy!

Today we brought our new Great Pyrenees Puppy home! As you know, we raise sheep, and living at the base of Prindle Mountain, there are coyotes, cougars, bears, and all sorts of critters that would like to make our sheep and their babies into dinner! We have a seven year old Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog, Bailey Jo, who is fabulous at protecting our sheep, but staying up all night and all day keeping track of our herd is getting to be too much for her. Our new puppy, Heidi, will be a big help when she gets bigger! Heidi was born in a barn and raised her first 6 weeks with goats, and now she is in our barn with sheep and lambs near her, and Bailey able to come in and visit. Raising livestock guardian pups is a lot different than bringing home a family pet that can sleep in the house and snuggle with you. They are amazing dogs, and we're so happy to have two of them now!

Spring sure is taking it's time coming here in our corner of the world! Lots and lots of rain, mud, cold temperatures, wind, and did I mention RAIN!?! We are sooooo ready for some nice warm, dry weather!

Primitive blessings,

Laurie

New design!

I'm back! While I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, it's been very busy around here! First of all, we now have 24 little lambs, with just 2 ewes left to go! Still checking them every 3 hours around the clock, so in between shepherding duties, catching up on missed sleep, and kid's activities, I have found a little time to design! In honor of lambing season, here is "MaryAnn and Hope"! This is an all-new style of doll. Her body is a wood block, her head is a 2-1/2" wood ball, and she stands alone on her dowel legs and paper clay shoes. Very little sewing is involved, and she actually goes together very quickly. "Hope" the sheep has needle felted actual sheep's wool, and is super fast and fun to make! I'll be working on the pattern for MaryAnn and her lamb, "Hope", this evening, and will have it on my website very soon!

A little about the names I've come up with for this pattern. Of course everyone knows the nursery rhyme, "Mary had a little lamb", but my "MaryAnn and Hope" pattern name comes from our earliest sheep! When we first started raising sheep many years ago, our three oldest kids got triplet lambs. Our daughter Ashley named her lamb "MaryAnn". During her long life, MaryAnn raised dozens of babies. One of her last sets of lambs were twin girls that Ashley named "Hope" and "Joy". We still have Hope and Joy. They are now 10 years old, and they have three nice, big healthy lambs between them! Here's a picture of Ashley with her very aged ewe MaryAnn, back in 2004.


Watch my website for four new patterns in the next few days!

Prim blessings,
Laurie

Grandpa's Quilt

I've been pretty busy the past few days getting some designs made for a craft magazine. I'm pretty excited about what I've come up with, but have to keep it secret until the magazine is released. More to come on that later!!!

We've got 15 little lambs now! So cute! Seven ewes left to go, and of course we're still checking them every 3 hours around the clock. Three little lambs arrived at 2:30 a.m. night before last....you just never can tell when they'll make an appearance!

I just came back in from checking on the sheep, and as I pulled on my old coveralls to keep my clothes clean, I started thinking about my Grandpa, who was the first owner of the nice, old comfy coveralls that I pulled on tonight. My Grandpa passed away in 2000. It was my first real experience with losing someone I loved so much, and I still think about him every day and miss him so much! He left a big hole in our family. As a way to keep Grandpa close, I gathered a bunch of his old jeans, flannel shirts, and dress shirts and made several small quilts for my family members after we lost Grandpa. Here is the quilt I made for us:

Just a cozy little lap quilt to curl up with, and brings to mind happy times spent with my Grandpa. "When this you see remember me" is embroidered on the bottom right corner of the quilt".

“Remember Me” comes from one of my Grandpa’s favorite songs, and it is one he used to sing and play frequently:

Remember me when the candle lights are gleamin'.
Remember me at the close of a long, long day.
An' it would be so sweet when all alone, I'm dreamin',
Just to know you still remember me.

Love you forever, Grandpa! :)

If you still have your Grandpa, please give him a big hug next time you see him!

Prim blessings,

Laurie

New supplies available!

Spent some time today cleaning out the ol' supply room! (A little early spring cleaning!?!?) I found some of my adorable sock monkey fabric that I used to make my Roxie Ann and Sox pattern just about a year ago. This has been one of my best-ever selling patterns, and I decided to list a limited supply of fabrics used in this pattern on my "Supplies" page on my website. This "kit" will also come with a pair of mini sock monkey socks. I also found some of my sweet Debbie Mumm bee fabric used in my Beatrix Ann & Buzzi pattern, and have that listed too. When I was advertising in Country Sampler, I was getting a lot of phone calls for finished dolls that I was selling the patterns to. I'm not getting as many of those requests now that I've discontinued that expensive advertising, but I'm happier designing new patterns regularly, rather than re-making over and over the same pattern I've already made. I'm happy to clear this fabric out, and get on with the next craft idea rolling around in my head!

I'm thinking that I need to make a new little Raggedy with a lamb. This would be timely with lambing in full-swing here on Prindle Mountain. Two adorable little twin lambs were born just today! Keep an eye out for a new pattern in the works!

Time to go check on those lambs....it's only 2:00 a.m. Yawwwwnnnnn! :)

Prim Blessings,
Laurie

Summer time!

Been busy, busy working on a new look to my website! You won't see it yet, but I'm in the designing stages. If you noticed that my website was down a couple of days ago....well, apparently my server is having problems and then decided to close up shop! I was given 2 days to move to another server and re-build my website! Yikes! Someone stepped up and bought the server so the threat of my website disappearing again tomorrow is now gone, but I'm not taking any chances and have already signed up with a new server. Should be a nice new look for my website when it's done, and I'm excited about the graphics I'm making! If you noticed a new look to the logo above...you're right! This is my grandparent's barn. No, not on Prindle Mountain....in fact, on the opposite side of the state, but I really wanted to use this picture! I spent a lot of time as a little kid playing in that barn, and somehow I didn't break any bones when a friend and I used to jump out of the window on the left hand side!

We're getting ready for our county fair here! Those little lambs a few posts down are now big and ready to go be market lambs! (See photo above!) Our girls are each showing two lambs, as well as taking five black Angus cows between them. Always a fun time!

I've been working on some new Santa and snowman patterns I hope to get on my website soon! I'm also looking ahead to the Christmas shows that are really right around the corner, and crafting like crazy!

My daughter and I found a wonderful estate sale last weekend! She was thrilled to find Fiestaware to add to her collection, while I packed the car with some great craft finds: Pendleton wool, old flour sacks, and some wonderful old canning jars that I couldn't pass up! Great prices and lots of fun!

Hope your summer is going well, and watch for some new patterns from Prindle Mountain Primitives soon!

Prim blessings,
~Laurie

Lambs are all here!

Yay! Hope finally had those babies, so we're all done lambing here on Prindle Mountain! Twenty three cute little babies running around in our barnyard! I noticed I said I'd post a picture back in February, so I guess I'd better!

I also noticed I'd mentioned taking pictures of my veils, so here's a picture of those on my beautiful girls, Ashley and Emily, with friend Kadie in the middle. I've made lots of them now, and am making some birdcage veils now too. If you need a veil....look me up! I'm also thinking about making an Etsy store for wedding veils and ring bearer pillows too. Busy, busy!

Time to do a little craftin' before bed!

Prim blessings, Laurie

Started an Etsy store!

Yay! Look at me! First a blog (although you'll note I haven't posted since February....a bit more on that later!) and now I set up an Etsy account! Thank you, dear friend Nancy, for your encouragement to do this! You'll find me at Etsy, listed under: PrindleMountainPrims. Check it out! I think this could be fun!

I guess my only excuse for not blogging since late February is that we've been busy lambing! Twenty one little lambs to date, with one ewe left to go! "Hope" is nine years old, and it seems like she is the last to go every year! We just keep "Hope"-ing and hoping she'll have those babies!!!

I did design a new Halloween-time Annie. She's not even on the website yet, since I haven't even made the pattern, but here's a sneak peak! I had to get something to Country Sampler for the fall issue, so I just got her done. What do you think!?

Spring has sprung here on Prindle Mountain Primitives! Hope it has wherever you are too!

Primitive Blessings,

Laurie

Lamb time!

If you've ever read "on the farm" on my website, you'll know that we also raise sheep here on Prindle Mountain. Thursday night lambing started! We have 13 ewes (down from the 25 or more we used to have....grain prices have gone through the roof!) Any way, two of those 13 now have cute little twins! Pictures later!

I have made 5 veils now. (And I didn't coffee stain even one of them!) Really kind of fun, and a totally different creative outlet than primitive dolls! Once I get a couple more made, I'll take them to the shop and see what they think. I plan to take some pictures of Emily wearing them, and I'll post some on here.

Beautiful, beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest! Hard to believe it's February when it's been 62 degrees, perfect blue sky days, and things are blooming left and right! Is it really still a month until Spring!?! Not the best weather for our neighbors to the north, however! (We're about 300 miles south of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.)

You'll notice I made sure to put "B.C." after "Vancouver". Vancouver, Washington is our nearest big city, and where our newspaper, etc. comes from. The folks in "our" Vancouver do NOT like being mistaken with Vancouver, B.C. There has even been talk of renaming Vancouver, Washington to Fort Vancouver, Washington. (Fort Vancouver is still a historical site here). For the record, though, our Vancouver came first, founded in 1825; whereas Vancouver, B.C. was incorporated in 1886.

Just a little history lesson! Gotta go check my lambs! :)

~Laurie

New patterns are out!

Yay! Got the new patterns on my website today! I hope I get a good response! I had fun working on all these new patterns and products!

Lambing time will be starting in about 2 weeks! We pared down our herd to just 13 ewes, since the economy tanked! We've had a really warm winter, and I am just crossing my fingers that the snow and ice doesn't decide to make an appearance when the lambs are due!

Time to get off the computer and enjoy my weekend!

~Laurie