Prime Publishing LLC

FaveCrafts Launches Online Crafting Classes

Northbrook, IL — FaveCrafts is excited to announce the launch of their virtual crafting classes, FaveCrafts Studio Live. This new venture allows for crafters of all skill levels to hone their skills, learn a new technique, or pick up a new hobby altogether — all from the comfort of their home, where they always have a front row seat.

These one-hour classes are hosted online via Zoom and are taught by various crafting experts in the industry. Classes range in topics and have included a DIY Christmas Wreath, Painted Mason Jar Vase, Crochet 101 and Knitting 101.

With so many of us spending more time at home this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, these online courses are not only a great way to spend your time, but also provide a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles. 

It may even help your overall health — both mentally and physically. “Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain,” experts say, according to a CNN study. “It may also ease stress, increase happiness and protect the brain from damage caused by aging.” 

Our next class, Learn to Crochet with Marly Bird, takes place Wednesday, November 18, 2020. Sponsored by our friends at I Like Crochet, this free one-hour class is a great refresher course on all things crochet. Brush up on your stitches, build your confidence, or try a brand new hobby.

Be sure to reserve your spot today — seats are limited! 

FaveCrafts Launches Online Crafting Classes

Northbrook, IL — FaveCrafts is excited to announce the launch of their virtual crafting classes, FaveCrafts Studio Live. This new venture allows for crafters of all skill levels to hone their skills, learn a new technique, or pick up a new hobby altogether — all from the comfort of their home, where they always have a front row seat.

These one-hour classes are hosted online via Zoom and are taught by various crafting experts in the industry. Classes range in topics and have included a DIY Christmas Wreath, Painted Mason Jar Vase, Crochet 101 and Knitting 101.

With so many of us spending more time at home this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, these online courses are not only a great way to spend your time, but also provide a great opportunity to flex your creative muscles. 

It may even help your overall health — both mentally and physically. “Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain,” experts say, according to a CNN study. “It may also ease stress, increase happiness and protect the brain from damage caused by aging.” 

Our next class, Learn to Crochet with Marly Bird, takes place Wednesday, November 18, 2020. Sponsored by our friends at I Like Crochet, this free one-hour class is a great refresher course on all things crochet. Brush up on your stitches, build your confidence, or try a brand new hobby.

Be sure to reserve your spot today — seats are limited! 

AllFreeSewing Celebrates National Sewing Month 2020

Northbrook, IL – Prime Publishing’s annual National Sewing Month promotion in September has concluded its seventh year. Throughout the month, AllFreeSewing.com shared a variety of brand new tutorials, projects, printables, and sewing guides.

Along with a few no-sew projects perfect for beginners, AllFreeSewing launched a free newsletter dedicated to no-sew crafting, Simply No Sew. With this newsletter, subscribers will discover how to use up their fabric stash to create stylish DIY no-sew projects—no sewing machine required!

The 2020 National Sewing Month promotion received over 280,794 pageviews and 71,149 entries for the month’s giveaways, which included a Mega Handi Quilter HQ Stitch 710 Machine grand prize worth $3495.

The best of National Sewing Month 2020 included a mixture of helpful resources, projects, and collections. The guide, Sewing for Charity: What to Know in 2020, provided useful information in the time of COVID-19.

The top project was No-Sew Fabric Christmas Gift Tag Ornaments. Readers also enjoyed the printable Sewing Machine Paper Practice Sheets and Sewing Cards for Kids, both ideal for sewists of all skill levels.

“We wanted to welcome anyone, whether they sew or not, to celebrate and learn with these easy and approachable projects and resource pages to help them learn and understand the inner-workings of everything related to sewing and improve their skills,” said Krista Childers, editor of AllFreeSewing and the organizer of the promotion.

AllFreeSewing Celebrates National Sewing Month 2020

Northbrook, IL – Prime Publishing’s annual National Sewing Month promotion in September has concluded its seventh year. Throughout the month, AllFreeSewing.com shared a variety of brand new tutorials, projects, printables, and sewing guides.

Along with a few no-sew projects perfect for beginners, AllFreeSewing launched a free newsletter dedicated to no-sew crafting, Simply No Sew. With this newsletter, subscribers will discover how to use up their fabric stash to create stylish DIY no-sew projects—no sewing machine required!

The 2020 National Sewing Month promotion received over 280,794 pageviews and 71,149 entries for the month’s giveaways, which included a Mega Handi Quilter HQ Stitch 710 Machine grand prize worth $3495.

The best of National Sewing Month 2020 included a mixture of helpful resources, projects, and collections. The guide, Sewing for Charity: What to Know in 2020, provided useful information in the time of COVID-19.

The top project was No-Sew Fabric Christmas Gift Tag Ornaments. Readers also enjoyed the printable Sewing Machine Paper Practice Sheets and Sewing Cards for Kids, both ideal for sewists of all skill levels.

“We wanted to welcome anyone, whether they sew or not, to celebrate and learn with these easy and approachable projects and resource pages to help them learn and understand the inner-workings of everything related to sewing and improve their skills,” said Krista Childers, editor of AllFreeSewing and the organizer of the promotion.

Prime Publishing Hosts Cards for Veterans Charity Drive

Northbrook, IL – From October 3 – November 11, 2020, Prime Publishing is hosting a Card Drive for Veterans through its website FaveCrafts.com. Prime has partnered with Help Heal Veterans, an organization that provides free therapeutic arts and crafts kits to hospitalized and homebound veterans.

Readers are encouraged to send a card — homemade or manufactured– to a recovering veteran or military member. The cards will then be added to a Therapeutic Craft Kit assembled by our friends at Help Heal Veterans. These craft kits help injured and recuperating veterans improve fine motor skills, cognitive functioning, manage stress and substance abuse, cope with symptoms of PTSD and TBI, while also improving their sense of self-esteem and overall physical and mental health.

The design and message of the cards donated are up to you. For card tutorials and inspiration, check out our collection of Handmade Cards for Every Occasion.

Learn more about how you can donate to our Cards for Veterans Charity Drive here.

Learn more about how you can support our friends at Help Heal Veterans here.

AllFreeCrochet Celebrates 10th Birthday With Landmark Promotion

Northbrook, IL – To mark its 10^th year in business, AllFreeCrochet hosted a month-long promotion in June featuring 30 new patterns from reader-favorite crochet designers and brands. The first event of its kind for Prime Publishing, this landmark celebration engaged fans on the AllFreeCrochet website, on social media, and in email newsletters, generating more than 270,000 pageviews over the course of its monthlong run.   

Each day from June 1, 2020 through June 30, 2020, a new pattern was revealed on the AllFreeCrochet Birthday Celebration hub page, as well as in the Hooked on Crochet newsletter, which mails to more than 200,000 active subscribers daily. Patterns included reader favorites such as crochet blankets, hats, sweaters, amigurumi, and more. Twenty of AllFreeCrochet’s top bloggers provided patterns for the promotion, along with companies including Darn Good Yarn and LoveCrafts.

The Birthday Celebration also included two giveaways where readers had a chance to win prizes from Darn Good Yarn and LoveCrafts. Darn Good Yarn offered a $100 gift card and LoveCrafts offered 20 balls of their new Paintbox 100% Worsted yarn. In total, the two giveaways received more than 21,000 pageviews and more than 12,000 entries.

“Sharing 10 new crochet patterns with our readers to celebrate AllFreeCrochet’s 10th Birthday was the original goal for this event, but we were so blown away by the enthusiasm and talent of so many crochet designers and yarn companies that we were able to feature a new pattern every single day of our birthday month,” said Laura Piantanida, editor of AllFreeCrochet and the organizer of the promotion. “AllFreeCrochet’s 10th Birthday Celebration was an amazing reflection of the creativity and support we have received from the passionate crochet community over the past ten years. This constant support from our crochet family has enabled AllFreeCrochet to become the crochet-lover’s oasis it is today.”

Prime Publishing Wins Two Email Hero Awards

Northbrook, IL— Prime Publishing received two honors in the second-annual Email Hero Awards, which recognizes the best of the best in email marketing. Prime was awarded Honorable Mentions for Best Subject Line and Best Newsletter. The competition, held exclusively for Return Path customers, is judged by a panel of four Return Path email experts and a member of the Email Experience Council Member Advisory Committee.

The Best Subject Line award was given to a marketing campaign for Prime’s I Like Knitting Magazine. The winning subject line – ‘Please Accept or Decline Your Benefits’ – first ran in October 2019 and generated a 42% open rate, an increase of 83% over the previous subject line. Pairing this attention-grabbing subject line with a strong creative that outlined the benefits of I Like Knitting’s premium Gold Club made for one of Prime’s most successful marketing mailings, accounting for 28% of all orders generated from promotional email in October.

The Best Newsletter award was given to a campaign for the Everyday Crochet newsletter from FaveCrafts. With a subject line of ‘What to Crochet in March’ and content themed to the occasions of the month (e.g. ‘Dr. Seuss Day’, ‘Learn About Butterflies Day,’ ‘Waffle Day’, etc.), this newsletter earned an incredible 279.19% CTO rate, demonstrating that readers were very highly engaged. Since the February 2019 release of this issue, this same strategy has been successfully replicated on other crafting newsletters from Prime as well.

Prime Publishing produces more than 50 email newsletters in the crafting, DIY, and cooking niches, engaging more than 4.8 million active consumers daily. For a full list of free newsletter subscriptions, please visit: https://www.favecrafts.com/section/subctr

Prime Publishing Hosts Fifth Annual Prayer Shawls for Charity Drive

Northbrook, IL —  AllFreeCrochet and AllFreeKnitting proudly partnered with Rush University Medical Center and JourneyCare during November 2019 for our fifth annual Prayer Shawls for Charity Drive. Together, with the help of our readers, 223 homemade knit and crochet prayer shawls were collected.

The shawls will be donated to families on JourneyCare’s inpatient Chicago hospice unit. “They are a huge comfort for families,” says Deb Donnelly, Licensed Clinical Social Worker at JourneyCare. Those that receive the blankets are “deeply appreciate,” she continues.

This year, hundreds of knitters and crocheters from around the country sent in shawls to donate along with personal notes for the patients receiving the shawls.

“It’s always so wonderful to give back,” says Jenny Bowden, Editorial Manager at Prime Publishing. Seeing all of these homemade donations flood into our office never gets old, and it’s so heartwarming to unbox the shawls and read the touching messages that were sent along with them. Our readers are incredibly compassionate and giving, and to know each shawl is going to such a deserving person in need… there’s really nothing better.” 

The charity drive, in its fifth consecutive year, collected 223 completed knit and crochet shawls that will be shared with local hospice patients. For more information on the Prayer Shawls at Rush initiative, and to learn how you can make a difference, please check out Rush’s Facebook page here.

Prime Publishing Launches SEO Consultation Services

Northbrook, IL — Prime Publishing, LLC is pleased to announce the launch of its search engine optimization (SEO) consultation services for bloggers. This new service provides expert evaluations to match current SEO standards and user experience needs that can help increase site traffic and visibility.

Prime Publishing’s senior editors, the Audience Development Team, will use their resources and knowledge to assess clients’ blogs and provide actionable next steps for site style, design, and SEO.

To fit the needs of every blogger, two packages are available. The silver package is a $99 service that evaluates websites on three essential aspects of SEO and concludes with a personal 30-minute phone consultation. The gold package is a $495 service that includes in-depth reporting and site-wide analysis, concluding with a personal one-hour video consultation to review the audit and copies of all reports.

“We analyze the top pages on your website to make sure that they target the best keywords. We also look at other important ranking factors such as links and user experience,” says Kristin Anderson, Audience Development Team Lead. “Our gold evaluation will include a site analysis report that includes all of your ranking keywords and an analysis of your top competitors.”

Prime Publishing has launched 30+ food and craft properties over the last 10 years and receives more than 40 million monthly page views, has six million eNewsletter subscribers, and 600 thousand followers and subscribers across Facebook, Pinterest, and other popular social media platforms. Combined, the Audience Development Team editors have over 15 years of experience in SEO and web publishing.

“Things change so quickly these days in the world of online publishing, it can be hard to keep up with the latest best practices,” says Jenny Bowden, Editorial Manager at Prime Publishing. “Our team of experts can help teach you what WE know best — how to drive more traffic to your site and how to get your website to rank in Google. This will, in turn, allow you (the blogger) more time to focus on what YOU know best – creating great content.”

For more information, contact Kristin Anderson.

AllFreeSewing Celebrates National Sewing Month 2019

Northbrook, IL – Prime Publishing’s annual National Sewing Month promotion in September has concluded its sixth year. Throughout the month, AllFreeSewing.com shared a variety of new sewing and fabric projects, videos, giveaways, and a charity event.

New for 2019 was the participation in the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge. In partnership with The Quilter’s Trunk, an inspired Chicago sewing boutique, AllFreeSewing collected pillowcase donations all month-long. The goal was to provide some comfort and connection to those in need by making and donating pillowcases to local charities. We received 111 donations to support the local Chicago charity, A New Direction, that helps women and children who have experienced domestic violence.

Along with the charity donations, this promotion received 187,879 pageviews and 50,565 entries for the grand prize, a Janome Sewist 780DC Sewing Machine valued at $1,099.

New tutorials featured during National Sewing Month included a beautiful Poppy Mini Market Bag Sewing Pattern by Molly Freudenberg from Craft Weekly, a Scandinavian Flowers Cushion Pattern by Anna Wilson from Tea and a Sewing Machine, and a Cinnamon Stick Christmas Tree Ornaments Tutorial by Krista Childers, the editor at AllFreeSewing.