Moving Day!

The big day finally arrived.  Everything in the old house was finally packed up.

We’d labeled all the boxes with which room they should go to. Then we labeled the rooms in the new house, so the movers would know where to place things.  There’s my studio on the right.

And here comes the furniture. The men are moving my beloved printers cabinet into my studio and I am hovering around making sure that they baby it, (They did.  They were awesome).

Carefully putting the cabinet in place.

My studio at the end of the day. Lots of work still to be  done!

If you look at the second picture in this post, you’ll see an empty bookshelf.  We had many of these shelving units in our old living room,  because we’re both avid readers. However our new, much smaller living room will only hold one tall bookshelf and one that is half that tall.  So we donated probably two thirds of our books to the library and then placed all the extra bookshelves in my studio!  I had long dreamed of having a whole wall of shelves to contain all my supplies!

On the second day in the new house we started re-assembling the shelves in my studio. You can see that one tall bookshelf is already in place and one short shelf unit has been assembled.  A screw driver lies atop the shelf, ready for assembling the remaining shelves.  Altogether, I now have 3 tall units and 2 short ones.  A dream come true!

Here’s what the other side of the studio looked like at that point.

More progress has been made over the past week, but I’m not quite ready to show it off yet.  Perhaps I’ll turn the tables on the idea of a house warming gift.  Instead, I think that I’ll have a giveaway with my next blog post. We could have 2 winners.  One person could win a pair of earrings and one person could win a ceramic pendant.  What do you think?  I’ll  mull over this idea (which just now occurred to me!) a bit and see what I can come up with before my next post.  Stay tuned!

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

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On To The Next Chapter

This week we’re closing one chapter of our lives and moving on to the next.  As long as I can remember I’d dreamed of having a house in the woods.  We made that dream come true 11 years ago and it has been wonderful.

Forest visitor.

However, as the years have passed, the yard and large house have become more difficult to keep up with.  So after much thought, we are downsizing and moving to a retirement community that is only about 20 minutes away from our current home.

We will start schlepping some of the smaller items over to our new house on Thursday and the moving van will finish the task on Friday!

Our current house is all packed up and we’re practically camping here.  Well that’s a bit of an overstatement, however everything but the bare essentials is in boxes.

I left some glazes out and may have some time before before Thursday to glaze some bisqueware.  Fingers crossed.  I have missed doing anything creative for the past few weeks. Taping together packing boxes just doesn’t fit the bill, I’m afraid!

So, would you like to go on a tour of the new house!  It will never again look this clean!!!  A bit of a disclaimer:  I have a bit of a wide angle lens on my  camera which makes everything look bigger than it really is.  This is the  living room and the dining area is on the right.

The next two pictures show my studio from two different angles.  It’s a bit smaller than my current space, but not much.

The open door leads to the hall.  The master bedroom is to the right, the kitchen/living room/dinning area is to the left.

Here’s our new kitchen.  The house itself isn’t new, but it was completely redone on the inside and we got to choose all the surface treatments, lights etc.

I’m sad to leave my home in the woods, but I am looking forward to the many new opportunities that will be available to us, because of this move.  I’ll be writing more  about that in the weeks to come, (hint: the retirement community has an amazing, full ceramics studio!)

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

Sweet Silk Strands

The package arrived a bit late from Germany, but look at what I just got from my sister and brother-in-law for  Christmas!

This is 2 dozen dyed silks in brilliant jewel tones!  When my sister-in-law visited us last summer, she was shocked at how much dyed silks cords cost at Shipwreck Beads.  So she went all out in providing me a lifetime supply of silks! Below are another 2 dozen silks, all in watery cool tones.

Oh my goodness, I’m going to have so much  fun designing with these!  It might be a little while until they start showing up in my shop, though, because we’re moving on Feb. 12th and my studio is mostly in boxes at the moment.  I looking forward to getting resettled and  having some creative time again.

Here’s a picture of all the silks together. Which silk color(s) do you like best? I’d like to know.  Tell me in the comments, please.

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

Linda Landig Jewelry

July Component Of The Month Reveal

This month’s  Component Of The Month was made by Art Jewelry Elements (AJE) team member Niky Sayers.  Niky, who is from London, England, used 2 old farthing coins to make a very cool bead.  I didn’t know how much a farthing was worth or when it had been in use, so I looked it up.  A farthing was worth a quarter of an old penny and there were also half farthings and 3 quarter farthings.  They were taken out of circulation in 1961.

I knew that I wanted to make a multi-strand bracelet with my farthing bead.  I thought this raku bead, from Odd Designs, would add some color while also tying in with the coppery color of the coin.  At that point I decided to go for blue and coppery brown in the whole bracelet, along with some smaller spots accent colors.

The blue lampwork glass bead (above, right) by Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions was perfect for my third focal bead.

Each of the three strands of smaller beads has a mix of blue and brown glass beads, with some accent colors and some small copper heshe..  Although each strand is different, they all have some blue glass seed beads with a copper sheen and some of the copper heshe.  These common components help  to tie the overall design together. I  finished the bracelet with a handmade ceramic button by Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio.

Thank you Niky for sharing your awesome metalsmithing skills with us in the form of this uber-cool bead!  In addition to the AJE team members, 3 lucky guest artists also received farthing beads. My Farthing Bracelet is available in the bracelet section of my shop.

Check out the blogs listed below to see what everyone else made with their farthings.

Guest Artists

Rebecca Anderson
Nan Smith

Jess Green

AJE Team 
Niky Sayers

Sue Kennedy

Kristen Stevens

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lindsay Starr

Caroline Dewison

Lesley Watt

Linda Landig
Rebekah Payne

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.!

Linda Landig Jewelry

Aurora Borealis

This month I am excited to be Erin Prais-Hintz’s Pretty Palettes partner.  Pretty Palettes is a monthly challenge that Erin hosts on the Halcraft Inspiration blog. Halcraft is a company that produces several different lines of beads for various retailers. Their Bead Gallery® line is made exclusively for Michaels. Each month Erin chooses a theme and selects Halcraft beads inspired by that month’s theme.  July’s theme is Aurora Borealis.

Photo by Julien Ratel ( Júllí Jónsson ) Creative Commons

Erin also chooses someone to partner with her each month.  As her July partner I received this fabulous set of Bead Gallery beads and the pendant.  Its hard to catch the shimmer and shine of these beads in a photograph.  They are super inspiring!  Others can play along with this challenge as well.  They can purchase these beads if they want and/or use beads from their stash.  My designs will be a combination of the Halcraft beads and coordinating beads from my stash.

So far I’ve made one item and I’m working on more. I can’t show you what I’ve made until the reveal date, which is July 29th.  But I will say that I have used almost the whole strand of beads that is on the far right in the photo above and I love how it turned out!  I hope you will come back on the 29th for the Pretty Palettes reveal!Linda Landig Jewelry

Be Mine, Valentine

Happy Valentine’s Day.  I love my readers.  I never take you for granted.  I wish you a lovely day and I send you my deepest appreciation!

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry

January 2015 in Review

The first month of 2015 has gone by in a rush.  Our big adventure is that we are living in Oaxaca, Mexico through the end of March.  We celebrated the New Year in Oaxaca by dancing to an awesome marimba band and watching fireworks.

Llano Park, Oaxaca Mexico

Skeleton paintings on a building in Oaxaca

Of course I brought beads with me here and I’ve been busy designing new pieces.  Oaxaca has been good for my creative mojo.

New in January –

Azul Bracelet

Azul Bracelet

Caramel Drop Earrings

Caramel Drop Earrings

Night Flight Necklace

Night Flight Necklace

After Midnight Necklace

After Midnight Necklace

Mexican Flor Earrings

Mexican  Flor Earrings

Turquoise Snowflake Necklace

Turquoise Snowflake Necklace

I’ve also been blogging like a crazy woman.

To read more about our Oaxacan adventures –

Mi Casa Es Su Casa  

Peaceful Patio

Birthday Celebration in Oaxaca

Some of my recent jewelry designs –

Snowflake Necklace

Use Your Stash – January AJE Reveal

On Earrings Everyday –

Mexican Flor

Cedar Earrings

On Art Jewelry Elements –

Have Beads, Will Travel

5 Pretty Marsala Color Palettes

I am always delighted to read your comments!   Hope to hear from you.

-Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry