Design Studio Progress

Hey, Hey,

It's been awhile but I wanted to make sure I popped in and showed you the progress on the design studio. If you missed the before shots you can see them here and here in these posts. I am loving the colors and how everything turned out. I still need to add finishing touches but I had to start getting some work done out here! I will be designing fabric line number six in this studio, I am so excited.

I have paintings and other inspiration on the wall. I hope to have more treasures out here soon to inspire me. I am imaging these walls to be filled by the time I am finished.

 I made some curtains for the windows...

My paints are ready and I couldn't be more

Talk to you soon!
Jennifer

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Studio Move - In

So this is what last Friday morning looked like. I was lucky that Nik and a couple of friends helped move everything to my studio. They piled it everywhere. My job was to come in on Friday and get it organized. Friday is usually my design day, but sometimes other things take priority like getting settled in the new studio.

Here is the view looking the other direction. The good news is I have moved studios so many times that I am pretty good at knowing where things work. This move in started with a bunch of piles. I basically sorted boxes into display, making, glazing, jewelry, etc.

Here are some of my piles.

This is our glazing station. This is where we spend most of our time. We all have our own table and then an extra for setting things. Recognize all of my blue tables? They were my walls at Quilt Market! I had eight of them and they make perfect work surfaces. I placed some on smaller tables and some I made saw horse bases for.


Here is my jewelry and retail area. My tables don't have legs yet, I was just trying to decide where they should go. These are all the photos I have for now. I have been working a bit more everyday but we have been making buttons and beads as well as organizing and hanging. My computer came in yesterday and I got a new utility sink that needs to be hooked up. I have curtains to make as well. When I head over today I will take pictures of the progress I have made.

I don't want to loose the post of my sale at the top of my blog so here is the information again about my two day online open house going on now.

OPEN HOUSE SALE

Hey, Hey, So starting today I am hosting an online open house. Wahoo, there's a big sale going on. It's running right now until the end of Saturday. Here's what's on sale. Everything in both Etsy shops is 30% off. Just enter Holiday30 in the coupon box when you check out. Everything is on sale at the Jangles website for 20% off. At the website you can enter Holiday20 to receive your discount. If your placing orders at both places I am always happy to ship your orders together to save on shipping. Etsy items are in stock, website beads will take a little longer to ship. Sorry this sale can't be combined with any other discounts.

Doing a Happy Dance

Hey Hey! Guess what? Yep, I got the space. I am super excited to have a studio, it's gigantic and close to home. Only a couple of miles, that's really good, because at my last studio I did a lot of traveling back and forth.

Let me give you the tour....

Here is the outside, nothing to exciting, but nice. I love the big windows, it is so bright inside and I don't even have the power turned on.



You walk in the green door and you enter this room. I am thinking this will be the reception/office area. It's a nice blue so I won't paint it. Well maybe I would add some stripes or polka dots... it is still to be decided.


After entering the reception area you immediately turn right into this big ol' room. This will be the store/studio space.


I am thinking the front will be the store and it will be partitioned with curtains. These curtains will be able to open and close. That way when I have open houses, craft nights, or what-have-ya, I can shut off the messy part. Messy? Oh no, it will never be messy, will it?


There are three rooms off to the left. One is a big storage closet, one is a restroom, and one will be a kiln room. These are all painted nicely too. The bathroom is green. There was a Montessori school in here once, so I think that's why everything is bright. Because of the Montessori school there is also one of those tiny toilets next to the full size toilet in the bathroom. Just like I thought, my boys thought it was the best part of the studio and I couldn't get them off of it to take a picture! If you ever come visit, you can see the tiny toilet too!


I am taking votes on colors...I can't believe I am saying this but I have so many lime green, yellow, and turquoise rooms at home, I am thinking I need something different. I realize that I still will probably choose something close, but I was hoping to mix it up a bit. Got any suggestions?


Okay now that you have had the tour, here are a couple of other funny side notes....

I posted the previous studio post last week. Immediately the news traveled and I couldn't believe how fast. First of all my Grandma, who by the way, reads my blog everyday. (Hi Grandma!) called my dad to ask him about it. My parents had no idea so they e-mailed. Next, one of my employees, Katie, was out of town. She read my blog and e-mailed me about it. Nik's mom e-mailed....all of a sudden I had an inbox full of "Where's the studio?" questions. You blog readers are informed on all the latest Jangles news and sometimes even before the folks near me know. Things happen fast around here, that's why you have to read the blog. :)

Second side note...I officially get the place on December first, my business license will hopefully be approved on the 8th. I am thinking about hosting an open house on the 11th. What do you think, can I pull it off? I really want to have a shin-dig before the holidays. I will keep you posted because you're all invited!

Have a great day,

The Search for a Studio

Isn't this studio great? Just drool with me for it bit.....It was almost mine....It's in a section of a warehouse that is converted into lofts, artists studios, and small businesses. About three months ago, I went and looked at it. It had been for sale for quite a while so they decided to lease it. I called the landlord the day after looking at it. An hour before someone had called to say they were buying it. Ugh...I guess it was one of those too goo to be true things.


That is what began the search for a studio. There was more space available in the same building, it just need to be finished out. I drew up plans, we had many meetings, and the property manager was to call some builders out for estimates. That was three months ago, I called every week for a couple of those months. He told me he was working on it, but then I slowly began to realize this just wasn't going to happen.

I have looked at lots of properties since then. Some were too much money, some I later found out had landlords with bad reputations, and mostly people would just not call me back. Seriously in this economy and people can seem to call me back? It just seems people would want to rent their space, right?

Nik and I had settled for awhile that Jennifer Jangles would just be in the basement. In some ways that's great, but with trying to park cars in the driveway, me not really being able to get away from work, and worst of all is not having anywhere to go when our boys have their friends over is just too much. Our house has become half the size because of the studio growing.

So here is the good news...I might have found a place. I called the landlord and was going to meet him later that day to look at the space. I decided I would be the flakey one this time and cancel. It seemed too big and I just wasn't thinking it was going to work. I was headed out to the post office an hour before my appointment and for some reason I turned right instead of left and headed for the studio space. I thought I would just go check it out through the windows. I peeked in and it was nice, really nice. Just a big ol square with some bathrooms and a place for my kilns. I turned around to leave deciding to leave and the landlord was pulling up. He was early, so we checked it out, I then went and met my neighbors who were super nice. I did some other checking and found out the landlord is a good guy. I called him yesterday and told him I wanted it. Wahoo!

He's getting a lease written so it's not official, I haven't signed a thing. I am not super excited yet, but I am sure this is because of all the flakey people I have dealt with so far. But I am optimistic, I think it's going to happen. As soon as I sign the lease I will go take pictures and show you.

Of course my brain is reeling, this was always going to be just a studio but it's large and it's in a retail location. I could have a store, I could have classes, or open houses, oh my! So many ideas. I would love to hear your suggestions....

Happy Friday!

Coming Along

Hey, Hey! Things are coming along in the studio. I have been working really hard to get things back into place. I just want my studio back to normal! Above is a picture of my walls after the drywall had been put up. It was part of my inspiration for the floor color. Michelle from Beadalotta had commented on my blog about yellow and aqua would make it have a beachy feel. That stuck with me because I love the beach. So I went to the store and picked out a turquoise and when I came home and had it in the studio, it matched the drywall exactly! I was torn where to put it though and when I saw it underneath the yellow, I knew it had to be the floor. I had really thought I was going to add some lime green and maybe a periwinkle but once they were in the studio light they made me sick-ish. I don't think I could have handle a whole studio. That's when I realized the reason I originally went with the yellow was to be cheerful and bright. There was not going to be another color to top it. I stuck with the same. I did paint over the flowers, etc. that I had on the walls. Once things get messy in here it gets really crazy. Right now I realize it's a bit boring, but trust me give it a month and I will be thankful. You can see a picture below of the studio in progress. I will do better and more photos down the road.
Have a great day,

Studio Re-do

Hey Hey,

I just found out that I am going to get to paint my studio this weekend! Wahoo. Not that I am really excited about painting, it's more that I am excited to get things back to normal. I scored a paint chip fan book thingy at a thrift sale last weekend. I bought it just to have all those colors in one place, I thought it could be handy for designing fabric. It never crossed my mind that I might actually use it for selecting paint. I found myself searching through it last night. I think I came up with a pretty cool combo. More on that later...

In the meantime, I have been thinking about the things I like and don't like about my studio. It's not that anything was really bad, it's just here's my chance to tweak things. In the last studio I did a lot of painting on the walls. I have some big flowers painted on one wall, some stripes, and some dots. I have found that it really gets lost in there. Plus, I found myself always rearranging to not cover up certain elements. This time the walls will be solid and then the focus will be more on what's in the place.

I also found I have no where to store finished projects. When it was jewelry only, I had a tabletop with some stands and that was enough to hold and display it. Now that I have been doing more mixed media and sewing, the projects are bigger and piling up. I need some shelves.

The lighting has never been good. Since I had an electrician in the studio the other day we spoke about my lighting options. I am going to go look tonight and see what I can find. but I am thinking track lights.

I would also like a giant bulletin board. When I was designing my first line of fabrics I found myself taping printed papers out in any flat surface. I need to let things hang for awhile so I can walk by and think about them. I also would like a place to hang quilts in progress. I am thinking a big foam board covered in flannel would double as a bulletin board and a quilt layout board.

And one last thing, I need a better sewing area. I am hoping for some kind of sewing table on wheels. Something gigantic. I find myself using my big studio table all of the time for the project du jour. I would like a couple big tables like that so I can have more than one thing going on.

Now fitting all of these things in to my studio is going to be difficult. I am guessing there will be lots of rearranging to get it right.

Whew! Let's see it's Friday and sometimes I do a give away but let's do something different today. How about 25% off of retail sales in the Etsy shop? I will take the discount and send you an updated invoice or I can credit your paypal account with the 25%. The sale will run through until Monday at 6:00 am.

Have a great weekend!

Big and Noisey Week

Good Morning! It's here, it's the week they are going to fix my basement. Wahoo! After nine weeks of leaking water straight, today is the day it's going to end. Or at least that's what they tell me. :) Here is a picture of my studio today. Gulp...not so pretty and very dusty. Today is going to be worse, they are bringing in the jack hammers. I am planning on being in the glaze studio, it the farthest away from the noise but I think it's still going to be loud.

I put the little snail bead above because I hate to see the first picture of my post be an ugly one. He's a bead I made instead of a charm. I have a couple listed in my Etsy shop right now.

My comments from the give away were great. I got some good suggestions for new beads, I am always up for a challenge so I am going to see if I can come up with some of them. The winner of my Friday Give Away is comment number 14 from the random number generator(I love that thing!). Shona Murphy, Congratulations! I will mail out your owl and twig today.

Now that my studio is pretty torn up and I have to paint, I am stuck with a dilemma. Do I paint it the same color again or do I go with something totally different? What do you think? I would love a lime green wall but I am thinking I might not like it with the yellow. What ever it is, it has to be bright, it's a basement room without windows.

Have a great day!

It's Done!

Yahoo! There it is, my new studio. I got the last piece today. The coffee table.,I found it at the Habitat for Humanity Store in town. I love that place. It was an old school table and it has adjustable legs. It works perfect for my coffee table/bead designing table. Let me show you around....
This is my wall of storage. The table on the left holds my ceramic beads. The cabinets hold all of my other craft supplies, display items, and packaging.
There is my big pegboard with my bead strands.
This is my designing area. See, I make ceramic beads all day and then I like to design at night in my down time. This is my solution, I can plop on the couch, watch some TV and design in comfort. That's what I will be doing tonight.

I will take some better pictures and some close-ups later in the week. I need to get my lamps fixed, I have two that broke during the move. Okay it's off to work in my new space.
Jennifer