Moving Along..........

Well, here it is, a week since we "started" the move. Doing it ourselves is taking some time but we've got most of the big stuff moved. Getting the boxes into the areas where they will be unpacked is almost complete, now just to get them unpacked!

We moved to a great little town, right on the Fox River in Illinois. It's called Montgomery, population 14,470 and everyone we have met so far is just wonderful. Friendly, helpful, and just all around good people.

Lots of shopping close by, several big "malls" with anchor stores such as Best Buy, Farm & Fleet, Dicks Sporting Goods, along with the standard big box stores like Wal-Mart and KMart. Two or three large grocery stores are all within a mile of home, and there are all types of other smaller retail stores, like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, to name a few.

I also found a bead store about a mile from home, in the next town, but it looks to be a nice one. Would be nice to have something other than the usual retail suppliers to get supplies from, one that has an selection of quality beads that aren't all in prepackaged quantities. From what I saw on their web site, they have beading classes; and also do parties in the shop, such as a bridal party making jewelry for the wedding, or just a group getting together to create beaded projects together. The name is A Beadtiful Thing and they are on Montgomery Road, in Aurora IL.

There are a few restaurants that we found, but our favorite is Grandma's Table on Douglas Road, right in Montgomery. Grandma's is actually the one we have been to the most. Great food, great people, great atmostphere. This is one that is also very close to home and right in the heart of the shopping areas that we frequent. The chicken noodle soup is fantastic, and they serve it every day along with a daily soup. Another of my favorite dishes is Grandma's Pot Roast. Tastes like my mother is in their kitchen! And the Atkins cheesecake is to die for! Sugar free but you would never know it, and with a hint of cinnamon. yummmmmyyyyy

We have Dunkin Donuts nearby, the Post Office is only a half mile away, and banks convenient no matter which way we go.

Now all I have to do is find a pizza place and a Chinese restaurant that compares to the ones we frequented when we lived in Lockport.

Our Park District has three fitness centers but haven't had a chance to go check them out. The online info about them looks very promising tho, and one has 3 pools in its aquatic center. Probably going to need a membership at one of them really soon since we are finding all these great food places to eat at!

My Own Domain

Well, I did it. Last night I took the plunge and registered designsbyrukar.com. I haven't built a site yet, still in the idea stage. I plan on eventually having it set up as a full-fledged e-commerce site to sell my jewelry and accessories, and probably some other things, like vintage and collectibles.

But to get it started, I will post pictures of my jewelry with the link to buy it linking to my Etsy shop. Once I get the site tweaked just the way I like it, there will be a shopping cart on it so my buyers don't have to go to any other sites.

I don't plan on closing my Etsy shop. I like Etsy because of the networking and helpfulness of the other members there. I will probably have some of the same items there that I will on my new site. This way if someone wants to buy something without registering on Etsy, they can do it this way. I have a lot of friends and friends of friends that want to buy from me but don't want to register to do it.

Wish me luck!

Found A New Bead Store!

Today I was introduced to a new bead store. I was on a quest with my son's girlfriend to find a bead so we could fix her bracelet. She has a Lia Sophia bracelet, a 3-strand beaded bracelet with black beads, gunmetal ball end eye pins and gunmetal clasp. The bead we needed was a 10mm faceted Czech bead. None of my usual places carried this bead in 10mm. Plenty of 8mm and 12mm, but no 10mm. After making stops at 3 places, she mentioned that there was a bead shop near her house which is a few towns over. Since we were near there, we decided to check it out. Voila!!! We no sooner walked in the door than her sharp eyes spotted the beads in a drawer of a display unit. My eyes were still adjusting to the change in the lighting, but I could see it would do the job. It was a Swarovski, and the bracelet was made with Czech, but the only difference we could see was the price. I'm sure a Czech glass bead would have cost less, but having none to be found, this was our best choice. The new bead is the one at the top center, next to one of the originals. (You can see that it is unattached to the rest.)

The next leg of my quest was locating the gunmetal findings, which we didn't see at any of our previous stops, and the bead shop only carried a few findings, earring and necklace components.

So, when we got back home, I fired up my laptop, made a pot of coffee (3rd one today and it was only 2:30pm), and proceeded to check out all my online sources. Very few of them carry the gunmetal head/eye pins and/or the wire, but the hard part was finding the ball end headpin. After searching through all the jewelry supply sites that I could find, I remembered that there were a few stores on etsy that had supplies. After flipping through a few pages of my search results, I finally found a source for my headpins. The picture was very clear, and the color was right on to what we needed. So I ordered, paid and already got my response from the seller that they will be mailed out on Monday. Being that Monday is a holiday, I anticipate not getting them until Friday, which will be perfect since I don't get much bead work done during the week.

All in all it was a good day. I had an enjoyable afternoon with my son's girlfriend as we had our fun in the craft stores, discovered a new bead store that I intended to get back to on occasion, and I found everything I will need to put her bracelet back together. Oh, and yes, I did buy more beads at the new bead store. Watch for the new items in my shop in the next few weeks.