And the three days of class were just beyond what I had imagined! I learned so much; Karen is an excellent instructor and so generous with her design ideas. Very nice lunches (Tim). I really appreciated Tim´s frequent checks during the days if we wanted coffe/tea, and that he shopped what I needed for my evening meal.

You may see this exact same review on a couple of different sites, (tripadvisor, google etc), we really can’t recommend it highly enough and it was the least we could do after the amazing experience Tim and Karen gave us.

Happy Holidays!

We had come all the way from Australia for this course and it exceeded all our expectations– we left debating how quickly we could save up to return to this gem of a course. At the risk of gushing too much we’ll stop now but it truly was a wonderful course and experience, Karen and Tim, thank you so much.

*** (05/09/2015 16:12)
If you’ve ever been interested in jewelry/france/Design/making things by hand or anything remotely close, do not hesitate to book into this course! It is amazing.

I am so looking forward to visit La Vidalerie again! Karen and Tim are lovely and generous hosts, and I look forward to seeing also their dog and all cats!

Pleasant bonuses: Karen and Tim brought us to a celebratory evening in the closest town one night and the two of us taking a 5 day class to a lovely "back yard sale" - here front yard or blankets on the streets - in the same town a couple of days later.

Karen and Tim are lovely (& hilarious) the studio lessons are simple and exactly what you need to make lovely pieces. You can flex your design muscles or stick to the basics, you can have very structured and supportive lessons, or be left to go at your own pace, asking for help whenever you need it. It’s not pressurized, but as our 3-4 days flew past we learnt a vast array of things; We soldered, hammered, domed brushed, cut, used a rolling mill, annealed, wire work, filed, riveted, and designed three of our own projects.

We were put up in a very pretty gite with a library’s worth of jewelry design books for the duration of our stay and enjoyed lovely company, useful and productive lessons, beautiful scenery, English wit and delicious food.

My first visit (~ a year ago) I happened to be the sole student. I was met by Tim at the Montpellier airport and had a nice chat along the 200 km drive through an interesting landscape, getting more beautiful the closer we got to our destination.

*** (12/03/2017 20:00)
Appoximately six weeks from now, I am taking my third class with Karen, this time with my sister in law, who is a complete novice. This is just one of all the +es with LaVidalrie Jewelry Making Holidays, that you can come there with really different backgrounds and trust to learn a lot!

So I signed up for a week in the autumn last year. We were three students and Karen showed what a really skilled instructor she is. We all wrote down our priorities and she chose a starting "task" that incorporated elements from the top of all three priority lists. We went through this object at different paces, so the transition to individual projects was really smooth. - As a retired teacher (university), I am particulary impressed with Karen´s skill to handle three students with different projects at the same time!

David and Giulia.


The student´s apartment (the gite) is just lovely and I recommend everyone to sign up for dinner the arrival evening. Really good food, that TIm prepared while Karen I and I discussed what I wanted to learn/could mke during my three day class. (Note: one "has to" fill in a form and tell of experiences and wishes in good time before the class, so this discussion built on that, was not from scratch).