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Bead Collector Confesses to Hoarding! |
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Written by Jan Parker
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Wednesday, 28 March 2007 |
 I am a bead collector. I don't really use them for anything. I don't make a lot of necklaces, earrings or bracelets and certainly don't do the fancy bead work that so many of our talented customer and employees turnout! I try, but when I get the beads out to make a necklace and put them together on a design board (yes, I have to use one) the necklace doesn't seem worthy of the beautiful beads that I'm using!
My daughter Heather and I own The Beadin' Path. She was the one that first introduced me to beads. When she was in High school, she started designing beautiful jewelry to sell in local gift shops. She was doing very well, but was having trouble finding the beads she wanted. We decided that we needed a new bead shop here in Maine. My husband got on board by ok-ing a small loan from his 401k plan. Heather and I signed the lease, planned the store and bought the beads. We spread them all out on our living room floor and put them in printer's trays. Then we looked at each other and said, "We're in trouble!" It sure didn't look like enough to fill a bead store! We quickly decided to add gift items and took in consignment jewelry and pottery. We opened our first 400 square foot store in August of 1993. Heather was in high school and I was still working as a bookkeeper. We had one part time employee to fill in the gaps when one of us was not available to work. Our customers were mainly neighborhood kids that emptied their wallets with glee at our cash register.
Many ups and downs later, we moved uptown to Main Street, Freeport, home of L.L. Bean and many other outlet stores. We have grown to 17-20 employees, depending on the time of year. We have 4800 square feet of store space and about the same of office space for our internet and mail order department. We do bead shows all over the country and still, every where I go, I see more beads that I love! Wouldn't you think that eventually, I would see them all?
We buy collections of beads from little old ladies, truck home the contents of old beads from warehouses and people's garages. We import beautiful stones from overseas. Everywhere I look, there are more beads that I have to stash in my very own collectors cabinet. I have one at home and one here in my office. I have decided that I should share some of these beauties with our wonderful customers. Some of them are out of production Swarovski Crystal beads that we used to sell but can no longer find. Some are from broken old necklaces and since there were only a few, I squirreled them away. Wherever they came from, I'm going to start parting with a few. Every once in awhile, I'm going to write a new blog. In that blog will be a link to one or two treasures that someone can bid on in an Ebay auction. It will be an insider's first look for just those of you who read my blogs. It's kind of a special secret known to only you and me, the collectors. |
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