How It All Started...

I've had a love affair with rock and gems since I was a kid. Growing up, I had the best and biggest rock collection on the street! I was always picking them up and collecting...always.

Fast forward 30 years...It all started with a visit to the local bead show. I decided I was going to make jewelry and start a business. Very quickly I realized that good beads were hard to find, so I decided I would dedicate my business to finding the most beautiful beads, and selling them. 

One small problem...I didn't have any extra money...So for my birthday, my husband and his parents took us to the Argosy Casino, in Lawrenceburg, Indiana and gave us some spending money. I put in a $20 into the Wheel of Fortune slot machine, and won $300! I thought, that's just what I need so I cashed out and saved my money.

Shortly thereafter I hooked up with a bead vendor, spent my $300 with him, started on ebay, and the rest is history!

I started on ebay in February 2003.  So now that I am on ebay...I wanted to do things different and better than the other sellers.  More importantly, I wanted to represent my beads honestly and accurately. I can't tell you how many beads I bought on ebay that were not as advertised. What did I do different?  For starters, I took a picture of each and every strand that I sold.  I did not use stock photos.  This took an incredible amount of time to do...not to mention a huge learning curve and a crash course in photography of small, shiny objects.  I also put the weight in carats into each listing.  Back then NOBODY did this...but of course, they all copied and now everybody does it.  Why did I do that?  Because many of these beads are small...I can give measurements but visuals are important.  Carats are a good unit of measurement because most women have a diamond ring with a certain carat weight.  We all know how big a half carat is, or a carat, or a 2 carat diamond.  Also I took my pictures showing the beads in my hand.  Nobody else did this!  This gave an excellent frame of reference as to size in real life.  I still do all of these things today.



 Next thing I know 5 great bead selling years go by and I switched to etsy. Another very successful year goes by and now I have my own dedicated website.

I am thankful each and every day for the wonderful people that I have met and that my business has grown steadily over the last 6+ years. It has taken a lot of hard work and long hours working to reach this goal...but it's all been worth it!