About
The Bead Fetish
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In The Beginning…
I have literally loved beads since I was a child.
My Nana would take me to hobby stores in the
late 1960's, where we would pick out beads that
she would buy for us. We would  take
them home and make jewelry. She bought me my
first bead loom when I was 10 years old.
Fast forward to1980 when Kim and Scott
met…
We would go to yard sales together for fun.
I started getting really excited about finding
beautiful old beads. I began scouring thrift
shops and yard sales for any and every glass
or crystal bead I could find. I became absolutely
obsessed! One day Scott took me to my first
bead store. I had never seen anything like it
and I thought I was in heaven! Jewelry finally
made sense to me. All the parts and beads were
right there. I bought my first pair of rosary
pliers (which I still have), headpins and all
the findings, and of course, beads! I went home,
taught myself how to make  earrings,
made a little card for them to go on and named
them "Classie Glassies". I took one
look at that card and thought, "This is
a marketable product". Soon I took a few
dozen pair of earrings on handmade cards to
a consignment shop and the owner took them.
By 1984 I was designing and selling to major
chain and department stores, and not on consignment!
During those years I must have traveled to every
bead shop in I could find in Southern CA. I
dreamt of having my own bead shop and about
what I would or wouldn't have in mine. Being
a designer I especially liked the shops where
I could find unusual and funky beads.
The Bead Fetish Lives…
In 1989 we moved to Northern California and
we began designing and selling earrings to local
boutiques. Once again, the bead shop idea was
beckoning me. One day I found a little shop
and a few months later we opened our first bead
shop, The Bead Fetish, in San Rafael, CA. Scott
built the displays and I bought glass dishes
from thrift stores of every shape and size to
put the beads in. Though small, it was very
charming. We continued to expand until 1997
when decided to sell the shop, and pursue a
wholesale pewter casting business we had started
several years earlier.
 A
year after we sold the shop we moved the pewter
foundry a few hours away to Sacramento, CA.
By 2000, my bead shop urge was tugging at me
once again. We decided to open a small shop
in Midtown, the trendy artsy area near downtown,
and see how things went. One thing lead to another,
we outgrew our shop, licensed out the copyrights
to our pewter designs, and focused full time
on our newest Bead Fetish!
"The Most amazing Shop I've
Ever Seen…"
The Bead Fetish is a bead shop you can lose
yourself in. Our goal was to create an authentic
atmosphere that reflects us and our style, where
our friends (all our customers) could shop and
feel absolutely comfortable and welcome. It's
important for us to have a sales staff that
is helpful, genuinely nice and treats people
how we like to be treated. After opening and
remodeling five different shops (because we
can't sit still) we've learned that this is
what we do well. We own a bead store and probably
always will in some form or another. No matter
how many beads you stock, someone will always
be looking for that one bead you don't have.
I guess that's what keeps owning a bead shop
challenging, fun and exciting!
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