Still Growing, Planning, Believing

It has been awhile since I've blogged.  Life gets in the way of the things we care deeply about and want to ensure continues to move down the path we've established.  This year has been a difficult one for many of those who care about and expend energy keeping our dream alive.  The dream of creating a jewelry business that includes one-of-a-kind heirloom quality pieces and carefully selected fashion jewelry.  We continue to move towards our dream as it evolves and changes to meet today's realities. 

We are blessed with a full-time very special volunteer, Linda.  She comes to work everyday to organize, mark in new inventory, and attend sales events.  Linda helps wherever she can to help us continue our dream/vision.  Volunteers make the difference and we plan to establish an advisory team to help move our business forward.  We will bring together a few women to share our vision/dream and ask for their ideas and suggestions to expand and grow our business.  Our ultimate goal is to support staff for our business and donate profits to Community  Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska.

Linda was part of our small group as we discussed how to open the market for hand-designed and hand-crafted jewelry.  Our vision is to become part of a large wholesale market selling to boutiques, museums, and gift stores.  This would allow us to hire women working more than one job to support their families.  They could create the jewelry at home to fill our orders.  This would allow them to be at home in the evenings with their families.  This is the dream that keeps us moving forward when our bodies are worn and tired after standing for long hours sharing our story and selling our jewelry.  When at the end of the day long event we drive through a fast food joint; take our meal to the hotel, get on our pj's and eat sitting on our beds.  Then we crawl into bed, shut off the light, sleep fast before we get up and start all over again.  We do this because we believe in our dream.  It is above and beyond our daily lives of work, family, and friends.   

We are blessed to have these few women who believe and care about our dream.  More later, Karen

A Milestone -- A wonderful segment on our local Channel 13 - NTV

We so enjoyed the experience of Zach Richie - he was thoughtful in his questions and really cared about our mission -- 
watch the segment and actually see just some of what we do.



Keep tuned ! !
               Janice

Bill - -

It’s with a heavy heart that I tell you we lost a Beads in a Box warrior yesterday.  Bill Lueck, Karen’s husband of almost 35 years, lost his battle with leukemia on August 8th.  He’d been fighting this ugly disease for 17 months.  Ever since the birth of Beads in a Box in August of 2004, Bill has been a great supporter of what we were trying to accomplish with this program. Matter of fact, we incorporated several of his ideas. I have memories of traveling in Tucson, Arizona, with Bill and Karen, my first time to experience the world’s largest bead and gem show.  Bill and I liked a lot of the same colors of stones, Purple Crazy Lace to be precise.  Just the gesture of spending time with Karen and I while we shopped for the business told me that he was very supportive of what we were doing.  He took pride in being our pack horse, carrying all our treasures.

When Karen would bring her creations to the office, she’d always let me know if Bill liked them or not.  Sometimes she would incorporate his views and sometimes not.  I was always amazed that he’d have an opinion.  Most husbands tell us what we want to hear -  “It’s OK.”

In my beginning beading adventures, I made at least four dozen bracelets wrong.  When I found out that I finished them wrong, I was more than willing to take them all apart and redo them.  Bill was adamant that I didn’t do that.  Karen ordered a soldering iron and Bill soldered each and every one of those bracelets.

I was one of the few people Bill enjoyed having in his home and I frequented there quite a bit. Many times were to sit at Karen’s dining room table to work on inventory.  Other times were to spend the night on craft show nights instead of traveling home.  Whatever the reason I was there, I’d always greet Bill with a, “Honey, I’m home.”  He’d always respond with, “How’s Spike.” He nicknamed me Spike because of my spiky hair.  He let me know that he didn’t care for it and when I grew it out, he let me know he really liked it.

Karen and I travel on our beading adventures a lot.  Each night she’d check in with Bill and give him the low-down on how our sales were going.  He always showed an interest and for that I’m very grateful.

It was a blessing that Bill traveled to Heaven peacefully.  Karen now begins another new chapter of her life.  It will be filled with all kinds of mixed emotions.  Knowing her like I do, Karen will find respite in creating with her polymer clay during her healing time.  I can confidently say that Bill will be looking down on her smiling as she creates something beautiful.  It’s his turn to tell her, “Honey, I’m home.”

Kyla Martin

KEEPIN' IT FRESH

"Blog away!"  Janice tells me as we sit here together at the Holiday Inn today for the NE Council of School Administrators Conference. There are over 1,000 participants and hopefully we'll try jewelry on all of them!!   Doesn't hurt to think positively!!

Leeann Clouse

Our agency is recovering from the loss
of a staff member and friend,
Leeann Clouse.
That makes each step moving forward that much
harder but we have to remember to
keep on keepin' on.

  

With that in mind, keeping our business fresh all of the time is a continuous challenge. Stay away from the 'same ole, same ole.'   What can we do to change it up?

Currently Janice is working on some great additions to our line.  We are going to call them the "Matchables."  We sell magnetic pendants with matching earrings.  Normally, I use them as part of a creation and will continue to do that. Our different idea this time is to create generic necklaces to display next to the pendants and have our customers match them up.  While she's cranking them out, I'm working on the marketing end creating the display cards and researching the stone properties.  We are a great team together!!

Also Janice has inspired our new line of Beaded Hair Bling. She's been creating hair barrettes and combs. Janice taught our friend and volunteer, Linda, to make some, too. Karen was inspired to create some with polymer clay.  She created all different colors of layered hands which are totally darling.  They make me think of Head Start teachers right away!

Of course, I'd be amiss if I didn't tell you about our new line of pet jewelry. Karen has been busy creating precious bling to clip onto pet collars.  Our business manager, Ed, has been after us to do this for six years.  Bling for Pets will be making its grand debut soon.

I'd be the 'odd ball out' if I didn't create something to go with the beaded bling theme so this weekend I threw together some wonderful key chains or purse bling.  These were inspired by the use of my 'chunky box.' Whenever BIAB gets new stones, I'll throw a few of them in this box to create with.  Do you have a collection of specialty beads that inspires you to create differently?  We have a large order of purses coming in to get ready for our national conference in Boston for Community Action.  I used those colors to draw from in the color palette . All they need to be finished is the clamp end.

Keep on keepin' on sometimes is a challenge everyday but we have to keep lookin' up.

Tootles for now,
Kyla

Making things easier!?!?

Aren't growing pains wonderful?  
In addition to expanding our physical space and attending new venues - we are altering our sites to make it easier to reach us, easier to shop and to better explain what drives us to do what we do.

Yes, we LOVE jewelry!    But behind it all is our is our goal to fight poverty.
Join us - visit our sites and tell us what you think.  Remember us when you have that special occasion or holiday coming up.

Let us know - did we make it easy to see our stunning jewelry & purses?  Did you get around our sites and find things you like?  If not, what would you like to see?  We love to stay current and would love to hear from you.

www.BeadsinaBox.com for our Hand Designed line of jewelry

www.SFEJewelry.com for our Hand Selected line of jewelry

www.mnca.net to visit our organizations site

See you soon!       Janice

Exhausted - But Happy!

In keeping with "No Time To Blog", we have just been through a busy but fulfilling time - we were very happy to participate June 5th in the event Give Cancer The Boot.  This event raises money for cancer research and funds raised stay in Nebraska - most goes to the Eppley Cancer Center in Omaha, but a nice percentage will go to the many cancer centers across our state.  Kyla, her daughter Sadie and her husband Tim, Julie, myself and my husband Marvin all helped that day to make our part of this effort a success.
This last week we participated in the Home and Ranch show here in Kearney.  It was a well planned and executed event and we met many wonderful people.
We also attended the NCE Conference held at the Holiday Inn here in Kearney.  We made a lot of women very happy with our wonderful jewelry :-)  They were a great group of people and I know many of them we interested in our mission to raise funds for our many programs here at Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska.
We have a brief lull - but then many more events planned.
Keep checking our web site for new items and our blog for more updates.

See you soon!    Janice

Remembering Those Who Serve & Other Stuff

Today is Memorial Day!  We have two Navy men in the household; one who served 30+ years including Vietnam and Desert Storm.  Also, my husband who served in the the 60's on a submarine called the SSA 420 Triante.  It brings to mind all those who served our Country and made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.  Plus, those men and women serving today around the World.  We enjoy our freedom because of them.  As Americans we need to remember and honor these men and women who leave their families and friends to protect our way of life.  Please say a prayer for them today and everyday.  

We have been busy attending several events to showcase our jewelry and now we have added purses.  Our purses were a big hit at the Region VII Head Start conference in Kansas City.  As a woman who carries one purse until it looks old and tired I learned that many women LOVE purses.  It is interesting to see what the ladies pick out and why.  Purses like jewelry feed our spirit and make us feel great!  Finding just the right one to go with a specific outfit is like a treasure hunt; it is something to enjoy and celebrate when you have it on your shoulder. 


Kyla and Janice are busy handling the "Cattleman's Ball General Store."  They have their vendors and are finishing the logistics for the huge event June 5th.  The Ball had 4,000 tickets to sell and they are all gone!  It will be a fun-filled day with many folks enjoying all the activities.  We are trying to get several new sets done for this event. 
More later, Karen