A newfound hobby and business
by Janette Toral (friend@beadclubphilippines.com)

I have four younger sisters in the family. Before Christmas, Jenny and I were in a mall contemplating what to do with a shopping site that we acquired lately, figuring out the niche that we want to focus the site to.

I shared to her the story about Mel’s inclination on gemstone jewelry and she totally liked the idea. As we were shopping in this Feng Shui store, we discovered that there are auspicious jewelries made of gemstones that tend to favor certain Chinese birth sign. Being born under the sign of Dog and 2006 is the Year of the Dog, I saw it as an opportunity to perhaps explore this newfound opportunity.

Jenny and I commissioned a tutor at a bead store to teach us for a half-day. Afterwards, off we go shopping in Greenhills trying to find the stones that we want. I visited Mel also and shared to her our first creations and discussed the idea of creating a bead jewelry hobbyist site. She agreed with the idea and we both saw it as an opportunity to grow further.

I also found out that my staff in a policy development consulting job is into bead jewelry making as well. She specializes on multiple strands jewelry and fond of using pearls. I asked her to teach me and Jenny how to do the trick and she even took us to Quiapo where we discovered a new supplier to get our goods from.

From then on, I started learning more about gem essences, gem healing, where to buy gems in rock form, among others.

As my youngest sister is about to be wed in two weeks, I suddenly find myself designing the jewelry that the bride, the maid of honor, and the bride’s mother will wear. For me, this is truly a wedding affair to remember.

Lately, I started learning about jewelry thread weaving as well. In this past one month, I have truly discovered a nice hobby where I find simple happiness as I finish every piece of jewelry work.

The idea for BeadClubPhilippines.com came to fruition shortly before the end of 2005. After having to attend tutorials, gem shopping, trial and error, among others, I thought that getting into this type of hobby and business should not be hard and complicated. We visualize this club to take away those troubles from our members and even help them earn income from all of this.

Furthermore, I saw opportunities as well for raising funds to some of our activities through our bead work and even reach out to those who need to have a livelihood by going into this type of business. I hope you can join us in this journey.