SPOTLIGHT ON ... STORE
November 2009
Our featured online bead store for this month is The Beadin' Path
The Beadin' Path is a bead company based in Freeport, Maine with a website at www.BeadinPath.com. Offering an open studio and lots of inspiration to jewelry designers and bead artists alike, The Beadin' Path offers a full class schedule, free demos in the shop, as well as various in-store events and activities. Importers, collectors, and over all hoarders, The Beadin' Path is an industry leader in vintage beads including vintage Lucite beads, old and rare Swarovski crystals, vintage glass beads, and other scarce and collectible beads.
Started in 1993 by mother daughter team Jan Parker & Heather DeSimone, The Beadin' Path was born out of a lack of sources for exciting jewelry components & beads for Heather's line of jewelry she designed at the time. "There was only one bead shop in Maine at the time," says Jan Parker. "Heather was looking for sources for exciting and different as well as old & vintage beads and compoennts & having a hard time fiding anything local." It wasn't as easy back then to source things via the internet which was not mainstream at that time. So with lots of travelling & digging in dirty warehouses, contacts were made, treasures were found a store was opened in a small space of Yarmouth, ME.
"Primarily, we catered to parents who would drop off their kids while they were grocery shopping..." says Heather DeSimone who was in her Freshman year of college when the business began. "Once we realized that we had a niche within the business of beads, we moved to a more retail-ready location and the biz just took off from there." Moving to Freeport in 1995 set the pace for a busy, collector driven space where you can find even today, shelves of vintage Swarovski beads, glass bowls filled with Deco-era glass pendants, rows of colorized vintage German glass, and a rainbow wall of retrao ca. 1960's lucite beads.
The web business took off in 1997 when Heather and Jan began offering their vintage & unusual supplies on ebay. In its hey-day ebay helped build niche businesses. When ebay shoppers demanded a website where they could shop & not have to compete with other bidders, BeadinPath.com went live in the Fall of 1997. "Owning a business in a tourist town in Maine," Heather says "almost has to be supported by a web based business." The website serves customers world-wide and is supported by various bead and trade shows that help to get the word out about the company's focus.
In 2004, a company out of Rhode Island contacted us and they were looking to unload one of their warehouse rooms that had been shut off from their day-to-day manufacturing since the early 1980's. They had originally been known as Best Plastics & were the leading manufacturer and distributor creating original lucite beads for companies such as Coro, Trifari and Avon from the early 1960's throu the early 1980's, when their business switched its manufacturing focus. "What's different about these beads," Heather says "is that they are not your typical press molded plastic bead. They were produced using an extruding process and almost lathe turned to carve the beads from a rod. Then they were tumbled and the beads have a significant weight and look to them that is often confused for bakelite or gemstone." Since then The Beadin' Path has been focusing not only on the vintage glass & Swarovski beads they had built their reputation on, but their collection of lucite is unmatched featuring not only the Best Plastics vintage line, but also a popular line of vintage and now reproduction lucite and plastic flower and leaves.
Selling both retail & wholesale, The Beadin' Path caters to all kinds of bead shoppers: a Mom who wants to have a girls day out with her daughters will come into the shop & the staff will help them design a great necklace as well as a day of fun together. As well, the professional jewelry designer turns to The Beadin' Path for the retro-chic, unusual jewelry components that bring an edge of another era to their designs.
The Beadin' Path
15 Main Street
Freeport, ME 04032
207.865.4785 & toll free 1-877-92-BEADS
Website: www.BeadinPath.com
Email: beads@beadinpath.com
Follow us on Twitter @BeadinPath
Find a bead store near you! 
