About Us

You're probably wondering how this cute little doggy manages to make all this beautiful handmade beaded jewelry with no hands?  And the website?  Not quite so surprising, since now-a-days even dogs have blogs.  But a dog that makes jewelry?  To answer your questions, here is our spokesperson (or spokes-dog) Coquette.  Speak, Coquette! Speak!
 

What's With That Dog?

I am the real Coquette.  My name "coquette" tells you that I am a flirt. (Look it up in the French to English Dictionary.)  But I am not just any cute mutt.  Many consider us poodles to be the most sophisticated, classiest, best dressed females of our species.  It should not surprise you that I was chosen to be the spokes model for this website, www.HandmadeBeadedJewelry.org.

I live in Ohio.  In fact, all of my adopted human family are natives of Ohio.  The parents have lived in their home in the Cleveland area since 1970.  When I moved there in 1997, the children, Tracy and Greg, had already grown up and moved out. I really get excited when they come back to visit.

Who Makes All This Bead Jewelry?

Nancy, the mother, a retired school teacher, grew up in Conneaut, a small town on Lake Erie in northeastern Ohio.  Her enjoyment in designing began when she was a teenager and designed dresses that her mother sewed.  Nancy still enjoys designing and making some of her own clothing fashions.

When Nancy's daughter Tracy was involved in competitive ice skating and gymnastics, Nancy designed and sold custom made skating dresses, costumes and leotards worn by athletes in competitions, exhibitions and theatrical shows.  The transition to creating bead jewelry was natural.

Tracy lives in Iowa where she and her husband are both employed as software engineers. Her hobbies include volleyball, machine quilting, and scrap-booking.  She put some pictures of me in one of her scrapbooks.  She and Nancy both like to design the quilts they make.  Tracy started beading when she was looking at necklaces in a boutique and decided she would rather design her own.

Nancy and Tracy can often be found sifting through beads and haggling with merchants at gem shows, fairs, antique shops, boutiques or anywhere else they can sniff out quality beads.  Every bead you see on this website has been carefully chosen by Nancy or Tracy.
 

Where Did This Resource of Information Come From?

Most of this website was written by Nancy.  As a retired school teacher, she has become a living, breathing, walking, talking encyclopedia of antique and bead knowledge (among other things).  This lady really knows her way around a library. 
 

What About the Brains Behind the Website Itself?

I'm not sure about brains, but this sounds like a good time to talk about Greg.  He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is a free lance designer. Although his degree from the University of Cincinnati is in Industrial Design, he spends most of his time designing websites. He helped Nancy and Tracy design this website. In fact, I think he did most of the work. He obviously has good taste, because he chose me to be the star of the website.

If this is enough info about us, I think I'll just jump up onto the back of my favorite sofa and take a nap, or maybe look out of the window. After all, modeling is just a hobby. My real job is protecting the house from all those nasty animals that come into the yard.