Meet Jody Young, Owner of Beyond Beads Gallery

The secret of success lies in following your dreams and listening to your heart, which is how I came to be in the bead business and create my Button Box Jewelry.

I started beading at the age of 12 and soon became a typical rambunctious teenager. When I got into trouble, my parents grounded me in my room, so I found a lot of time to practice beading. My dad owned a radiographic company, and he sold my jewelry to the doctors and hospital administrators he saw each day. The first week I made $50 - a gold mine for a young teen. When I was 19, I joined my father's x-ray business, working 12-hour days and traveling throughout the Northwest. Even though I was successful, I felt empty inside. I began to realize there was so much more to life than work, and my daughters were growing up before my eyes.

Then I met Sadie. Sadie was an elderly woman who lived at the end of the block. One day I noticed she'd fallen in her front yard and my daughter and I had stopped to help her. Several months later, she became ill and died. I was devastated as I watched her family take load after load of her belongings to the dump - a lifetime of memories discarded and soon forgotten in the piles of rubble. I offered to haul it away myself. It was among those forgotten treasures that I found Sadie's button box. Soon after I took a bead class and met a Native American woman who encouraged me to use the buttons, which she called "precious stones."

The week I resigned from my job, I went to work at a local bead store. Eight months later, the store went out of business and I could not imagine life without the beads of a bead store. So I had to open one myself! Three years later I opened my 2nd store, which is now owned by Cindy Majeski (Beyond Beads North). In celebration of our 10th year of business, we have expanded our Gallery by 1,500 square feet. This includes a beautiful new classroom area, great for our regular classes and guest teachers. Life is good and I am grateful for all of my blessings. Beading has changed my life in many ways and has given the balance I was missing. I know that beads are magical - and if you are a beader you know what I mean.
~JODY

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