Bead Shop Like A 3rd Child To Businesswoman
March 26, 2021 at 10:47 p.m.
Bead Shop Like A 3rd Child To Businesswoman
By Amanda Bridgman-
WINONA LAKE – A mother, a business owner and doing better than ever would accurately describe Lauren Peacock and her bead shop in the Village at Winona.
The Beaded Peacock, 805 E. Canal St., Winona Lake, came to be in 2014 when Peacock became owner of the business.
Before buying the bead shop, Peacock was a pharmacy technician, going to school studying design and finishing up her fine arts bachelor’s degree.
“I just did beading as a hobby on the side,” Peacock said. “Merna Eisenbraun had owned the shop for 15 years previous to me, and I was just a shopper here. When I found out she was retiring, I just did not want a bead shop to go out of business.”
Peacock talked to her husband, Daniel, who is an engineer at DePuy and he told her to go for it.
“Bead shops are pretty rare, with maybe five or so left in Indiana, so I don’t think people realize how special it is to actually have this here, and in the world of beading, it’s a pretty big deal to have an actual bead shop,” Peacock said. “We have stone beads and glass beads, seed beads. The beads that we carry are not what you’d find in a Hobby Lobby or Michael’s or craft store. They are very nice quality. The majority of what we get is Czech glass from the Czech Republic. All the glass beads we carry come from there.”
There are over a million loose beads in the store, with drawers and drawers filled with all kinds.
Patrons can buy kits to take home and make their own jewelry. Peacock and her employees teach classes, and she and her employees make jewelry out of the beads and sell it in the shop.
“Everybody that works here is a source of information,” Peacock said. “It’s not just standing behind the cash register.”
Right now, she has three employees – all female.
“I think it is the most I have employed at one time, and we’re coming off a pandemic, so we’re doing well,” Peacock said. “We ended 2020 just up over the 2019 sales, so we actually did better. With quarantine, people needed something to do, and so beading kits is what really helped, and then when we reopened we sold mask chains.”
Sharell Whan has been working at The Beaded Peacock since June.
“I was a customer previously, and I was going to retire,” Whan said of when she saw a job posting for the shop. “Then I thought what a dream come true. I have always enjoyed beading and selling jewelry. I love coming in here. She says, ‘Here’s the beads, here’s kind of what I had in mind,’ and then I can just run with it. Just as a customer coming in here, it was such a great vibe to be here. Now, it’s my zen moment.”
Sarah Jones started working at The Beaded Peacock in July after she moved back to Indiana and was looking for a creative small business to work for.
“And then somebody said, ‘Hey, you should look at The Beaded Peacock,’ and I was like, it’s perfect,” Jones said.
The third employee is a high school student named Tiana Keene. Peacock describes her as “wise beyond her years, and I wish I could keep her here forever.”
“During the pandemic, for a small business, it’s either get creative or quit,” Peacock said. “You don’t have another options, so anything that we could to get beads and projects to people, we did that.”
An example of that is a customer who wanted Peacock to create a quarantine package for her.
“She wanted a complete surprise of beads and projects for her to do, so I sent her one each month while we were closed,” Peacock said.
The Beaded Peacock, which is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, offers private classes by appointment and hosts classes people can sign up for on their website.
Just last weekend, The Beaded Peacock was bustling with customers who were learning how to paint blown-out egg decorations.
“We will start doing beading parties again for like a girls’ night out, bridal parties,” Peacock said. “We can do a class that’s tailored to the bridal party. They can even make their jewelry that they’re going to wear at the wedding. We do custom jewelry as well. We can also repair and remake old jewelry. So if you have your grandma’s strand of pearls and you want it updated and made fresh to today, we can do that.”
“People will send a picture of what they want and we’ll say here’s what we’ve got,” Whan said. “Lauren’s been very innovative in how to keep business rolling and customers satisfied and appreciative. I haven’t met a customer yet that is not very appreciative of Lauren.”
Since Peacock bought the shop, she’s since had two children who are now 4 and 2.
“I feel like the store is a third baby. You know, I have my two real babies and so the store, I had before I had my kids, so I?haven’t really known life as a mother any different than running this, so it doesn’t even feel like a job, it feels like a part of life,” Peacock said. “As women who have a lot of responsibilities to handle, it’s kind of like your one moment out of the day where you can just free your mind up, and it’s very rewarding to be able to create something with your hands, that you can then wear, and there is no better feeling than getting stopped at the grocery store and having someone say, ‘Oh, I love that!,’ and you tell them you made it.”
To learn more about The Beaded Peacock, visit www.thebeadedpeacock.com.
WINONA LAKE – A mother, a business owner and doing better than ever would accurately describe Lauren Peacock and her bead shop in the Village at Winona.
The Beaded Peacock, 805 E. Canal St., Winona Lake, came to be in 2014 when Peacock became owner of the business.
Before buying the bead shop, Peacock was a pharmacy technician, going to school studying design and finishing up her fine arts bachelor’s degree.
“I just did beading as a hobby on the side,” Peacock said. “Merna Eisenbraun had owned the shop for 15 years previous to me, and I was just a shopper here. When I found out she was retiring, I just did not want a bead shop to go out of business.”
Peacock talked to her husband, Daniel, who is an engineer at DePuy and he told her to go for it.
“Bead shops are pretty rare, with maybe five or so left in Indiana, so I don’t think people realize how special it is to actually have this here, and in the world of beading, it’s a pretty big deal to have an actual bead shop,” Peacock said. “We have stone beads and glass beads, seed beads. The beads that we carry are not what you’d find in a Hobby Lobby or Michael’s or craft store. They are very nice quality. The majority of what we get is Czech glass from the Czech Republic. All the glass beads we carry come from there.”
There are over a million loose beads in the store, with drawers and drawers filled with all kinds.
Patrons can buy kits to take home and make their own jewelry. Peacock and her employees teach classes, and she and her employees make jewelry out of the beads and sell it in the shop.
“Everybody that works here is a source of information,” Peacock said. “It’s not just standing behind the cash register.”
Right now, she has three employees – all female.
“I think it is the most I have employed at one time, and we’re coming off a pandemic, so we’re doing well,” Peacock said. “We ended 2020 just up over the 2019 sales, so we actually did better. With quarantine, people needed something to do, and so beading kits is what really helped, and then when we reopened we sold mask chains.”
Sharell Whan has been working at The Beaded Peacock since June.
“I was a customer previously, and I was going to retire,” Whan said of when she saw a job posting for the shop. “Then I thought what a dream come true. I have always enjoyed beading and selling jewelry. I love coming in here. She says, ‘Here’s the beads, here’s kind of what I had in mind,’ and then I can just run with it. Just as a customer coming in here, it was such a great vibe to be here. Now, it’s my zen moment.”
Sarah Jones started working at The Beaded Peacock in July after she moved back to Indiana and was looking for a creative small business to work for.
“And then somebody said, ‘Hey, you should look at The Beaded Peacock,’ and I was like, it’s perfect,” Jones said.
The third employee is a high school student named Tiana Keene. Peacock describes her as “wise beyond her years, and I wish I could keep her here forever.”
“During the pandemic, for a small business, it’s either get creative or quit,” Peacock said. “You don’t have another options, so anything that we could to get beads and projects to people, we did that.”
An example of that is a customer who wanted Peacock to create a quarantine package for her.
“She wanted a complete surprise of beads and projects for her to do, so I sent her one each month while we were closed,” Peacock said.
The Beaded Peacock, which is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, offers private classes by appointment and hosts classes people can sign up for on their website.
Just last weekend, The Beaded Peacock was bustling with customers who were learning how to paint blown-out egg decorations.
“We will start doing beading parties again for like a girls’ night out, bridal parties,” Peacock said. “We can do a class that’s tailored to the bridal party. They can even make their jewelry that they’re going to wear at the wedding. We do custom jewelry as well. We can also repair and remake old jewelry. So if you have your grandma’s strand of pearls and you want it updated and made fresh to today, we can do that.”
“People will send a picture of what they want and we’ll say here’s what we’ve got,” Whan said. “Lauren’s been very innovative in how to keep business rolling and customers satisfied and appreciative. I haven’t met a customer yet that is not very appreciative of Lauren.”
Since Peacock bought the shop, she’s since had two children who are now 4 and 2.
“I feel like the store is a third baby. You know, I have my two real babies and so the store, I had before I had my kids, so I?haven’t really known life as a mother any different than running this, so it doesn’t even feel like a job, it feels like a part of life,” Peacock said. “As women who have a lot of responsibilities to handle, it’s kind of like your one moment out of the day where you can just free your mind up, and it’s very rewarding to be able to create something with your hands, that you can then wear, and there is no better feeling than getting stopped at the grocery store and having someone say, ‘Oh, I love that!,’ and you tell them you made it.”
To learn more about The Beaded Peacock, visit www.thebeadedpeacock.com.
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