Featured Artist Debbie of BeadLady61

While many find their creativity in childhoods full of glitter and glue, others don’t stumble upon this creative streak until later in life. When you do find it is not nearly as important as what you do once you discover this desire to create; and Debbie has used her talents well.

Debbie loved working with leather and creating dream catchers when she innocently picked up a bead book almost 20 years ago; isn’t that the story with so many of us?  She was looking for a hobby that works around the hectic schedule of a stay at home mom.  From that point on her life has never been quite the same.  Now that her children are grown, she finds that she can’t stop!  In her own words, Debbie beads 24/7 with an occasional break to restock the house with groceries or do a load of laundry.  Her obsession as grown and she has worked steadily with smaller and smaller beads in order to get more and more detail into her work.

Now Debbie did not stop working with leather entirely; instead she did what any other creative soul would do and found a way to combine the two arts and includes wonderful beaded bags that are just dying to be touched; many of which are Native American inspired with bright colors and wonderful patterns.

After a time, Debbie had stashed away tons of beautiful bead work in boxes and drawers.  Her friends and supportive husband encouraged her to share her talents with others and BeadLady61 was born.  She began selling her work online and is never happier than when a customer finds one of her pieces that they just have to have.  Even in times of slow sales, which frustrate everyone and can seem really long at times, Debbie pushes through and uses her down time to push her creativity even farther.

Debbie happily encourages others to follow their passion into the handmade marketplace.  Her main advice includes prepare yourself to promote, promote, promote and then promote some more; but not just your own items, be willing and happy to promote others!  Why, well, they just might return the favor getting your product in front of an entirely different audience which could translate to sales.  Debbie admits to spending about 3 hours every day just working through her social network to get hers and others work out there for all to see.

So, are you ready to see what a feisty mother of three can do with a bit of time and a pile of seed beads?  BeadLady61 is easy to find on HandmadeArtists as well as on Etsy, Artfire and her own site.  You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter and even StumbleUpon.

Tags: bead, beaded, beadlady61, earrings, feature, featured artist, haf, Handmade, hanfmade artists, jewelry, native american

Posted in Featured Vendor, Handmade