about us

I've always been into beading. When I was six I started taking apart my grandmother's jewelry and making new pieces out of them (which I got in trouble for). So beading has been a passion of mine as long as I can remember.

In the early 1980s I started buying jewelry made of seed beads, which I would take apart and reassemble. Soon I was experimenting with my own pieces. When I moved to California in the late 80s I encountered my first bead store, "Bead It" in Santa Cruz. The owner asked if I knew how to repair peyote stitch, which I did. She gave me my first job in beading, and I was hooked.

In 1991 my father was retiring, and he and my mother were looking for a business to start. I left California and moved to Morgantown, West Virginia to open their new venture, a bead store called "Beads-N-More". A year later I opened "The Bead Mine" at 1205 East Carson Street in Pittsburgh's historic South Side, while my mother ran the Morgantown location. In 1997 we moved to our permanent location at 1703 East Carson.

My mother, Janice Sturm, was instrumental in every facet of the business. She was the one who traveled to all the art fairs to display our custom jewelry, where she won many awards for her pieces. Unfortunately, in 2003 my mother passed away after a battle with cancer. A big hole was left in our hearts and our business. My mother was more than "the bead lady", and left a positive and lasting impression on everyone she met. She is greatly missed.

We've added a unique employee at our South Side location, Axel (avove right). Stop by our South Side shop and visit our 100 pounds of friendly custromer service.

-- Beth