Jody Young and Cindy Majeski both remember learning how to do beadwork as a hobby at a young age and how joyous it felt when they discovered they could sell the custom-designed pieces they made.


Now, the two close friendsthey call themselves chosen sistersare reliving that youthful experience, operating craft-supply stores here that carry more beads than they probably could string together in a lifetime.


Young owns Beyond Beads Gallery, at 12021 E. Sprague, and Majeski owns Beyond Beads North, at 10216 N. Division, which she bought from Young in August 1998 after managing the store for two years.


We love our businesses, we love our customers, and Im thankful every day that Im still here, says Majeski, a 38-year-old single mother who left a stable, but unrewarding sales job here to pursue her dream of owning her own business. Of Young, who is two years older and earlier went through a similar career transformation, she says, We probably talk five times a day. Shes a Godsend. I wouldnt know what to do without her.


The stores operated by the two women sell beads of every size, shape, color, composition, and price, as well as a mix of imported clothing and accessories, bead kits, candles, incense, gift items, cards, trinkets, and how-to books.


Both stores have large displays of individual beadsseemingly tens of thousands of themmade of everything from stone, bone, glass, and nuts, to porcelain, pearl, and pewter, and priced mostly from around 10 cents to $100 apiece. Most of the beads have been imported, from countries as far-flung and culturally disparate as Japan and Czechoslovakia. The most expensive ones are antiques.


The two stores also sell bead strands in a virtual rainbow of colors, and necklaces, earrings, bracelets, barrettes, and buckles that have been made of or adorned with beads, as well as items ranging from beaded lampshades and Christmas ornaments to American Indian decorative items and the obligatory bead curtains. The clothing, much of it imported from countries such as India, Morocco, Pakistan, and Nepal, includes $50 velvet blouses, $75 beautifully embroidered jackets, and $165 dresses.


Despite their stores similarities, each has its own unique feel due partly to inventory differences reflecting the owners individual tastes. For that reason, Young says, We encourage people to go to both stores. She (Majeski) will buy something I wouldnt, and vice versa.


Majeski says, Im more bright, more loud. Shes more elegant. I tend to go toward younger styles with my clothing. She says also that her store carries more ethnic and Native American items. That may explain why Young, struggling for a broad, descriptive term, says Majeskis store is more woodsy than hers.


In addition to retail sales, Young and Majeski both teach beading classes at their stores several times a week. Once you pick it up and do it, its so addicting. Its very different from any other craft, Young asserts.


She and Majeski say their customers are mostly female, ranging in age from less than 10 to more than 70, but that some men also find doing beadwork to be enjoyable and therapeutic.


Despite their differences, as reflected in their stores differing inventories, the two women seem to have more in common than not. Both come acrossin mindset and attireas being artistic, outgoing nonconformists with considerable reserves of entrepreneurial energy.


Along with becoming beading enthusiasts at a young age, both gave up better-paying, but unfulfilling mainstream jobs to go into the bead business. Also, both are thankful, despite long hours and minimal pay, that they made those life changes.


Young, who opened the original Beyond Beads store here about six years ago, learned to bead at age 12. She says her father, Denny Kane, who owns an X-ray equipment and supplies business here called Standard Medical Imaging Inc., began selling her jewelry to some of the doctors and hospital administrators he talked to each day.


The first week I made $50, which was a gold mine for a person of that age, Young says.


She joined her fathers business when she turned 19 and spent 15 years with the company, traveling around the Pacific Northwest selling equipment. It was my dads dream for me to take over the family business, and I thought it was mine, too, she says. However, she eventually became discontented with that life.


I got into the material world, the corporate world. It was always go, go, go. Some people call it being stressed out, but I dont use that term. Its no longer in my vocabulary, Young says.


Her life changed dramatically, she says, after her mother told her that she needed to get grounded, and signed both of them up for a Spokane Falls Community College beading class taught by an American Indian woman. I fell in love with it all over again, she says, adding, I couldnt wait to get to a bead store.


Young says she went to a bead store near the intersection of Eighth Avenue and Pines Road in the Spokane Valley and told the gal there I was her new helper. She ended up working there for the next six months, until the owner decided to move the store to the Grand Coulee Dam area. Young says she decided to open her own bead store in the same 800-square-foot location and spent the next two months developing a business plan, with help from the U.S. Small Business Administration office here. She then was able to land an SBA-insured loan, after which she opened for business. She moved the store to its current, 1,000-square-foot space on East Sprague in March 1997, after it had been burglarized for a second time at its original location. She says its doing well where it is now, except that she has outgrown the space.


When I opened the store, I knew it would succeed. I never feared failure, because theres always a need for beads, Young says. I feel if you follow your heart and your dreams, you will succeed.


She says her father was understanding about her decision to leave the family business. He knows Im an artist and that I really needed to get back into that part of my life, she says. I wasnt making nearly as much money (after the change) as I was before, but I didnt care. It was more about happiness.


A life change


Majeski, who began making beaded items when she was a teen-ager and sold them at consignment shops, has been a friend of Youngs for about eight years. She says she began talking with Young about opening her own business after deciding she needed to make a job change. At the time, she was working in sales for a company here that sold hot tubs, saunas, and other products, but had scouted out a couple of available locations to open a small business of her own.


I was just at a point in my job where I was looking for something different, something more fulfilling, Majeski says. Ive known since I was about 13 that I would open my own business. I just didnt know what it would be.


At Youngs suggestion, the two decided to open the North Side bead store andwithin a few weeksthey made it happen. Young owned it initially, and Majeski managed it, but with the expectation that she eventually would buy it.


It pretty much changed my life, and that was what I was looking for. This has been wonderful for me, Majeski says. Ive worked harder than Ive ever worked, but it seems more natural. Its a fun thing.


Although the women operate similar stores, under similar names, serving some of the same clients, they dont consider themselves to be competitors. Our intention is never to hurt each other or put each other out of business, Majeski says.


Maintaining that camaraderie, they go on inventory-buying trips together and sometimes use their combined purchasing power to obtain discounts from wholesale suppliers.


Both have long-term dreams of expanding their businesses, including via Internet sales, and of reaching a point financially where they can travel to foreign countries to buy their goods directly from the manufacturers, rather than having to deal with middlemen.


Young says she already has an Internet site, at www.beyondbeads.com, but now is working with a consultant to upgrade the site to allow for on-line purchases. She hopes to have that service available by the end of this month.