Owatonna woman beads her way into full-time business

Ever stop to think about how each individual bead on a necklace came to look the way it does? Instead of just buying beads from a store, Sue Peoples makes unique beads by doing it herself with a torch and kiln.
Peoples first started doing beadwork in 1997 after she took a group class to learn how to make earrings from a co-worker. 
“A group of us kind of got addicted to it and started going to all these bead stores. We would travel to Northfield, Rochester or Minneapolis to buy beads,” Peoples said. “Then we signed up for all the classes we could find, we’d get together once a week to bead and I just got into it a little bit more than the normal person does.” 
For 11 years Peoples worked as a special education paraprofessional at Lincoln Elementary and did bead work every once in a while when she could find the time. 
In 1999 her husband, Greg, bought her a torch for her birthday so she could start making her own beads and the rest was history. Peoples started teaching classes and did some filming for Bead TV based out of the United Kingdom until the online magazine stopped filming in the United States. 
“It got to be where I was making so many things for so many people that it took way too much of my time. I wanted to be home more often for my teenagers,” she said. 
Peoples made the decision to quit her full-time job to in turn pursue beads full-time in 2003 and it wasn’t long before Peoples Bead Dreams was created and she started attending art fairs. She only attends juried art fairs, meaning each fair she does she has to be selected to be in the show. Peoples described juried art fairs as an art fair that is more high-end where people are more interested in art and willing to pay the higher prices.  
Peoples mainly makes jewelry, but also makes things such as beaded kaleidoscopes, pens and styluses and little bugs. She does seed beadwork, meaning she crochets small beads together, but her favorite thing to do is to make her own beads out of glass by using a torch and kiln. 
From January through May Peoples works around 30 hours a week getting her products ready for art fairs and from June through December she works over 60 hours a week by making creations for customers and attending art fairs nearly every weekend. 
“That is the fun thing about beads, they are all one of a kind and every artist puts their own spin on what their beads are like,” she said. “You know when you stare into a campfire? That is how it is for me when I am making beads. It is very meditative, calming and creative.” 
Each year Peoples tries to improve her skills and knowledge of beads by attending one to two classes a year as well as the Missouri Bead Retreat. Although the art fairs she attends are in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Peoples travels all across the state for the classes. 
Peoples especially enjoys the fact that she can set her own schedule and the art fairs. “I enjoy meeting the people and getting feedback on my art because then it makes me think about what people are looking for,” she said. 
The two main challenges Peoples has faced in the bead business are income and coming up with new items each year for the art fairs. 
Due to the large amount of competition, Peoples may not always get into the fair eventhough she did in year’s past. 
“Sometimes you get in, sometimes you don’t, which makes it kind of hard. If you have a really good show and then the next year you don’t get in or you get waitlisted and you were planning on that income,” she said. “Your income is never the same, but that is what makes it interesting. 
Peoples hope is that after Greg retires from his full-time job as a network engineer that the two can continue to do what they love, her beads and him wood, and travel the country attending art fairs.