BIJOU SHOP

After Bob passed I felt so lost, no one to take care off anymore but myself and that was boring. In a foolish moment I remembered how in the 1970's we did a loot of beading, actually knotting beads of all colors. We sold them in Bob's shop.
It was the age of Acquarius and hippies loved beads!!
Bob and I even went to Venice and came back with a suitcase of Venetian beads.
They were gone as soon as we came home. We laughed and thought to make it a career to fly to Venice and come back and make necklaces.
The scenario came back to me and I figured I could do some "knotting" for my own jewelry which needed a lot of work.
The thought did not end there. Jeannot has retail veins. My first adventure being that I sold chewing gum in school from the soldiers who came to our house
and gave me the gum for free. I hated chewing gum. So I became the "dealer" in school for a bad habit.
My francs bought me chocolate.
Anyway....I started to visit bead shops, they are in every town, even in our small town, I looked at the necklaces for sale and the wheels started to turn.
I actually thought that I had the talent to put some necklaces together in the style of today. A friend recommended Fire Mountain Gems and I started to buy stones like jasper, onyx, agate and smaller glass beads.
I sat at the kitchen table gathering all these goodies and could hardly sleep anymore. Beads came into my dreams and I decided I would sell them at Etsy or eBay.

Then Sabrina heard of a shop opening up as a craft/antique mini mall on her town.
She said she'd help set up if I wanted to try. I doubted myself, I started to do some simple necklaces and got more and more adventurous. By Feb 1 2011, I had a space of about 9 x 10. Furniture for display was acquired at the thrift shops and
I was in business.

Being so in love with my Maltese named Bijou, I decided to call my shop "Maison Bijou". It rattles my french side of the brain a bit. Bijoux with X is plural jewelry, Bijou without the X is simply "Jewel" but I am still going with that as
I had my little friend Bijou in mind.

As summer came along I got braver and started to buy large quantities of vintage jewels, I repaired, renewed some stones, clasps etc...and started to sell them
as 3.00. I figured I was not going to go for BIG bucks , this is a recession and women do like to get a new "bling" or two. With 3 and 5 bucks they can find something in my shop which is better that the junk now on the markets made in...whatever.

I did well. I was not going to buy a yacht or even have a Belgian trip but I was so busy and so dedicated that even my own health did not bother me so much as did me breaking my back. That put me to rest for awhile. The cancer and kidney was just a quick thought.

By end 2011 we found out that the store was going to get bigger adding another wing. I have no idea what my BP was doing, I was not going to check it, I was doubling my creations and gathering other stuff from my storage. I was ready for shop 2.

Opening was last Saturday but I could not make it due to bad weather but here is a bit of an idea of the second "Maison Bijou shop"