I love to take photos and the idea
of matching beaded objects to flowers fascinated me. It's definitely
not professional photography but it was fun! I did this rainbow pin
in 11/0 seed beads with crystal and hex accent beads.

I love to take photos and the idea of matching beaded objects to flowers fascinated me. It's definitely not professional photography but it was fun! I did this rainbow pin in 11/0 seed beads with crystal and hex accent beads.

 Hi! We’re Jan and Leo Smith and together we own and operate Beadman Enterprises, a second-generation family business established in 1968.

Although we have evolved over the years into an on-line business, our warehouse has been at the same location since 1977. Situated just outside of Sedro-Woolley, WA, about 75 miles northeast of Seattle, we are near Skiyou (pronounced sky-u) Slough and the Skagit River in a place we refer to as our "Home on the Skiyou".

Back in 1968, it was a combination Native American handicrafts, jewelry and beads, and all around "curiosity" store called the Hobby Hunting Grounds located in Anacortes, Washington. Owned by my parents, Ken and Doris Howell, it operated on evenings, weekends, and during the summers. For five years, I had the responsibility of managing the store and the opportunity to accompany Ken and Doris on various buying trips. It was a fascinating time for me and I learned a lot about the business during those years. In the fall of 1973, however, they decided to close the store in Anacortes in order to concentrate on a new venture called Variety Beads - a wholesale bead outlet in Anacortes and a retail bead store in Seattle. From there, for the next 21 years, things took a different direction for each of us.

For Ken and Doris, life became a whirlwind of activity. In addition to the wholesale bead outlet and the retail store, they worked the Indian & Western and Rock & Gem show circuits up and down the West Coast. In 1977, they moved the wholesale bead outlet to its current location in Sedro-Woolley but a few years later, closed the retail store. They continued with the shows and traveled extensively throughout the states and overseas on buying trips. They were one of the first importers of Toho Beads in the United States and had two factories in Korea that produced beads exclusively for their business. Over the years, Ken became known as "The Original Beadman" and in 1983, they both shared their passion and extensive knowledge of beads by becoming the founding members of the Northwest Bead Society. By the late 1980's, however, Ken had suffered several heart attacks and "retired" while Doris continued on with the business under the name DJ Howell. Thereafter, they quit the show circuits and spent their winters with the business in Quartzsite, and the remainder of the time with the business in Sedro-Woolley until 1994.

As for me, in the fall of 1973 it was on to "greener pastures" and a move to the big city. I was extremely blessed to meet and later marry Leo in 1975 and we settled in the Edmonds area. Over the years we raised a family - complete with 3 kids, 2 dogs, and 1 cat. I was still able to stay in the business loop for several years, as Ken and Doris would drop off beads for me to string or package. Once the bead store in Seattle closed, though, that ended and Leo and I moved on with our own lives until 1994.

Over the years, Ken and Doris tried several times to sell us the wholesale bead business. We’d give it some serious thought but would always decide it was best just to stay put. Then in early 1994, while Leo was recuperating from injuries he sustained in a major car accident, we took a long, hard look at our (by then) high-stress jobs and our quality of life. With our kids now grown and out on their own, we finally decided it was time for a leap of faith and took Ken and Doris up on their latest offer. However, by this time not only did they want to sell us their inventory, but also their property including the house and warehouse. For me, it meant a chance to come full circle with a business that I started out in back in 1968. But for both Leo and myself, it also meant a dream-come-true as the property itself had always held a special place in our hearts (it has been in my family since 1912). Although somewhat scary to be basically starting over, we quit our jobs, sold our home in Edmonds, and moved to Sedro-Woolley to continue on with the family business. By the end of 1994, we had bought the property and the remaining DJ Howell inventory, Ken and Doris took on the lives of snowbirds, and we opened under the name Beadman Enterprises on January 1, 1995.

The reality of taking on the family business didn’t take long to sink in. After 21 years, there was quite a substantial learning curve for myself and especially for Leo, who hadn’t dealt much at all with the beads. Our biggest asset was that we each brought a well-balanced blend of backgrounds with us that helped tremendously. Aside from the family business, my background was in computer technology, accounting, and office management while Leo's was in shipping and receiving, sales, and office management. At the time we bought, we were also able to enlist Ken and Doris for a few years as our "personal mentors". While Ken passed away in Arizona in January 1999, we were able to arrange for Doris to live in a small place of her own here on the property until she passed away in June 2006.

Many changes have taken place since we took over in 1995, both in continuing to honor the rich history of this family business and to create a unique business identity of our own. Over the years, we have taken a business that was mainly "on the road" and turned it into an on-line business, which now operates year-round from this location. In 1996 we were finally able to computerize the inventory and we operated as a mail order business with print catalogs. In 2000, we launched our web site and over the years eventually discontinued our mail-order print catalogs in order to focus on our on-line catalog. Then in 2007, we put our business inventory up for sell in order to retire. That never materialized and we're now actually grateful that it didn't sell as it forced us to reassess what was really happening at that point in time. Essentially, we both had to deal with some major life events and health issues and readjust our lives accordingly. That, in turn, helped us to become more focused on what we wanted to do and one of those things was to continue on with the business but with some major redirection. Besides which, I think Leo found out if I wasn't going to be working in the beads, I'd be playing in the beads anyway, so why not! At any rate, in early 2009 Leo basically retired (he still puts in lots of hours helping out) while I have continued on full time. We've "overhauled" the warehouse top to bottom and are going through all the mixed, buried, and long forgotten stock to make sure all remaining inventory becomes available on-line. The goal is to eventually phase out of the newer stock in order to promote the remaining older, unique, and/or unusual stock. Since we still have a tremendous amount of inventory, however, we anticipate this to take YEARS to accomplish. In addition, within a few years from now, we will be adding another website called Skiyou Treasures. This website will deal mainly in old trade beads, handmade beads, stone cabochons, and beaded jewelry, none of which be available on this web site. The goal with Skiyou Treasures will be to have an array of one-of-a-kind, no-two-alike items with a portion of all proceeds being donated to various charities. Needless to say, we are both very excited with this new direction in our lives and the wonderful possibilities it presents. 

We've come to the conclusion that, while it's sometimes overwhelming and more often than not quite challenging, it is definitely rewarding! We've enjoyed the bead business and the many wonderful people we've met along the way and hope to stay active with it for a long time yet to come!!