When a child discovers two tin cans and a piece of string they make a telephone. Sally made a necklace. Ina sense, it all started at Wall Elementary, where Beadniks founder, Sally Roesler, went to school. In fifth grade history class, Mrs. Maul explained how the Dutch purchased what is now New York and New Jersey from the native Indians... for a box of beads.

"A box of beads . . . good deal," though young Sally.

Sally's talent soon brought her to the bright lights of Broadway, stitching for some of the best costume designers in the business.

One day, when asked to bead a costume for the musical EVITA, Sally thought back to fifth grade history class and the profitable exchange of beads for the city where she now worked. She promptly gave notice and left for Nepal, where she began an adventure that could fill two lifetimes.

Living on the proceeds from the sale of her house and wages earned while picking grapes, Sally spent the next three years studying gemology from some of the most revered genealogists in Asia. She began traveling between Bangkok, Katmandu, and the United States, collecting beads and designing jewelry, sharing her adventures, and selling rare bead, while pursuing local artisans far from the beaten path in the hills, jungles, and vast deserts of the exotic locations.

After more than twenty trips through Asia and India, she has never met the Dalai, but she did ride a llama. She danced at the "sing-sing" with tribes in Papua, New Guinea, trekked the mountains of Nepal, made the pilgrimage to Muktinath, traversed to jungles of Thailand on the back of an elephant with a bad attitude, hit golf balls off the beach in Bali, hopped a Russian freighter to Fiji, drank coffee in Java, lost her passport in Pakistan, ate bugs in Malaysia, sunbathed in Sri Lanka, caught malaria along the way. . . . and did it all just to share the bounty of worlds so wonderful, it compels her still.

The story goes she was so intent on meeting the Dalai and finding resolution to this "journey vs. destination" question, that she mounted the back of a yak and headed into the hills. As you already know, Salai never found the Dalai, but did manage to interrupt a thirty-six day meditation of a monk. So inspired by her curiosity and motivation he broke his silence, pulled up his robe, sat down next to her and whispered into her ear.

Back on her yak, Salai headed down the Tibetan mountains, crossed three oceans, survived a third world virus that would make Montezumas Revenge feel like a day at the spa and to this very day delivers the enlighten message to everyone she meets...

Don't Worry, Bead Happy.

And that is how the story was told to me, and now it's been told to you.

Sally started her bead wholesale catalog in 1989, The Bead Goes On, on the beautiful island of Martha's Vineyard. Ten months later, she opened Beadniks and began the pursuit of a personal dream - to create a bead store like no other.

Mission accomplished.