Company History

Behind the Scenes with Pick Up Sticks Jewelry Company Owner

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With a long history in retail and design, here is a closer look at the Pick Up Sticks Jewelry Company owner and how she got to where she is today!

How long have you been in retail?

It’s as though I was raised in retail. Many after-school hours and summers were spent working at my parent’s Asian import stores in Boca Raton, Riviera Beach, and Palm Beach, Florida. From waiting on customers, to reveling in gift wrap, to unpacking untold treasures from the Far East, I loved being part of my parent’s shops. Each day was like being in a foreign land surrounded by beautiful and exotic things. Unlike most of my friends, my mom went to work each day in a brocade Suzy Wong dress.

Who or what piqued your interest in Pick Up Sticks Jewelry Company?

I feel that my path to Pick Up Sticks was a gift from my sister, literally. Andrea and I were an amazing team. In younger years our five-and-half-year age difference was apparent, of course, but as we grew older, we grew closer. Some of my fondest childhood memories were she and I in Saturday morning art class together, or spending vacations at the Jersey shore burying each other in the sand or digging for periwinkle shells.

In 2008, however, we banded together for a much more serious pursuit. Our beautiful mother suffered a major stroke, and Andie and I were called into action. We worked tirelessly to rehabilitate and care for Mom, while juggling our personal and work lives. It was a challenging journey that spanned not months, but years.

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Charm Bracelets – History on Your Wrist

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We’ve written about charm bracelets before, back in the early days of the blog. At Pick Up Sticks, we learned quickly that women of all ages love unique jewelry that tells a story, with pieces that commemorate special occasions and milestones in one’s life. For centuries, charm bracelets have been the perfect way to tell one’s story. They are truly the original timeless classic.

Is it the universal appeal of the sound a charm bracelet makes, that feminine jingle jangle as you move your hands in an expressive moment? Is it the fact that folks have to get up close and personal to check out your charms and hear the tale of how important each is to you? How many of us have a charm bracelet that belonged to our mothers or grandmothers, and how intriguing are the stories conveyed by those heirlooms?

Pick Up Sticks charms on a charm bracelet
Pick Up Sticks charms on a charm bracelet

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Making Our Skeleton Dance, Part 2: Where We Came From

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You’ve probably seen this picture before. It’s a picture of two of the strong women who inspired Pick Up Sticks Jewelry and it’s the inspiration for the “My Mother, My Friend” Pick Up Sticks charm. We called them Mother and Ruth, but these two women were Glena and Sabrina’s grandmother and great-grandmother. Creative, persevering, strong women. Unorthodox for their times. Always proud. Good at making their own skeletons dance…

A couple of weeks ago we started this series with the tale of how Glena and Sabrina’s forebears made their way to New Mexico. There were some missteps, some extremely hard times. By the time we ended that part of the tale, Mother (great-grandmother Ade Johnston) had divorced her husband and become a single mother, something unheard of in the 30’s. She was sticking it out in Logan, NM, running a cafe and raising little Ruth to be as tough and hard-working as Ade was herself. But, of course, the story doesn’t end there.

Ruth and Mother
Mother with her daughter Ruth (Glena and Sabrina’s grandmother) – the photo that inspired the “My Mother My Friend” Pick Up Sticks charm

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Recession Proofing Your Business – Connecting with the Customer

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The Lipstick Factor. Price Point Matters. Both are concepts that will hopefully help you figure out how to get through these interesting economic times with style, panache and success. And both are concepts that we’ve blogged about recently.

There’s more. Of course, there’s always more. There are a thousand ideas out there designed to make your retail space more appealing, telling you how to rearrange your displays, how to dress your windows, how to create an atmosphere that practically pulls the wallet out of the purse for the purchase. We’ve been reading those, trying to glean the most relevant info just for you. And we have a few ideas we’re going to pass along in our next “recession-proofing” post.

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For Mother

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Everyone has something to say about Mothers. Abe Lincoln said, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” Tenneva Jordan said, “A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Milton Berle said if evolution really worked, why was it that mothers only have two hands. Dorothy Parker said “The best way to keep children home is to make the atmosphere pleasant – and let the air out of the tires.” And one of the Golden Girls said “It’s not easy being a mother. If it were, fathers would do it.”

But one of our favorite quotes about Mothers is from Zora Neal Hurston, who wrote “Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”

It’s one of the ultimate universal truths. We all have a mother. Some amazing, some okay, some that are the bane of our existence. Regardless of how we feel about it, we all have a mother. And Glena and Sabrina were lucky enough to have their very own special “Mother.”

Glena and Sabrina's great-grandmother - known to everyone as "Mother"
Glena and Sabrina’s great-grandmother – known to everyone as “Mother”

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What’s In a Name?

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Pick Up Sticks. We’re asked all the time how we came up with that name. And we thought fessing up would be a great way to begin one of our blog posts. But of course, we want to save that story for the end of the post – the best for last and all that.

Before we give you that tidbit, we want to talk about blogging. We are, first and foremost, family. As most of you know, Glena and Sabrina, the owners of Pick Up Sticks, are cousins. Practically sisters. So similar in appearance that frequently customers will initially meet Glena in the booth during show season, and then come back later, mistaking Sabrina for Glena. If you’ve wandered the website, you’ve read their bios (about which we’ll do an in depth post later. . .). I can tell you, as their pal the Blogwriter, that these girls’ creative business streak goes way back. I have a lot of stories, but we’ll save those for later.

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