So..you are interested in learning more about the mayhem? You have come to the right spot! Learn what it is like to run a wildy growing company AND manage an active yound family. Not for the weak at heart, but a lot of fun anyhow!
Posted: June 5th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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Anna Piaggi is a famous Italian fashion editor whose eccentric, individualist approach to style couldn’t be further away from that of the interchangeable starlets that dominate the American fashion world.
Oh, some folks probably snicker at her overly rouged, wrinkled cheeks, her frizzy blue hair, her tiny hats and theatrical outfits. But she’s completely fearless, and I admire her enormously.
So I took it to heart after I read a story about her personal rules of style. One has stuck in my head for years: “You have credentials, darling, you don’t wear them.”
Now, in my life, people are forever wanting me to wear a lanyard around my neck or a name tag on my chest.
I do not want to do this.
For I could be bopping down East 9th Street one day, a lanyard ID bouncing merrily against my solar plexus, and Anna Piaggi could drive by on a little Vespa scooter, maybe a powder blue one to match her hair, and she’ll say to her fabulous friend, “look at the unfortunate girl with the ID badge” and they’ll speed away, laughing at me, and then we’d never become friends.
For years, I’ve gone to great lengths to avoid such a situation, but the modern workplace makes it nearly impossible. To go anywhere here at the PD, I have to wave a badge to gain access to all-important places like the bathroom, the cafeteria and the vending machine area. Oh, and my desk.
Because it’s a hassle not to have the badge, I clip mine to bits of clothing each day — tucked inside a sleeve, under a belt, at the hem of the cardigan or jacket.
This is not ideal. I often forget to remove it, then I can’t get into the parking garage the next day and I have to call my husband to come beep me in, and he sighs heavily and reminds me how idiotic it is to ignore the convenience of the dreadful lanyard and blah blah blah.
So last week, I lost my ID badge again. I searched my car, my office, nothing. I went home and tore the closet apart, again nothing. Hmmm, let’s see, the day I last had it, I wore a long green cardigan over a printed dress. Pat, pat, pat, nothing was there. Nothing in the handbag I carried that day. Strange.
The next day, I put a navy blue dress, pair it with a graphic cardigan and my favorite yellow shoes and zoom out the door. At work, I clip on a substitute ID badge to my cardigan hem, courtesy of our security guards.
A few hours later, I make a quick trip to the ladies room, then run downstairs for a meeting — but couldn’t find the badge that would get me back into the newsroom. Ach.
Luckily, a colleague buzzes me in, and I sink into a chair and cross my legs.
“Ow!” I say involuntarily. What on earth? I squirm in my chair, get up, but nothing was on the seat. Weird.
I squirm some more. What is that. . . squirm, shift, squirm. Could it. . . no, well . . . hmmm.
After the meeting, I race back to the ladies room, where my dress goes up and my slimming foundation garment goes down.
Out falls not one missing ID badge, but TWO missing ID badges.
(For the record, I always wear my slimmers OVER clean drawers. I did have some discomfort when I’d put the darn thing on that morning, but comfort is not what really what these things are about now, are they?)
I laugh, and on my way out that night, I return the (freshly scrubbed) substitute badge to our guards, and regale them with the tale.
After the hilarity subsides and I reassure them again that I’d washed the thing, Clarence reaches into a drawer and hands me a lanyard.
“Put your ID on this,” he says kindly. “You just wear it around your neck, it’s hard to lose it that way.”
Hmmm. It makes sense, I know it does. But fashion is a slippery slope. . . and once I let my personal standards go, what’s next? Acid wash jeans and a matching jacket? Half tops and leggings?
“Clarence, have you ever heard of Anna Piaggi. . .?”
Posted: May 28th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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Thanks for taking the time to visit. Here is our philosophical views on burning topics such as - Why beaded lanyards? Why our Beads?
We strongly believe that professionals who need to wear their ID at work can do so with a well-made, stylish id badge holder. Companies use many different ways for employees to wear ID badges, but rarely can individuals wear something they like or have a choice in wearing. Lanyards are typically a sort of ID necklace made of ball chain, cord, fabric or a shoelace type material. We have decided that a beaded lanyard can be a fashion accessory, and that our best way to provide the greatest range of products is through beaded lanyards. Some need to wear their ID badges on retractable badge reels so that they can easily “swipe” them at security checkpoints. For this we have come up with retractable badge reels so that style is not sacrificed for functionality. So whether you are shopping for beaded lanyards, id badge holders or fashion forward retractable badge reels, we might be the place for you. Please check out the rest of our site here at beadedlanyards.com to learn more about how we make our products and where you can find them” Our Beads, the beads that we use for our badge holders come from all over the world. We shop at bead shows all over the world in places like Asia, Africa and South America. Here is one of our exciting stories on how we discovered beads that are in our amazing collection of beaded lanyards. While shopping at the NYC bead show we stumbled upon an amazing gentleman from Peru. Actually, we were lured there by a small quartet of musicians from his country who were playing a beautiful haunting song right across the aisle! This gentleman had a fantastic array of beads that we thought were perfect for our beaded badge holders and retractable badge reels. Especially attractive were small handmade ribbons we use for our breast cancer awareness lanyards, in the perfect colors to honor the fight against various forms of this disease. We did run into a problem though as language barriers prevented us from being able to communicate easily with this gentleman and our needs when making our badge holders. One of our quick thinking associates called our home office, where one of our staff has a husband from Columbia who speaks fluent Spanish. A conference call began; multi lingual conversations began, and the rest is well…history. Through kindness, quick thinking and a willingness to stretch ourselves a little bit, we are able to provide you with terrific cancer awareness beaded lanyards that are unique in every way. If you would like to see this wonderful product click here: http://www.BooJeeBeads.com
We understand how lucky we are to be able to live in such a wonderful country and as two professional women, be able to provide opportunities for people in other parts of the world. In order to achieve our mission of producing id badge holders that can help put food on other people’s tables too, we have build coalitions with individuals in South Africa and Asia Our team members tells the story of traveling in South Africa with a young woman who represented home based industries in small villages. She was not only impressed with the terrific craftsmanship of the handmade fimo clay beads done by these villagers, but the pride they took in being able to support themselves economically. Who knew that our beaded badge holders would mean that some children born to HIV+ parents would be able to sleep better at night because they had full tummies “Our travels to Asia brought us around to other different challenging realities. As a true middle class is growing rapidly in China, manufacturing of all kinds is also. We promised ourselves, and in turn you, our supporters, that our beaded lanyards would be made by individuals that were paid a fare wage for their work, treated well and had comfortable work environments. Lanyards as a political tool is not our first intent, but that is the reality in a global economy.
Thanks for your interest, and our support. It is truly a pleasure to bring you our fabulous line of id accessories from lanyards, beaded lanyards our new pink ribbon jewelry and the retractable badge reels and eyeglass leashes that have made us famous
Posted: December 20th, 2006 under Uncategorized.
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Wow. What a trip. Lisa and I have spent the last 10 days travelling through the orient working on some fabulous new products. We have some new BooJeeBeads beaded lanyards coming that are going to be INCREDIBLE and I cannot even tell you how excited I am about some of our other beaded lanyard products we are working on.
Posted: October 19th, 2006 under Uncategorized.
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What an AWESOME week we have had. We opened a brand new distribution center which is so exciting. So see row after row of our beaded lanyards, beaded eyeglass holders and our beautiful retractable badge reels stacked up from floor to ceiling made us cheer! We are growing like crazy and we get so many nice emails from our customers. Here is one we just got today from someone who just got a new beaded lanyard for herself and her friends
Thank you for expediting our group order. Everyone loved their badge holders, and those who neglected to order were envious.
Thank you. Judy Hiner
Posted: November 1st, 2005 under Uncategorized.
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BooJee Beads gang-
Just thought you might like a little testimonial.
I am a substitute teacher in Denver and I got tired of sticking a pin name tag on my clothes so I decided to get a lanyard but of course a plain one wouldn’t do, so I Googled “beaded lanyards”. and “beaded lanyard” Well somewhere down the line up popped BooJee Beads which sounded very familiar to me. Then I remembered my daughter Tara Schulaka Bradley had mentioned your company to me before. Anyway the style of these I.D. necklaces is perfect for me and I ordered two: Speckled Beaded Lanyard and mosaic Lanyards. I love these things!! And the price is great. I wear them everyday I go to school. The other teachers LOVE them.
Well two was not enough so I just placed an order for four more. I had to force myself to only get four more!
Thank you for a great product and prompt service. Good job.
Kathy Schulaka
Posted: October 20th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
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It has been a wild couple of weeks. The events in New Orleans have been mind boggling.
We are growing so fast we needed to quickly get a much bigger warehouse….We have had tons of new developments in the business. I can honestly say that the last two weeks have been some of the “biggest” weeks of my life.
Until tonight. Now, this week is one I will never ever forget. My best friend’s sister Janey died 5 weeks ago from breast cancer. She was an incredible woman who engaged in a 6 year battle with the disease. She left behind 3 daughters, ages 19, 17 & 14. My best friend Jill told me this evening that her sister Janey’s husband, Jeff, died in his sleep 5 weeks to the day after his wife’s death. Now, three girls are orphans. No Mom, No Dad.
It puts any day to day problems we have grappled with in perspective to say the least.
I have a plaque by my office door. It says, “It is later than you think”…My mom has a plaque that says “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift…That is why they call it the Present”
In Honor of Janey and Jeff
Posted: September 10th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
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Very exciting for us! We are listed as a “fun, fresh and exciting new way” to wear a teacher ID badge in an independent article. The store owner that recommended us sells to teachers who are CRAZY about our ID beaded lanyards. What teacher would want to wear a boring old shoelace style lanyard when
they could wear their ID on a darling Teacher Apple ABC beaded lanyard or our cute BooJee Bus school bus inspired beaded lanyard? It is so gratifying when our customers love our products as much as we do!!
Posted: September 9th, 2005 under Uncategorized.
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