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About Us
Butchbeads is the rough and tumble partner site of Drès-Arché Gemstone Design. It offers the same high quality gemstone and fossil jewelry but in more "rugged" designs. Smaller beads, more leather.
Mik and I have long had the goal of starting our own company together—a company that would allow us to use and to foster our creativity, that would embody our love and respect of nature, and through which we could produce our simple visions of beauty. We believe we have found it in butchbeads and Drès-Arché Gemstone Design.
Each of us is a long-time rock hound. We were the little girls whose mothers had to carefully check pockets before doing laundry, certain to find many things shiny, colorful, and/or of odd and interesting shape and texture. While other girls collected dolls or figurines, we collected rocks and displayed them proudly, our treasures, our great finds: striated petrified wood, smooth river stones, dazzling amethyst chunks, and just plain cool looking stones. Forty-something years later, each of us still holds a small collection of her childhood treasures.
Mikki and I became friends during fossiling trips through muddy creek beds around Lincoln, Nebraska. Through our many expeditions together—sharing our joy in nature, celebrating our finds, and tweezering tiny thistles from each other’s arms and legs—we developed forever bonds with the rocks, the creek beds, and with each other.
I began making jewelry as a little hippie child, stringing love beads. The wonderful texture of beads between my fingers, the sweet concentration and delicacy of design, the accomplishment of turning a pile of beads into a piece of jewelry—these sense-memories stayed with me. Then one afternoon in December 2008, they resurfaced with the power of inspiration.
We purchase our gems and components from artisans and small wholesalers all over the world; everything is purchased fair trade. Because we often purchase from individuals and small companies, our quantities of specific stones are sometimes limited. Typically, we craft about 5-20 each of most of our designs, and we have numerous one-of-a-kind designs. Therefore, our website offerings will change regularly.
All of our paper products—gift boxes (free with each purchase), business cards, bubble mailers, and labels—are composed of recycled materials and are 100% recyclable. Our business cards and labels are 100% PCW, and our gift boxes are 75% PCW. These percentages are the highest we could find and are, sadly, rather difficult to locate.
You can see the full line of Drès-Arché Gemstone Design jewelry at dres-arche.com. There, we offer about 100 different designs, including pearls.
We will gladly try to accommodate custom orders. Just email us (custom@butchbeads.com) and be as specific as possible about what you’d like.
Above all, we wish for you to wear our jewelry offerings in health and in peace.
Deb