Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Is Carrboro becoming a beader’s heaven?

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Staff

By Clai Watkins
Courtesy of The Carrboro CommonsPhoto by Clai Watkins. David Sterling sits in front of the $5 wall of beads at Rare Earth Beads in Carrboro. Sterling is the owner of Rare Earth Beads, which opened in Carrboro on Sept. 19.

Carrboro may be the smallest town in the state to have two bead shops.
With the Sept. 19 opening of Rare Earth Beads on West Main Street in Carrboro, local beaders now have two shops in which to draw a bead, as it were.

David Sterling, owner of Rare Earth Beads, is not worried about coming to a small town that already has a large, well-established bead store. Sterling says, “We have a very different business and a very different clientele. I personally wish them every success. I’m not doing this business to be competitive to anybody.”

Casey Schlatter, owner of The Original Ornament, sees things a little bit differently. In reference to Rare Earth Beads, Schlatter says, “They are competition – especially when we’re in the same town.”

According to Sterling, many patrons of The Original Ornament already have come into his store.

Sterling attributes this not to advertising, but instead because “beading people are a community; they talk to each other … they want to check out whatever is new out there.”

It will be no surprise to Schlatter if she begins to see some of her regular customers less often.

“The thing about beaders,” Schlatter says, “is that they shop everywhere…. There is no question that our customers at The Original Ornament will, I’m sure, go to Rare Earth and shop.”

The Carrboro bead shop owners have yet to have any contact. In fact, Schlatter says, “It was news to me that he was opening.”

Even though The Original Ornament will have new and unfamiliar competition, Schlatter says, “We are going to continue doing what we have always done.”

Although the two shops are similar, the owners at both stores agree that they have many differences as well.

Sterling says that at Rare Earth Beads, “We are catering to a more established jewelry-making market, and also our focus is natural stones.” Also, Sterling said his store is very different from The Original Ornament in terms of base metal.
According to Schlatter, The Original Ornament’s target audience is mainly middle-aged women who want to make jewelry.

Schlatter says that at The Original Ornament, “We carry different kinds of beads, and our basic business models are different, as far as customer service and what we carry and things like that.” She goes on to say, “It’s a little hard to explain to a non-beader, but if you came into our store and then went into their store, then you would get a different feel.”

Rare Earth Beads’ new location in Carrboro is only 12 miles away from its original location in Durham. Sterling says that over the five years that Rare Earth Beads has been open in Durham he has had a constantly growing demand for a second location in Carrboro.

In order to promote the grand opening of Rare Earth Beads in Carrboro, the store is offering a free class with the purchase of $25 or more. According to manager Tracey Mallon, “It’s a basic stringing class, so you learn how to design a necklace or a bracelet and put it together and put a clasp on it.”

Also, in honor of its new location, Rare Earth Beads had a grand opening sale Oct. 10-13.

Sterling is nothing but excited about his new location in Carrboro. “This is what I love to do. I love beads,” he says. “I think that the most important quality in a successful business is the passion that you have for it.”

Clai Watkins is a UNC student writing for The Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer’s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme