How I got the idea for Beautiful Bracelets

About two years ago, I was working on an international project, promoting the Quartet of Peace (four instruments: two violins, a viola and a cello made by violinmaker, Brian Lisus to honour the four South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureates). I arranged the inaugural Concerts for the instruments to be launched and presented to the public, these were held in Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Leipzig, Paris and London. Whilst arranging the two Paris Concerts, I liaised closely with Lainey Trequesser, a South African who has lived there now for over 40 years. When Lainey arrived in South Africa for the first Quartet of Peace Concerts, she gave me a "friendship bracelet", a really beautiful beaded stretch bracelet, which I loved so much, after a couple of years of wearing it almost every day, I wanted to make another just like it in case it perished with over-use. Around June 2012 I heard that someone had come all the way from Zimbabwe to Midrand to purchase beads for a new business she was doing, making jewellery! This was apparently a warehouse of beads in Midrand that I'd never heard of! Which surprised me, since I'd lived in Midrand since 1990. Sure enough, Allure Beads had every bead colour I needed to re-make the bracelet and much more! That bracelet was a rainbow comprising many colours, similar to the one above, and I had to buy at least 10 different strands of 100 beads each to make one bracelet. So I decided to make more, to give away to friends. After a bit, someone suggested I should sell them. I sold a few. This provided market research because the in the process of selling the bracelets people started telling me what they liked and gave me ideas I could work on and improve on until I got the designs for the Beautiful Bracelets that are now sold on the website, and that everyone loves! Once I'd sold to a few friends in June 2012, the idea went on the backburner for a few months and I actually forgot about it until the 1st of October when Bruce Whitfield mentioned he was seeking a listener to be a contestant in the R1000 Challenge on Radio 702 / Cape Talk, competing against their in house business experts.. The day I called in I was actually wearing one of the Bracelets and this gave me, on the spur of the moment, the business idea I presented on that life-changing phone call..