Yvette Daou-Yacoub: The Beading Artist

When I started beading 13 years ago, all I wanted is to create jewelry and accessories. I love jewellery, I love fashion. To me, no outfit is complete without accessories. What got me started first and foremost was the fact that I could never find the proper pieces of jewellery or accessories when I went shopping for clothes. Yes, the market is flooded with accessories, but never the proper ones for me. And, when I found a piece that I like, either it was very expensive or not in line with current fashions. At that point, I made me decision: I had to start making and designing my own jewellery.

So, this is how my beading journey got started! I signed up for jewellery making courses, beading workshops and taking gemology courses. My first gemology class was the study of pearts at the Canadian Jewellers Institute. Pearls are the most amazing organic gemstones, and with the technology of today, they are produced in so many forms, shapes and colours, sometimes natural and other times cultivated or even artificially made.

The more I educated myself about beads, the more I fell in love with the trade. I started designing jewellery for myself, then for my sisters, then for my friends, then for neighbours and colleagues, and the circle started getting wider and wider…  I started showing my designs by having jewellery parties and open houses.  All the ladies kept admiring my pieces and complimenting me by saying: “Yvette, you are so talented, your work is a piece of art”, “Yvette, you are such an artist, I love your work. I have been receiving so many compliments on that necklace I bought from you last year”. Suddenly, it dawned on me; beading is a form of Art!

Few years later I started receiving orders for Bridal Parties, it was not just to make jewellery, but it was for centre pieces.  One bride needed crystals drops for her tree as a centre piece.  So I started creating and designing beaded items for decorations, and Holiday themes.  My beading journey took a different turn all of a sudden. I cannot call it just beaded jewellery anymore, I am designing and creating more than just that, I had to change the name to Beaded Art items, so I can include all the other decorative items, such as: Holiday items, Key Chains, Book marks, Sunglass holders, napkin rings, purse enhancers, Tiaras, hair combs, window Sun Catchers…

I am called the Beading Artist now, I am creating items with beads, and I am designing jewellery with all sorts of beads.  My horizon have widened so much, the sky is my limit.

The studio tour is during the weekend of October 15th and 16th. Please mark your calendar and plan on visiting some of our amazing artists.