I love glass and I love bright colors. If you could see our house you’d know what I mean, but since you can’t, I’ll do my best to describe it: Just about everything here in Beadland is either a vibrant color or a contrast of black and white.

About six years ago I discovered glass bead making, and since then I’ve been steadily devoting more and more of my time to creating beads and jewelry. Now our house is overflowing with beads, though, so to keep their population under control I sell jewelry at shows and here on the website. I also do custom orders, and soon I’ll put up a ‘history’ section so you can see some different things I’ve done in the past. If you find something you like that isn’t available anymore, tell me and I can do something in the same color/style. Since each bead is made by hand, though, it’s not easy to make an exact duplicate (plus it’s very boring), so please don’t make me do that…

Finally, no ‘About me’ page would be complete without a big thanks to Carson, my calm, patient husband. I literally could not make beads without him. Those who know me cringe at the thought of my using a torch, hooking up hoses of flammable gas, or programming the controller for the kiln… Not to mention all the damage I could do just trying to get our digital pictures onto the website! Anyway, I could go on, but you get the idea. Thanks, great Carsonian!

Drop me an email if you have any questions or whatever! ... donna@donnastruthers.com

This is our little cabin in Idyllwild. If you're not from Southern California you've probably never heard of Idyllwild, so I'll tell you about our little town. We are at 5300 feet just east of Palm Springs. I always tell people that Idyllwild is on the mountain that makes Palm Springs a desert. It takes us about two hours to drive from our house in San Diego, and we've been doing it almost every weekend for seven years now.

The town is very small, very rustic, and -we think- pretty cute. There is a year-round population of about 2,200 and the rest of us are either 'weekenders' or tourists. There is an online newspaper if you are interested. The great Carsonian is building me a garden shed out in the part of the garden that hasn't been devoured by voles (anybody know any good vole remedies?).