Bead Hive, one of last bead shops in state, closes

GUILFORD — The Bead Hive was more than a bead shop.

It was a community or even like family, some long-time customers and staff said.

Tucked away in Strawberry

Hill Plaza, one of the last bead shops in the state was to close its doors Saturday. Long-time shop owner and jewelry designer Rena Mulrain is retiring after 27 years, to relax and focus on making her own jewelry line, she said.

Days before closing, patrons streamed in, some saying tearful good byes to Mulrain as they loaded up their trays with treasures and supplies.

In between waiting on customers, Mulrain was teaching a student how to make a peyote-stitch bracelet — all while fielding questions about the right clasp or perfect bead cap from others waiting their turn, standing at her elbow.

It’s been gratifying to Mulrain. Since her customers learned she was closing, “I’ve realized how important I am to people’s lives,” she said, with a note of surprise.

Long-time employee Joan Wenzel of Guilford echoed this: “It’s a big part of my life.”

Keelin Brett, an accomplished professional jewelry designer who has worked at the shop for 15 years also holds the place in her heart.

“I am so thankful for the Bead Hive,” she said. “It’s never really been a shop to me — we’re a family. Instead of spending holidays together, we create together. I will miss that terribly.”

Another veteran staffer compared the store to a clubhouse, one that welcomed all who wandered in.

This was the place where customers would bring in grandmother’s broken necklace to have it repaired or learn to fix it themselves. It was the place to learn how to stitch an intricate beaded bracelet or make a quick pair of earrings with Swarovski crystals for a night out.

And, it was the place for dad to bring his young daughter to pick out special beads to make a necklace for mom for Mother’s Day — with help from staff to finish off the masterpiece, employees and fans fondly recalled.

Some patrons became addicted to the craft and could whip out Kumihimo necklaces, a Japanese form of braiding using teeny tiny seed beads on a diskloom. Others became experts at painstaking bead embroidery, Mulrain noted.

Old Lyme jewelry designer Carol Dorman summed it up: “The Bead Hive is like a friend — I miss it already. It’s more than a store.”

She added, “I’ve been going to the Bead Hive for 30 years, long before it was open,” when it was more like a club.

Dorman also lamented its closing because online shopping for beads is just not the same for her. Buying semi-precious gemstones is a tactile experience, she stressed.

“You can see it, feel it, touch it.” And there’s more to the experience in the Bead Hive, she said.

“You can socialize — it’s the whole thing — get ideas, you learn things.”

A teacher to remember

Dorman said she has a real connection to Mulrain: “I’m going to miss Rena. She always had classes — they were wonderful — up until the last day.”

Barbara Yager of Madison, who started out as a complete novice, echoed this.

“It’s a community of people who love to bead,” Yager said. “Rena is so encouraging. I’ve learned so much from Rena that I can call myself a bead artist.”

When trying to master a new complicated design or technique, Mulrain would tell her, “‘You, YouTube and me — we gotcha.’”

Now, Yager said, “I’m really fearless.”

Teaching comes naturally for Mulrain, who taught first, second and third graders in Woodbridge for 30 years before embarking on this second career. Plus, she is a good listener, she said.

“Often I’ve compared myself to a bartender or hairdresser, you hear things you don’t hear anywhere else,” Mulrain said with a laugh. “It’s like Las Vegas — they don’t go out the door.”

Mulrain’s teaching style resonated with Brett, who recently studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

“Rena’s one of those rare teachers that’s filled with an absolute passion for what she does,” Brett said. “She never tells you what to make or how to execute a specific design.

“Like all great teachers, she leaves that up to you, but teaches you how to tackle your idea,” Brett said.

Humble beginnings

The Bead Hive started as an informal club of sorts in the early 1990s. Master beader, the late Barbara Lynch, was teaching a class at the former Guilford Handcrafts Center (now the Guilford Arts Center). There, Mulrain and two other students who were besotted with beadwork got together and rented a space in the former Bittersweet Farm in Branford.

At Bittersweet, “We’d buy beads and sell them to each other,” Mulrain recalled. Later they had a small shop there open a few days a week and started the Connecticut Bead Society, that’s when Mulrain and Lynch became partners and lifelong friends.

Soon after in the mid-2000s, Lynch and Mulrain rented a storefront on State Street in Guilford and opened a shop in the Audubon Arts District in New Haven, only to close both locations around 2010 and combine them into a mega-bead store at Strawberry Hill.

But the demand for brick and mortar bead stores was slipping, so the shop moved to a smaller space in the plaza a couple of years later.

Lynch was beloved by her beading students and would host Wednesday bead nights where she would come up with an original but challenging design and teach participants how to master it. And there would be snacks — lots of snacks, and sometimes wine.

“Those were special days and special times,” Mulrain recalled.

Mulrain was considered a “classical” beader, as she preferred stringing. However, when Lynch insisted she learn to master a very complex hand-sewn, seed bead necklace, Mulrain got to work.

Her necklace ended up winning first prize in a competition years later.

Mulrain noted that Lynch, who headed the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy at Southern Connecticut State University with her husband, Ed Lynch. for years, saw beading as therapeutic for all.

“Barbara used beading as a helpful tool in dealing with pressure of daily life,” Mulrain said. “She used it as an outlet, a way of dealing with stress and depression.”

When Lynch was terminally ill in 2011, Mulrain said her best friend told her, “The most important thing is I taught you to seed bead.”

Mulrain became a master beader herself and said she’s loved sharing her wealth of knowledge.

“I’m amazed at how much I know — I can’t get over it,” she said, with a smile.

“I just love all of it,” she said.

Kelly Goddard / Hearst Media Connecticut Rena Mulrain, owner of the Bead Hive, which closed on Saturday.