The newest entry into Peoria Heights’ mom-and-pop retail family is Curious Baubles, located inside the old Pabst Building on Prospect Road.
Owner Amanda Sears said she was a stay-at- home mom who’d been “making jewelry for a long time” and selling it at conventions, art fairs, farmers markets, etc., but that “cabin fever, COVID, convinced me to take the leap” and turn her passion into an occupation.
She specializes in providing vintage, “pre- loved” beads and other costume jewelry pieces that she’s picked up at estate sales and thrift stores – “some of this is 100 years old,” she said -- and then giving customers the space, tools and freedom to come in and let their imaginations be their guides.
Of course, there is ready-made jewelry available for purchase, but Curious Baubles is really a place where “it’s all you,” said Sears. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’ll just finish it up for you” by affixing the clasp for a necklace or whatever the case may be.
“I love custom. I love helping people out. There are no wrong answers here ... As long as there’s a table for you to sit, you can come in and just do it.”
She has started a bead club, and in time she hopes to host jewelry - making parties and workshops, with participants permitted to bring their own food and drink and make it an event worth sharing with friends. She also plans to have a mini-bead bar for children to come in and explore their creative side.
Sears opened in July, one day before her 41st birthday, because of a promise she had made to herself “to open my own business by 40.”
The Wisconsin native moved to the Peoria area with her husband, a doctor of psychiatry at OSF, eight years ago.
Finally, with one daughter in college and another about to start first grade, the time was just right to scratch that entrepreneurial itch she’d long had, and the Heights was her first choice as the place to do it. Fortunately, the Pabst space opened up just in time.
“It’s the walkability,” Sears said. “People come down here for an experience ... You can come to the Heights and paint pottery, have a martini, have dinner. You can make a day of the Heights. I want to be part of that bigger destination.”
Curious Baubles is open Tuesdays through
Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Learn more about the business at its website and follow Amanda & Co. on Facebook.
The Curious Baubles motto is “Love it. Wear it. Make it. Flaunt it,” and “it’s as much a playground for me as a job,” said Sears. “I just want to let people be themselves ... To express themselves, that’s the word.”