Inside you'll find a mix of traditional chainmaille jewelry and
striking contemporary designs. Everything you see is lovingly handcrafted—ring
by ring—by some of the top weavers in this industry.
Enjoy the beauty of maille that is colorful, creative and very alive.
7 May
Supplies customers: We will soon be selling anodized niobium from Spiderchain. Spider has restructured her niobium packs and will be selling them by the ounce. Here at Blue Buddha Boutique, we'll offer packs of 50, 100 and 250 for those who don't necessarily want a full ounce at once. Our price for 250 will be just about exactly what Spider's price for 250 was. We will start with Spider's sizes 6:20 and 8:20 (our B20 and D20) and will gradually add the new sizes she's just added in 18 and 16g. We expect to have rings available for sale shortly after the Bead&Button show ends in mid-June. However, if there's a particular size/color you absolutely need right away, give us a call and we'll see if we have it bagged and ready to go for you.
Additionally, we are also looking into carrying Enameled Copper rings, especially in 20g, since the anodized aluminum is so finicky at such a thin gauge. Stay tuned!
29 April
Yesterday, I did a presentation for a group of girls at a local public high school. The event was coordinated by Women in Leadership at Loyola (WILL), an organization that strives to improve the economic, political and social status of women everywhere, especially underprivileged women. I worked with 15 students and helped them make a couple of pairs of chainmaille earrings. After the presentation, we spoke a little about women entrepreneurs and how I got into business. But mostly, the gals wanted to make more chainmaile!
The presentation was suprizingly fun. I realize that I am one of the lucky few who is making a living doing something I love, and I want to inspire other folks to follow their dreams, too. In particular, I want to encourage young women to become finanically literate and be successful investors. I look forward to doing more events like this.
And lastly, just a quick reminder about my next art fair: the Chicago Craft Mafia's Hand May-ed show this Saturday, May 3rd. Hope to see you there!
21 April
Chicago supplies customers: Sadly, Caravan Beads and Briolette Beads are discontinuing jump ring packs (though they may bring them back at some point in the future). If you need to see/touch jump rings before you buy, or if you have questions, you can pick up rings from our studio. We are only open to the public by appointment, so give us a day's notice, and we'll be happy to pull together whatever items you need. For all pickup orders, we are now offering 5% off sterling rings & kits and 10% off base metal rings & kits.
18 April
New eye candy posted in the gallery: a bracelet, and a few pendants. Yummy!
17 April
Vanessa is going to begin teaching chainmaille classes at the Discovery Center in Chicago. I'll update the classes page here, but in the meantime, you can view her blog entry about the classes. Very exciting!
7 April
We're back and are able to process telephone orders again! Thanks for your patience. The sale items have also been restored. We'll be posting more updates and products as soon as we'll all settled in again.
25 March
Until April 7, we are only accepting standard PayPal orders. (Wholesale orders will need to wait until April 7 as well.) We will be checking messages periodically, but are not able to accept phone orders at this time. Allow 1-2 extra days for shipping of most orders. Thanks for your patience!
Additionally, supplies customers may want to check out the supplies updates for the latest information on the transition to our new, standardized base metal sizes.
21 March
For those of you local folk who have been asking about my next finished jewelry show, the wait is nearly over! I'll be showing new wares plus old favorites at the Chicago Craft Mafia's Hand May-ed show on Saturday May 3rd. There's something for everyone: in addition to some new high-end sterling silver designs, I will also have a sale bin of inventory that is more than 3 years old. My fellow Mafia sisters will have plenty of other crafty goodies to tickle your fancy. More info is available on the Shows page.
18 March
Half the staff will be away from the studio at various points from March 26 - April 6 (I'll actually be out of town that entire time), so we will only be processing standard PayPal orders. We will be checking messages periodically, but are not able to accept phone orders during this time. If you have a phone order you've been considering, please get your order in before March 26! Thanks for your patience!
17 March
I am excited to announce that we will be selling chainmaille supplies at the Bead&Button Show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this June. Last year, so many of my students commented that no one was selling jump rings on the show floor, so I decided to beg and plead with the show organizers to let Blue Buddha Boutique come on in and meet this need. It worked! We're in! We'll be in booth number #1254 (all the way at the end of the right-hand aisle). June will be here before we know it, so we've already started planning what we're going to be bringing.
18 February
Due to a growing waiting list for the Captive Zen class on February 23, we added another session that day. The first class runs from 11:00 - 2:00 and the second class from 2:30 - 5:30 at Briolette Beads. The Flowers class previously scheduled for that morning has been canceled. The class rings provided will be your choice of copper, aluminum or jewelry brass. I will have a limited number of sterling kits available for purchase; to ensure you get a sterling kit, please contact me ahead of time.
And, we are almost done catching up on the backlog of orders. Finally! It took a little longer than we thought, mostly because we were slammed with orders the day we re-opened after Tucson. It's a good thing, but just caught us a little off guard. We'll have a new person starting shortly to help keep our inventory well-stocked. Thanks again for your patience.
13 February
We're open again! Thanks to all those who stopped by the booth in Tucson. I had a fun time being able to put faces to names! My only regret is that I didn't have any time to wander around and see all the goodies the other vendors were selling.
We've started processing the orders that came in and should be back to normal shipping times by Tuesday of next week (Monday is a postal holiday). We intended to get the first batch of orders out today, but technical difficulties—not to mention the new snowfall—foiled our plans. Thanks for your patience while we catch up!
