October

2011

Cast your vote for October’s Featured Product of the Month Contest!

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CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!

Submissions for October’s Featured Product of the Month Contest are closed, and the B3 team has cast their ballots to determine the finalists…..which means it’s time for YOU to cast your vote to determine the winner. Folks this month were challenged to create a piece that featured our size D20 rings. We had so many great submissions and the B3 team had a heck of a time narrowing them down! Thank you to EVERYONE who submitted a piece – we were blown away by them and we can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with next month! Voting will close October 31st at 5pm CT. Voting is only allowed once per computer so choose wisely!

To share the survey, we recommend you copy the link to this blog post and use that in any emails, blog posts, or social media posts you’d like to make about it (we’ve noticed some weirdness in the past with sharing the link directly – it sometimes like to bump people out of voting that haven’t already.)

Get a sneak peak at the all of our finalists below:

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Did you miss your chance to participate in this month’s contest? Don’t worry – there’s always next month! November’s Featured Product of the Month is our Glass Rings. Check out our Glass Rings Weave Ideas blog post to get your creative juices flowing!

October

19

2011

Care & Cleaning: Chainmaille Jewelry with beads, crystals, and glass rings

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Some of our most popular jewelry kits (and favorite modern chainmaille projects!) use components such as seed beads, crystals, and glass rings. The question has come up from a several of our customers, “How do I clean pieces that use delicate components?” We think this is an excellent question – one everyone might benefit from hearing our answer to. I posed this question to two of our designers who use these components in their B3 designs as well as their own lines of jewelry. The following is their expert advice.

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Advice from Kat Wisniewski, designer behind several of our kits including Glass Caterpillar and artists behind Elemental Art Jewelry.

What are the concerns with taking care of pieces that use glass and crystal rings? Glass is super easy to take care of and can be tumbled over and over again in a small barrel jewelry tumbler. Crystals that do not have foil backs can be tumbled as well. If it has a foil back, it will scratch and deteriorate over time, kinda fading in various spots. Lemon juice cleaning may be OK for foil back crystals, but I’ve never tried it. Lemon juice works great with glass and non-foiled crystals!

What do you recommend when it comes to cleaning these pieces? I recommend tumbling with burnishing compound and shot over every other possible method. 15-20 min is fine, rinse, dry with blow dryer on cool setting.

What do you recommend to keep these pieces clean to begin with? Air tight zip locks with Anti- tarnish tabs for each individual item–yes I actually suck the air out! Then I put items in a larger freezer zip lock and suck all the air out. Then I put all the items in a box and keep in a cool and dry place.

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Rebeca has started using more crystals in her designs for B3 like Coiled Crystals, Beaded Zig-Zag Byzantine, and Crystal Ring Byzantine. She adds this bit of advice:

We’ve tumbled plenty of pieces with crystals, and they have been just fine. However, it would still be possible for a crystal to get hit with a piece of shot in JUST the right spot at just the right (er, wrong) moment, and shatter. It’s never happened to us, so that should be reassuring to everyone, but still, it is possible. I recommend not letting the piece get too tarnished to begin with so that the time spent in the tumbler is minimized. Do maintenance with soap and water as often as possible.

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We hope this is helpful to those of you wondering how to take care of these pieces. Our FAQ has even more information about taking care of jewelry in general. If you have created jewelry with these components and have additional advice on their care and cleaning, share your thoughts in the comments section below!

October

17

2011

Chainmaille Weave Ideas: Glass Rings (9.5 mm x 3.5 mm)

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Wondering what chainmaille project to tackle with glass rings? Check out the post below for weave ideas as well as where to get instructions for each one.

Weave Ideas: Glass Rings (9.5 mm x 3.5 mm)

Our shiny glass rings are a great way to take your chainmaille to the next level. Our glass rings are available in more than a dozen colors and can be integrated into a number of common weaves. Try one of the weaves below or experiment with creating your own. Take even more inspiration from our artist-designed kits that use glass rings including our most popular kit ever, Glass Caterpillar.

Hint: See a weave you’d like to try below? Pick up your glass rings and then hop on over to our Ring Picker tool to quickly shop for all the jump rings on your supply list.

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These samples combine our Czech glass rings with our base metal jump rings (aluminum, copper, jewelry brass and anodized aluminum.)

European 4-in-1 (Mesh)

T18 4 rpi
Glass Rings 8 rpi

Mesh & Rosettes
DVD Vol I

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Shaggy Loops

L16 4 rpi
Glass Rings 8 rpi

Shaggy Loops PDF
(FREE!)
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Japanese Lace

L18 18 rpi
Glass Rings 8 rpi

Japanese Lace PDF + Hardcopy Instructions
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Japanese Bulls-Eye

Z16 2 rpi
N18 2 rpi
K18 4rpi
L18 2 rpi
Glass Rings 2 rpi

Japanese Bulls-Eye PDF + Hardcopy Instructions
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Captive Inverted Round (CIR)

O18 4 rpi
Glass Rings 8 rpi

Jacob’s DNA Ladder PDF + Hardcopy Instructions
(Too stiff for a bracelet, but works well for a necklace.)
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Celtic Visions

T16 6 rpi
H16 8 rpi
Glass Rings 2 rpi

Celtic Visions PDF + Hardcopy Instructions
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Beez to Butterflies/Gridlock Byzantine hybrid variation

L16 12 rpi
L18 12 rpi
Glass Rings 2 rpi

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Here’s even MORE inspiration! We featured glass rings in November 2011 for our Featured Product of the Month contest and this very cool piece by Wing N. was the winner.

Want to participate in the contest? Find out what’s happening this month by clicking on the category “Featured Product of the Month”.

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Check out some of our chainmaille kits and instructions that use glass rings including:

Bold & Brilliant Byzantine
(Intermediate)
by Kat Wisneiwski

Glistening Bloom
(Intermediate)
by Kat Wisneiwski

Akimbo
(Intermediate)
by Kat Wisneiwski

Inclined to Shine
(Intermediate)
by Kat Wisneiwski

Glass Caterpillar
(Advanced)
by Kat Wisneiwski

October

13

2011

Make Your Chainmaille Sparkle with Beautiful Miyuki Beads and a New Glass Ring Color

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We are really loving the bling around here this month. First, we started selling á la carte packs of the 6mm & 8mm Swarovski® crystal beads used in some of our jewelry kits – now we’re excited to announce that we are upgrading the seed beads used in some of our other popular maille projects! Our Glass Caterpillar, Glistening Bloom, and Inclined to Shine kits will all soon get a boost from beautiful Miyuki Beads.

And it doesn’t stop there: we’re also introducing a new glass ring color to our lineup. (Which color? We’re not sure yet. You tell us which color you want, and the most popular choices will join our inventory!)

We decided to upgrade our seed beads to the Miyuki brand largely on the recommendation of the artist behind these kits, Kat Wisniewski. I asked Kat this week why she loves these beads (and why she thinks you’ll love them too!) She said….

I like them because they are Japanese! Enough said. [laughs] They have a slightly larger outside diameter, which makes them more prominent in various jewelry designs. They are also extremely consistent in size (both outer and inner), which is important for a streamlined look and reduces waste from beads that are mis-shapen.

If that doesn’t sell you on why you’ll love the way they take your chainmaille to the next level, maybe a sneak peak of some new colors will do the trick. Help us decide which new glass ring colors to start carrying by clicking the link below. After you submit your vote, you’ll see a sneak peak of some of our favorite colors of our new Miyuki beads!

VOTE ON NEW GLASS RING COLORS!

October

7

2011

Coordinating Swarovski® crystal beads & anodized niobium jump rings (B3 quick reference guide)

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We now have the 6mm and 8mm Swarovski® Crystal Beads used in some of our jewelry kits available for purchase á la carte on our findings page. Our selection of crystal bead colors were chosen specifically to match our anodized niobium colors, originally inspired by projects from CHAINED that combine both elements. For your convenience, we have put together the chart below to show you which niobium color coordinates with each bead color. The sparkle of these beads and the unique shine of anodized niobium are two peas in a pod and can create some really beautiful pieces. To create more contrast, mix and match the colors or pair the beads with silver or base metal rings. The possibilities are endless…what will you create?