Help us Donate $1,000 to benefit Arts Education!

Posted by | No Comments | Read More / Add Comment

Rebeca’s book CHAINED has been out for nearly a year now and is still topping sales charts and introducing the joy (and addiction) of chainmaille jewelry to people all over the world.  When we first released CHAINED last year, we made this blog post highlighting a very special philanthropic angle we took to selling the book on our website.  For every signed copy of the book we have sold, we have donated $5 to benefit Franklin Fine Arts Center, a Chicago Public Magnet elementary school in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood focused on the visual and performing arts.  You have helped us raise approximately $800 so far and we are thrilled to be able to make that donation to a school that is cultivating a love for the arts that we all share.

We will calculate the total number of autographed copies sold (and $5 donations accrued) around the third week of November this year and we would love to reach a goal of $1,000 for them.  We are only about 20 books away from meeting the goal and with your help, we can achieve it!

If you already own the book, share this blog post with a fellow crafter who does not or maybe even purchase one as a holiday present for someone you’d like to share your love of making chainmaille jewelry with.  We will keep you posted as we near the goal!

BUY AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF CHAINED to help Franklin Fine Arts Center!



Congratulations to our first Featured Product of the Month Contest Winner!

Posted by | 9 Comments | Read More / Add Comment

Voting for our first Featured Product of the Month contest is officially closed and the winner as chosen by you is……

 

Lia H. and her piece “I took it as a dare…”


Congratulations, Lia!  Your creativity has earned you a B3 gift certificate for $25!  To claim your prize, please send an email to [email protected].


====================================================================================

Thanks to EVERYONE who participated in our first contest.  You all were incredibly inspiring and made the contest a total success (we had many a debate in the studio over who we thought would win – there were so many awesome submissions!)  We can’t wait to see what you come up with for October using our size D20 jump rings.  Submissions for this month are now open and close on the 15th so make sure to get your photo posted to our wall on Facebook before then!

Happy Weaving!


Featured Product of the Month Contest – October

Posted by | No Comments | Read More / Add Comment

FEATURED PRODUCT FOR OCTOBER – Size D20


The Featured Product of the Month for October is our size D20 – 20g 1/8″ (3.2mm).  These small rings are incredibly versatile and work in a number of weaves.  They are also available in every metal we sell making them a great choice for experimenting with color and creative customization. 

Visit the D20 Weave Ideas blog post for more than a dozen weave ideas to get you started or start buying quickly and easily with our Ring Picker tool – see every metal and color available for this size in one place!

 

Here’s how the contest works:


Make a project which primarily uses our featured product**. The project can most definitely use other rings and components, but the featured product should really be the star of the piece. The project does not necessarily have to be brand new to be submitted – if you have some amazing piece you made last year hanging around that uses the featured product of the month, share it!


 

Take a picture of your project and post it to our page on Facebook. Give your piece a title and Make sure to write something like “This is my submission for the Featured Product Contest!” in the little box that says “Say something about this photo…” when you upload it to our wall.  Please note: upload your photos from your computer directly to be sure they will show up on our wall.  We’ve experienced some technical difficulities with folks uploading from other devices so it’s just safer that way!

Submissions will be accepting between the 1st and 15th of every month so make sure to get your project posted in time! Please limit your submissions to 2 per person.

 

 

Get Votes! Submissions will close on the 15th of each month at which point the B3 Staff will choose our favorites. The top entries will be eligible for voting through a survey which we will post to our blog as well as our wall on Facebook. If you are one of the finalists, feel free to share the link with friends via email, Facebook, Twitter or any other means.

Voting will close on the last day of the month.

 

 

That’s all it takes! We will award the top voted finalist each month with a $25 B3 Gift Certificate and will feature YOUR project in a special blog post and possibly even future B3 ads** to inspire fellow chainmaillers all over the world.


**Please also note that while the project is not required to be made from Blue Buddha Boutique rings, any winning projects that use primarily rings from another supplier or rings made by the artist will not be eligible for posting on our blog or use in our ads.  We do this to prevent false advertising.  We do not want to create the image that we sell a product that we in fact do not.  Thank you for your understanding.

FEATURED PRODUCT FOR NOVEMBER – Glass Rings


Coming up in November we’ll feature our shiny glass rings.  B3 Ambassador Kat Wisniewski loves inventing new ways to integrate glass rings into her work and we can’t wait to see what you come up with as well.

STAY TUNED TO OUR BLOG FOR A WEAVE IDEAS POST

 

 

Meet Spider, our next “Ask an Artist” contributor!

Posted by | 7 Comments | Read More / Add Comment

It’s been far too long since we’ve gotten to dive into the mind of a great chainmaille artist and we are thrilled to have Spider of Silverweaver and Spiderchain as our next contributor.  Spider has been a longtime friend of Rebeca and Blue Buddha Boutique – basically, we adore her.  Not only does she produce incredible chainmaille supplies, great projects, and some awesome instructional DVDs, but she’s just an overall great lady.  When you consider all the things Spider does (on her website she says “I’m Spider, the founder of Spiderchain Jewelry. I’m the designer, webmistress, accountant, shipping department, and janitor. I coil, cut, count, weave, choose, email, anodize, troubleshoot, and teach.”) it’s easy to forget that she has another full time job – mother.

Our “Ask an Artist” article with Spider will focus on her experiences with balancing work and life – something we feel so many of our readers can relate to.  Read on to learn more about Spider and find out how you can ask her your questions about “doing it all”…and keeping it all balanced.

___________________________________________________________________

 

Spider is a chainmail artist currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her childhood was spent in Mendocino, a secluded community of artists on the California coast, though eventually she followed her left-brain to Boston to join the technology revolution, receiving a degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. After several years as a computer geek she discovered that her passion lay not in technology, but in art and today she spends her time discovering new and beautiful ways to weave metal.

 

 

Spider’s passion for making and teaching others how to make chainmaille got her started with her own business, however as many small business owners can attest to, the day-to-day dealings are often less glamorous (in Spider’s case, fulfilling supply orders, answering customer questions and keeping up with inventory) than the passion that got them started.  For Spider, the challenge to manage her time stems from the need to keep up with her business each day knowing that when her second grade daughter comes home from school, it’s all about homework, cuddle time and swim lessons.

 

        

 

__________________________________________________________________

It’s your turn to pick Spider’s brain about balancing work and life. We will be accepting questions until Saturday, October 15th! Here’s how to get your question to Spider:

 

1. Write it in the comments section at the end of this blog entry
2. Post it to our wall on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BlueBuddhaBoutique
3. Tweet it to us using @BlueBuddhaBtq: http://twitter.com/BlueBuddhaBtq
4. Email it to me at [email protected]


Learn more about Spider:
Finished Jewelry Website: http://www.silverweaver.com
Supplies, Kits, and Instruction: http://spiderchain.com

Tell us what you think!

Posted by | 2 Comments | Read More / Add Comment

It’s true, we’re already knee deep in planning and prepping for The Bead&Button Show 2012 (crazy, right?!)  Part of this planning involves looking at customer feedback and making changes to improve customer satisfaction and experience at our booth.  One area that is always a bit tricky for us to navigate is the customization of our kits at shows.  The limitations put on us by the fact that (as much as we might want to be able to) we can’t tote our entire inventory around the country also puts limitations on some of our most popular kits such as Glass Caterpillar, Bicubix Blocks, and many more.

That’s where you come in.  We want to know how you feel about being able to customize products at shows (you don’t have to be a Bead&Button Show aficionado to answer the survey) and get some of your feedback on our ideas for future solutions to our limitations.  Thank you in advance for your time and thoughts – we sincerely appreciate your feedback and can’t wait to come up with just the right way to provide these products to you at shows.

TAKE THE 5 QUESTION SURVEY!