Holy cow! 2012 is almost over and it was quite a year for us. We experienced tremendous growth and change (we say that a lot, but this year felt significant.) Our team grew, our space grew (finally!!) and our vision for our future grew as well. Not everything memorable we experienced was big though. In fact, lots of our favorite moments from this year are more fun and personal. We credit that with the great group of people we have working here. Despite tight quarters and heavy workloads, our team became more tightly knit this year and our memories from the year show it.
We hope you enjoy this peek into our past year. We can’t wait to start fresh in our new space in 2013 and make a whole new year of memories!
First “Mailler of the Year”
In January, we crowned our first “Mailler of the Year“, Marge Hummel. Stay tuned for an interview with her coming to our blog later this week and get ready to vote to select 2012’s reigning champ!
Jello Jiggler Jump Rings
Here’s one of those small but mighty memorable moments: We LOVED these Jello Jiggler Jump Rings that B3 community member Tracy K.B. posted to our wall on Facebook. They look delicious and we love the extra touch of the stats labels on the bags!
Blue Buddha’s 9th Birthday
In February, B3 celebrated its 9th birthday and wouldn’t you know it, our jump rings threw us a little birthday party complete with delicious cake and candles!
Our Googly-Eyed Cutie on allgoogly.com
One of the ways we like to keep everyone in good spirits in our office is to leave funny little things around for people to find (often involving googly eyes.) Naturally, we had to submit this Googly-Eyed Cutie (clementine) to allgoogly.com and you better believe we were pretty darn excited when it was featured on the website!
Rebeca’s Jewelry in the MCA Store
Another exciting moment was when Rebeca’s jewelry was carried in the store at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA Store is considered by many artsy folks to be one of the best in the city. It was truly an honor to have her jewelry available there!
Matt’s Titanic Dinner
April marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and our web guru Matt Hucke honored the occasion by recreating the dinner served on the ship for the dinner group he and Rebeca are part of. Not only did he recreate the meal but he updated it to be meat free and more healthy – quite an amazing feat!
10 Year Maille-versary for Rebeca
In May, Rebeca celebrated a decade of making maille and shared some of her first pieces as well as the tools she first used. Amazing how far she has come in 10 years. We can’t wait to see what the next 10 hold!
Bead&Button Show 2012
We can’t have a yearly round up without mentioning the Bead&Button Show. This year, we had our biggest booth ever allowing us to offer two FREE “Make n Take” projects and serve even more customers with our artist-designed kits and quality supplies. Rebeca also taught a bunch of classes and had lots of awesome new students. We can’t wait for 2013!
Employee Appreciation Day
In July, we had our first ever Employee Appreciation Day at Six Flags Great America. This was definitely on the top of the list for most memorable for many employees (rivaled only by “Acrocats”…more on that later.) It was well-earned and well-enjoyed by all as evidenced by the photos we posted on our page on Facebook!
Edge Fest in our (soon-to-be) new Neighborhood
In August we participated in Edge Fest, a street festival held in our soon-to-be new neighborhood of Edgewater. We had a great time meeting our new community members but the most memorable part of the show was surviving a torrential downpour and otherwise crazy storm! Luckily, we didn’t wash away and now we have a fun story to tell 
One word: “Acrocats!”
Part of our team bonding this year came from a new B3 team perk called “Employee Fun Time”. Each month, the team selects an inexpensive activity to participate with financial support from the company. Again, it’s not that they are big, fancy events, but they are very memorable. Our trip to see an incredibly humane cat circus called “Acrocats” for example topped the list for many employees as THE most memorable moment of 2012. Incidentally, it also inspired Rebeca to try training her cat Apollo to play the piano (video below.)
Second Annual “Show Off Your Maille” Week
We started “Show Off Your Maille” week in 2011 and continued this new tradition in October of this year. Each day, we shared pics of pieces B3 team members were sporting in the studio and encouraged you to show off the chainmaille pieces you were wearing on our wall on Facebook. We had lots of online community members participate and loved seeing all your amazing creations!
“Jumpstart the New B3” Campaign
In October, we officially announced the plans for our new space and created special products and perks for our customers to buy to help us renovate it and begin making it a destination for creativity. To date, our “Jumpstart” campaign has more than $18,000 with the help of more than 100 customers to support this big step.
Starter Pack Blog Hop & Giveaway
We released Chainmaille Starter Packs in November and kicked off this exciting launch with a blog hop and giveaway across six really cool, crafty blogs. We offered a grand prize of an “All-in-One” starter pack on our blog and had almost 400 people enter the contest! It was so great to read all the comments and know that these packs could potentially introduce the craft we love so much to so many new people!
First B3 Holiday Party in our New Home!
We finished out the year celebrating in our new space. Ok, so maybe it was still missing some walls…but we didn’t mind! Our awesome party-planning team decorated, got us yummy sushi and planned fun games. We all had a great time and it rejuvenated our excitement about our new home.
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