Happy 9th Birthday B3!

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You may have noticed that the logo in the upper left-hand corner of our website is looking a little extra “festive” today – that’s because it’s Blue Buddha’s 9th Birthday!  We are so excited to be celebrating 9 years.  We’ve come such a long way in that short time – growing from Rebeca working out of her spare bedroom to fill her handful of weekly orders to a team of 13 employees, supplying people in all 50 states and 40 countries with our top-quality chainmaille jewelry supplies.  Here’s a big thanks to B3’s customers, supporters, mentors, designers and employees for getting us this far and here’s to many, many, more!

Our jump rings surprised us with a party – complete with noisemakers, party hats and of course, cake!

 

A close up of our cakes (left) and Rebeca’s mom, Rita stands in for Rebeca (who is out at a leadership retreat this week) to blow out the candles (right).

Some of our team members mugging for the camera – from left: Max, Erik, Nadja & Jason (making a fashion statement with our decorations!)

Nom Nom Nom!  We love cake – a vanilla cake with strawberries (left) and a chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake (right) – our jump rings know us so well!

We also wanted to share some very sweet birthday wishes we received from our community members on Facebook.  Thanks for all your kind words – we love you right back!


Happy Birthday to the biggest and best Chainmaille supplier :) – Tammy R.

Happy Birthday, and here’s to many more! Thanks for helping making all my ring-crazy dreams come true! – Jo H.

Happy birthday, B3! At the rate you’re growing, world domination won’t take as long as we all first thought. Hope y’all find a bigger home soon and we can play during open studio again. – Lisa S.

Happy Birthday, and congratulations! I remember taking some of Rebeca’s early classes at Caravan, and am so proud of all the wonderful changes over the years. Here’s to many more birthdays! – Sharon B.D.

Happy creative dream to permanent reality day! – Melissa L.

Happy birthday to the greatest business that supports my addiction to chain maille! :) – Audra P.

Happy birthday, B3! So glad you are there to inspire (and supply!) us chainmaille fanatics. ♥ – Meridy M.

Happy Happy Birthday! I hope there are 100 more!!! – Meta G.

Happy Birthday B3, may your pliers stay strong and your reign be long! – Deni C.

 

Changes to Shipping Rates

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Most domestic customers are probably aware that the United States Post Office has recently raised its rates.  This increase has forced us to raise our rates a bit to keep up.  We regret having to do so and hope you understand why, as a small business, these changes are necessary to keep Blue Buddha strong and growing.

New Domestic Priority Shipping fees are as follows:

$7.75 for orders up to $99.99
$6.75 for orders $100 – $249.99
FREE! for orders $250+

Some of our Standard Shipping rates have increased as well.  These fees vary as they depend on the value of your order, but you may notice slight changes to the shipping prices for these orders as well.

The good news (Yes! There is actually good news in this post too!) is that we have found way to LOWER our International Shipping rates.  International shipping has long been a struggle for us but we are thrilled to announce that we now have simpler, lower rates.

New International fee are as follows:

Canada and Mexico $10.50
All other Countries $14.95

As always, very large or heavy orders may incur additional charges.  If you think you order may be large or heavy enough to require additional shipping, you can feel free to contact us for a quote prior to placing your order.  Read more about this on our shipping page.

Cast Your Vote for February’s Featured Product Contest!

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CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!

Submissions for February’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 anodized aluminum scales. The submissions really demonstrate the impact adding scales to your projects can have!  Voting will close February 29th. 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:


               

 

FEATURED PRODUCT FOR MARCH – Size O18 jump rings – any metal


March’s featured product will be our size O18 jump rings – any metal.  For March, we are upping the creative ante and challenging you to create a project using one of our more obscure sizes.  We do not currently have a weave samples post for this size so you’re working without a net!  (We know you can handle it though *wink*.)

But wait, there’s more!  We will add a special place on each submission form for you to opt in to add your weave suggestion to our first ever fan-sourced weave samples post.  We figure we have some of the most creative customers around, so why not make a place to permanently share your suggestions as a resource to everyone!

Come Play With Blue Buddha on Pinterest!

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Probably not unlike many of you, we have been hearing about Pinterest (the web’s hottest new social sharing site) A LOT lately!  Well, we finally got around to joining and are already having lots of fun discovering inspiring images, craft ideas and other fun DIY finds.

After Rebeca and I attended the CHA Winter Conference last month, we asked our community of maillers on Facebook if they were on Pinterest and loving it.  We got a mix of responses from “I love it!” to “Pin-who-what??” but overall, it sounds like lots of you are in the stage we’re in – trying it out, seeing what we can discover and still feeling a bit unsure of what it’s all about.  We did do a little hunting before we joined and found that fans, friends and strangers had pinned nearly 150 images from our website already!   (Click on an image to see it larger, and then click on it again to be taken to the webpage on which that image appears.  A perfect way to store all those weaves you see on our website and want to make later!)

Let’s explore more together! 


To join Pinterest, you must request an invitation using your email address.  Your invite probably won’t come right away (it didn’t for us anyway) and once it does, you’ll need to use your Facebook or Twitter account to verify who you are.  Don’t worry, this doesn’t connect your account (i.e. – your pins won’t automatically be posted.)  Once you’re verified, you’ll be invited to choose some things you like to start following some folks and create some new boards.  Pinterest boards can be themed in whatever way you like and are used to organize the things you like into groupings.  We started out by making one for artistic inspiration, another for color inspiration, one just for fun and of course….one for chaimaille!

That’s when the fun really begins.  You’ll be flooded with images related to your chosen subjects and you can start re-pinning them to your pin boards.  You can also create your own pins using links from the internet.  For example, you might have a board for recipes and another for future crafting ideas.  When you come across a recipe or craft you want to try, you can pin them to one of your boards.  Think of Pinterest as a handy way to come back to those sites or images that you come across and think “Ohhh, I gotta remember this!”  We also have noticed lots of artists and crafters creating inspiration boards – lots of fun!

So try it out and let us know what you discover.  Oh!  And be sure to share some of your favorite chainmaille finds.  As we all know, the more people see the craft, they more they’ll love it like we all do!

“Maillers’ Choice” 12-Hour SALE – Today Only!

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This month’s “Maillers’ Choice” kits are now available on our sale page. We will offer these kits today only from noon to midnight CT – get yours before they’re gone! This month’s kit is a one-time-only kit for our Shaggy Scales Earrings project. This is a great kit for beginners and a fun way to whip up a project in no time – not to mention the tutorial is available for FREE on our website!

We had such an overwhelming response to the voting this month that we added a special “Buy 3 get 1 FREE” 4 pack in addition to the regular single pair pack. Make the other pairs for your friends or better yet, get them addicted to your favorite hobby too by giving them the kit to try out on their own!