Voting for December’s Featured Product of the Month contest is officially closed and the winner as chosen by you is……
Heidi V. and her piece “A Little Here, A Little There”!
Congratulations, Heidi! Your creativity has earned you a B3 gift certificate for $25! To claim your prize, please send an email to [email protected].
This also means that Heidi has claimed a spot alongside our previous 2011 winners in our first ever “Mailler of the Year” contest.Cast your vote now to decide who will win grand prize of a $100 Blue Buddha gift certificate (and bragging rights for the next year!)
Thanks to all our 2011 participants. We can’t wait to see what you have in store for us in 2012. We’re starting the year off with our enameled copper jump ring contest. Search “enameled copper” in our blog search bar above for tons of inspiration and pay close attention to out new submission instructions!
January’s featured product is enameled copper jump rings – any size you choose! Show off how these brilliantly colored rings can really shine in your designs. We can’t wait to see what you invent.
Type “enameled copper” into our blog’s search bar to get all kinds of inspiration including weave ideas and our recent post featuring music-inspired color palettes!
HOW TO PARTICIPATE:
*NOTE: the submission process has changed!* 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. Please see the complete rules and details below for more information about qualifications.
Take a picture of your project and submit it using our official Featured Product Contest form (link below.) You may post the piece online somewhere and provide us with a link, or upload it directly in the form. You will be asked to provide your name and an email address we can use to contact you in case anything goes wrong with your submission—or if you are the winner of the contest!
Submissions are accepted between the 1st and 15th of every month and are limited 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. 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.
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.
Complete contest rules and details: Submissions are limited to 2 per person and must use the featured product of the month as determined by Blue Buddha Boutique. The project is not required to be made from Blue Buddha Boutique rings, however 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 to prevent false advertising. Pieces do not have to be specially created for the contest but should be no more than 12 months old. Current employees and interns of Blue Buddha Boutique are not eligible for this contest. Finalists are chosen by Blue Buddha Boutique and voted upon anonymously by the public to determine a winner. Submissions may be disqualified at the discretion of Blue Buddha Boutique if they are deemed inappropriate in any way. If a winner does not claim their prize within 15 days of notification, the second place winner will be awarded the prize.
B3’s Maillers’ Choice Kit continues to be a hit! So far, we’ve invited you to design a Bold & Brilliant Byzantine kit and a Japanese Lace kit and both designs have sold out in the blink of an eye!
For January, you’ll be designing a Rapid Track kit – the brand new design from Kat Wisniewski that is already a hit with maillers. This intermediate level project is an updated version of the popular barrel weave. It uses seed beads that lie diagonally, which cause the weave to appear slanted throughout. The vertical rings that are woven into the horizontal pair are reminiscent of train tracks, hence the name Rapid Track. Voting for the Maillers’ Choice kit starts today and closes on the 10th. Your top-voted combination will be made into kits and released on our website on the 16th.
Don’t forget, there will be a limited number of these kits available at the discounted price, so stop by early to get yours!
The color choices this month are meant to do away with winter greys. Inspired by blooming flowers, they are sure to brighten your mood. (They are also great colors for Valentine’s Day which will be here before we know it!) The more people we have vote, the higher we’ll set the discount on the kit so make sure tocast your vote using our survey(not in the comments below) to make it count!
2011 was a year of ups, downs, and lots of firsts for Blue Buddha Boutique. Taking a look back as some of our most memorable moments and accomplishments, we feel really great about where 2011 took us and can’t wait to start tackling new plans in 2012. Here’s our list of 2011 moments – feel free to share your biggest chainmaille accomplishments and/or memorable B3 experiences in the comments below.
B3 Recognized as an Innovative Retailer
In 2011, the Craft & Hobby Association asked retailers to describe their innovations in customer service. We told them all about our innovative customer service practices (from chainmaille advice to notes in our customer database) and were recognized alongside four other outstanding retailers at their winter conference in LA. Read more about this honor…
Happy 8th Birthday B3 + Blue Velvet Cupcakes
In February, B3 turned 8 and celebrated with what else but BLUE velvet cupcakes! We loved all the birthday wishes you guys sent in and shared Nadja’s recipe on our blog (which we know some of your tried out and enjoyed at home!)
The giant blizzard Chicago experienced in 2011 earned many names (Snowpocalypse. Snowmageddon, and Snowtorious B.I.G. just to name a few) but for B3, we called it a snow day! For the first time ever, we had to close the shop for a snow day. (Special note from Jenna: The snow was so extreme that I actually had snow IN my kitchen – and of course snowmen in my kitchen sink.)
Rebeca’s first international publication!
In March, Rebeca appeared in her first ever international publication with Perlen Poesie, a German magazine. This was especially exciting because Rebeca lived for a year in Germany when she was younger. Read more about this very cool accomplishment…
Bead&Button – Bead Dreams domination, fire breathing cats + Jason mugging for camera
The Bead&Button Show is always a major event for us and 2011 was no different. We especially loved how B3 ambassadors dominated the wirework category of the Bead Dreams competition! See more by visiting our Bead&Button 2011 photo album on our page on Facebook.
First Ever B3 Talent show
As part of our annual employee retreat, B3 had its first ever talent show! Talents ranged from monologues to tap dancing and even baking and nail art. Check out this post for photos and videos of all the talents that were shown off.
B3’s retail space sadness & the overwhelming support and good wishes from customers about it
As we mentioned, 2011 was full of ups….and downs. In August we made the difficult decision to walk away from the retail space we had been trying to move into after a number of roadblocks made it clear it wasn’t the right place for us. Lucky for us, we didn’t stay down for long. The outpouring of support we received from all of you was so appreciated and helped us be even more motivated to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and find a new dream space. Read more about this decision…
First ever Featured Product contest
In September we introduced our Feature Product of the Month contest and awarded Lia H. with the first win for her beautiful necklace that featured our size X12 rings. We have run the contest every month since and continue to be inspired by your creativity. We can’t wait to see what you create in 2012 – and who will be crowned our first ever Mailler of the Year in January! Visit the Featured Product of the Month category for more details about this contest.
Show off your Maille Week
We named the week of October 21st official “Show Off Your Maille” week. We asked you guys to show off what you were wearing and making each day (and we did too) in an effort to increase the visibility of the craft we all love. Check out the posts we made that featured all the great jewelry made by you and the B3 team.
First Maillers’ Choice kit
In November we launched our Maillers’ Choice kit promotion – inviting you all to design a custom kit by voting for your favorite color and metal choices and then making a limited number of them for sale at a discount on our website. The first round was a shocking success (the kits sold out in minutes!) Your overwhelming response to this fun promotion has made it a keeper for 2012. Read more about this promotion…
We survived an audit!
Those of you who follow us on our page on Facebook heard all the trials and tribulations that lead up to our audit (including rescheduling the appointment umpteen times and receiving a notice addressed to Ms. Rebeca “Mojito”!) Well, we survived and decided to share how we got through it on our blog. Read more about how we prepared for and survived the audit…
DIY: Rebeca’s first show as her own brand + youngest mailler ever
We wrapped up the year with some of our favorite shows including The DIY Trunk Show and One of a Kind. This year, Rebeca branched out and sold her handmade jewelry for the first time under her own Rebeca Mojica brand. We also got the warm fuzzies at the DIY Trunk Show when we had our youngest chainmaille student ever (about 6 years old!) at our Make + Take station.
Blue Buddha Boutique is now closed for the holidays. We will re-open for business as usual on Thursday, January 5 at 10 am CT.
During our closing, we will continue to process and ship all orders that were placed by 5pm CT Dec 22, but please expect a bit of a delay in our order processing time, due to half the studio being off on any given day. No new orders will processed until we reopen on Jan 5—this includes express orders. We also will not be answering the phones during this time.
A few of our elves may pop up on Facebook from time to time, and we’ll also be in the studio counting inventory in early January. But mostly, it will be very quiet around here while we take some time off for a much-needed break with family and friends, and prepare to count and weigh every single jump ring, tool, book, finding, and other piece of inventory in the entire studio. Whew!
We wish you all a very happy and healthy holiday season! We’ll see you in 2012!
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Thanks to all our 2011 participants. We can’t wait to see what you have in store for us in 2012. We’re starting the year off with our enameled copper jump ring contest. Search “enameled copper” in our blog search bar above for tons of inspiration and pay close attention to out new submission instructions!
As we mentioned, 2011 was full of ups….and downs. In August we made the difficult decision to walk away from the retail space we had been trying to move into after a number of roadblocks made it clear it wasn’t the right place for us. Lucky for us, we didn’t stay down for long. The outpouring of support we received from all of you was so appreciated and helped us be even more motivated to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and find a new dream space. 
In September we introduced our Feature Product of the Month contest and awarded Lia H. with the first win for her 
We named the week of October 21st official “Show Off Your Maille” week. We asked you guys to show off what you were wearing and making each day (and we did too) in an effort to increase the visibility of the craft we all love. Check out the 
Blue Buddha Boutique is now closed for the holidays. We will re-open for business as usual on Thursday, January 5 at 10 am CT.
