Introducing our Premium Scales

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We are excited to debut our premium anodized aluminum scales. Actually, we debuted them at the Bead&Button show, but they were such a hit that we nearly sold out and had to rebuild our stock before putting them on the website!

These scales are simply unbelievable – brilliant, shiny and full-coverage (so yes, even the ends are colored). A perfect way to add embellishments to your jewelry. The anodizing is done here in the U.S.A.

If color is not your thing, we also sell plain, unanodized scales, which are regular bright aluminum. These scales have been tumbled and cleaned, so they are nice and shiny.

We even created a free Shaggy Scales tutorial so you can see just how easy it is to create a bracelet with these components.

We bow to David Austin

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Last week, M.A.I.L. announced the winner of their 11th Theme Contest, and we were blown away. The topic was Unconventional and/or Useful Maille.

Leave it to David Austin of ChainmailBasket.com to put together a CD rack. In 56 days. !!!

Photo courtesy of artist and used with permission.

Wowza! There are more than 11,000 rings used in 7 different sizes. Two main weaves: Staggered Captive Inverted Round Sheet and European 4-1. The dimensions are: Length: 15.75″ (40cm) x Depth: 7″ (17.8cm) x Height: 25.875″ (65.8cm). Weight is 13.2 pounds (6kg)

To see more stats please read David’s post in the Theme Contest thread on M.A.I.L.

You know, I have a feeling he is slowly chainmailling every bit of his house….give him another decade, and he’ll have a dining room table and chairs (complete with a removable leaf), a rug, chandelier, candlesticks and even dinnerware, all made out of maille. You may think I’m kidding, but seriously, check out some of his previous insanity on ChainmailBasket.com. Simply incredible work.

Congrats to B3’s own Vanessa Walilko!

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We have to give a big shout-out to Vanessa for winning the Fashion.Fantasy.Music.Magic. themed Fashion Fever contest with her dragon inspired dress (modeled by Vanessa herself below.)  Kudos to an ingenious use of 48 hours and $100!

Read more about the contest here and check out Vanessa’s blog to get the inside information about her big win!  Congratulations Vanessa – you rock!!

Bulls Eye Fun

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Our summer intern Sam recently got to know the Bulls Eye weave very, very intimately.

The image at left shows large version with T14 turquoise, P16 blue, F18 for the center “bulls eye” and I18 connecting the bulls eye to the turquoise rings. We’ll probably make some aluminum earrings with this size because they’ll still be very lightweight. This would also be a pretty fun necklace.

Then we had Sam make a 6-in-1 sheet version, because it’s been on Rebeca’s to-do list for about 5 years and never quite got done. It’s fairly stiff, and might be too cumbersome to extend out as a bracelet.

The real fun began when she started doing the 4-1 sheet version. Time consuming as heck, but oh so tactically satisfying! Vanessa should totally make some wearable art with this pattern. (hint, hint) :-)

Rubber Celtic Visions Star

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A customer asked us if the Celtic Visions Star was possible with rubber rings, so we had intern Angelique do some futzing. Here are the results. We know that some of you rubber fanatics will want to make zillions of these. :-) They look cool, but Angelique warns that they are very, VERY tight. So proceed with caution!

This first one uses H18 AA (pink) and P14 RUBR.

This next one is REALLY tight. N16 ALUM with I14 RUBR