This October, Raven’s Roundmaille will come rapping and tapping on your chamber door! B3 team member Emily Fiks was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s legendary poem, The Raven, to create this seasonally spooky kit. Roundmaille accented by spikes? Yes, please!
Here’s your chance to vote for your favorite Raven’s Roundmaille color combination (our sample here uses black AA and plain aluminum)!
We are again looking for original designs created by YOU to become the next Blue Buddha Boutique tutorial. Since our last call for submissions, we’ve published great projects like Chunky Cuff, Concentric Force and Mngwa. Thank you for consistently reminding us that we have the most creative and talented customers and peers. What do you have in store for us next?
We are excited to be *this close* to releasing a new line of rubber rings. They’ll be available in wonderfully bold colors, and in sizes that correlate well with many of our most popular metal ring sizes. And they’re exclusive to B3. You won’t find these anywhere else! With that in mind, for this round of design submissions, we are looking to highlight the use rubber rings. They can be bracelets or necklaces, but don’t forget these other categories:
Have a great idea that doesn’t quite work with rubber rings? Submit it anyway! We are always open to looking at original designs.
How to Submit Your Idea
Submit your idea to us by 5pm CT, October 31, 2014, to be considered. It will also be helpful to read our FAQ page about what it means to work with Blue Buddha to create a chainmaille tutorial. Still have questions? Send us an email at [email protected]. Happy weaving!
Our Omni is at it again! We love his new designs and twists on old favorites. This time he took one of our favorite Byzantine variations – X Lock – and turned up the volume. The connector rings in this version are BIG. CC15, to be exact. 
The base of this Big X-Lock Bracelet will be aluminum, but what color do you want those giant connector rings to be? (The sample here uses red enameled copper.)
Almost everyone who makes jewelry for themselves as a hobby may hear a friend say this at some point: “Wow, that’s a great piece! I’d love to buy one from you!” That’s an exciting point in any hobbyist’s life, and if it happens to you, congratulations! After the initial excitement wears off, you may have a couple of questions:
1 – Do I want to sell my jewelry? Some people honestly prefer not to earn any money from something they do for fun. Those folks may decide to only give away certain pieces as gifts, and never sell anything. Others may decide they’d like to make just enough money to pay for their addiction hobby, and therefore sell their pieces at nominal prices. Still others decide to take the full-fledged plunge of selling at shows and to boutiques and galleries. You’ll have to figure out what works best for you and what you really want to do.
2 – How do I price my jewelry? That’s a whole ‘nother topic, and definitely worth covering, which we have done in our FAQ post about Pricing Your Jewelry and in our Ask The Artist Series on our blog. (You can view a summary of several posts on the topic in the Learn to Price Your Crafts post.)
If you made your jewelry using instructions from a book, magazine, or anywhere on the Internet, you may have another question:
3 – Am I even allowed to sell it? That’s a great question, and you should know the answer to that question before making the piece, so that you’re prepared to let your admirer know if the piece is for sale. By knowing which pieces you can’t sell, you’ll avoid stepping on artists’ toes and could even avoid sticky legal situations.
Most instructions for jewelry projects will specify if you can or cannot use the instructions for “commercial use.” Examples of commercial use include making the project and selling it (even selling it to friends counts, because, hey, a sale is a sale!) or taking a photo of the project and using this photo in any of your marketing materials, including on your website. Be sure to read the fine print for any book, magazine, or website where you encounter instructions to make sure you know what the wishes of the artist are. If you aren’t sure, contact the artist directly.
We can’t speak for all the other instructions out there, of course. But for B3 chainmaille instructions, including CHAINED, you are allowed to sell projects you make. Here’s B3 owner Rebeca Mojica’s take on the topic:
Empowering customers and students to sell what they make from Blue Buddha patterns is so important to Rebeca that she insisted her book publisher include text on the inside cover clearly stating her position:
Not many books do this! We are proud to be an organization that fosters creating beautiful pieces of art. We believe allowing folks to sell what they make from Blue Buddha patterns, openly publishing the ring sizes used for our patterns (instead of requiring customers to purchase a pattern to find out the sizes), and sharing images of what people make on our Facebook page all allow the chainmaille community to grow. This attitude may not make us more money. But it gives us great satisfaction knowing that we’re helping people all over the world discover and embrace this art form. So feel free to look through our chainmaille projects, find something you like, make it, and—if you want—sell it! You’ve got our blessing.
Exciting News! We are bringing back FREE shipping for all domestic orders of $100 or more through the end of September. We offered this perk in May and are happy to offer it to you again. Because who says back-to-school specials need to be all about the kids? 😉
To qualify for free shipping, simply fill up your cart with more than $100 worth of products, select your shipping destination within the U.S., and the free shipping option will automatically appear in your cart, no coupon needed. You only need to pay for shipping if you select Express Mail or if the shipping destination is not in the U.S.
If you’ve placed an order with us in the last few months, you may have noticed that our turnaround speeds are still über-fast. We are currently shipping 
93% of regular orders within 1 business day of when they were placed. We’re trying to make that percentage even higher, too. We can’t control the shipping times once your package leaves our hands and is in the postal system…but we will definitely do what we can to get your order out our doors as fast as we can!
