Goodbye, Sterling Silver — Hello, Stainless Steel!

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As much as we love the delicate beauty of our solid silver jump rings, they’re just not as in-demand as they used to be. And that’s ok! We want to carry what you want to work with, so, we’re making some changes around here. We’ve discontinued our silver rings — but this gives you a great opportunity to snag silver rings at a spectacular discount. Shop what’s left of our silver jump rings and use coupon code BYEBYESILV for 40% off, while supplies last!

Discontinuing our silver rings means we have also discontinued our silver kits.  We didn’t want to leave you without a more upscale option for our projects however, so we have started releasing stainless steel kits for many of our projects.  Since switching over to our current stainless steel wire (which is much easier to work with than rings we carried previously), we have noticed many more people opting to work in this sturdy metal.  It has a similar weight to silver without the high price and is easy for people to wear (even those with allergies to most metals).  It’s also very easy to care for.  Yeah, we have a little crush on this metal, we’ll admit it. :)

The following kits are now available with steel, and more will be added in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned — and happy weaving!

elegant-large-crystal-700px

NEW! Dragonscale (all SSTL)

Double Spiral

Mobiused Rosettes

Bold & Brilliant Byzantine

Captive Crystals

Half Persian 3-in-1

Rapid Track

Jens Pind Linkage 3

Dragonscale

Limited Edition Stainless Steel Kits: 

Large Elegant Hourglass (pictured)

B3 Steel Collection

Tell us: What kits would YOU like to see offered in stainless steel? Let us know in the comments!

 

Free Shipping for orders over $100! (Plus, other shipping rate updates we think you’ll like.)

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SUBS-RUSH-3M-300pxIf you’ve placed an order with us in the last 6 months or so, we hope you’ve noticed a vastly improved turnaround time for regular orders. We’ve made significant changes to how we process orders and are currently shipping 95% of regular orders within 1 business day of when they were placed. We’re continuing to improve our efficiency to increase that percentage so we can get your supplies to you as quickly as possible.

Ready for some more good news? We are making changes to our shipping rates that will result in lower shipping costs for approximately 80% of our customers. Yes! We have changed our shipping prices to be weight-based instead of dollar-based. As anyone who has worn a copper bracelet vs. an aluminum one can imagine, order weights tend to vary a lot depending on metals, tools, etc. Making this change allows us to reduce our shipping prices on many of our most popular supplies including aluminum, anodized aluminum and many of our kits.

subscriptions-main-116pxThis big change means that far more orders will now have the option of being shipped First Class at a reduced shipping rate. With our order processing team kicking butt on processing time, this option is even better as you’ll hardly notice a difference in the time between placing your order and getting busy with your pliers.

But wait – there’s more!!

free-shipping

We are also bringing back FREE shipping for all domestic orders of $100 or more through the end of May. Long-time customers will remember this perk from many years ago. It’s been a customer request for some time and we are excited to be able to offer it again for a limited time. We hope you will enjoy it!

International folks, we haven’t forgotten about you. We are currently in the process of calculating whether we can offer more customized or affordable options for international shipments. Stay tuned. More on that to come.

Chainmaille Tips and Tricks Videos: How to Hold Your Project and Get Leverage in a Tight Spot

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We keep adding new videos to our YouTube channel, so subscribe now and don’t miss a post! Most recently we addressed two common things can can trip up even intermediate-level maillers: how to hold onto your chainmaille project while you’re working on it, and how to get leverage when you’re weaving through a tight spot.

How to Hold Your Chainmaille While Working
In this video, Rebeca Mojica demonstrates how how to weave, hold your pliers, scoop new rings, and still keep your project in your hand.

How to Get Leverage in a Tight Spot
Learn how to gain leverage in order to take out and fix a mistake when making chainmaille. Here, Rebeca demonstrates how to place your arms, wrists and hands to more easily remove a jump ring and replace it when making a piece of jewelry.

 

How to Prepare for and Survive an IRS Audit

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“You’re being audited.” Are you sweating yet?audit-prep

Some of you may remember when that message was delivered to B3 a few years ago. With April 15 just around the corner, we thought it’d be timely to revisit Rebeca’s helpful posts about how she handled B3’s audit.

And just for the fun of it (we need some fun when talking taxes), here’s a roundup from USA Today about all the cool deals and freebies companies plan to offer on Tax Day this year.

B3 Seconds: Purchase Lower Cost Anodized Aluminum Rings

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UPDATE: Fades are now B3 Seconds!

Today we launched a new section of jump rings on our website called “B3 Seconds.” We’ve made these less-than-perfect grade B and C anodized aluminum rings available to provide a more cost-effective option for customers who may need a lot of colored rings and are willing to do a little picking and sorting themselves. It’s likely we won’t have a full stock of every color in every size, but we currently have several colors and sizes available and will continue to add  more as they become available.

When you visit the B3 Seconds page, you’ll notice we offer two different grades of these rings. These grades are assigned based on overall color variation within each batch. Grade B rings have less variation than Grade C. Both grades may contain a small amount of uncolored or “white” rings. Grade C may contain more of these rings than Grade B.

Check out a side-by-side example of these grades:

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From left to right: Premium Anodized Aluminum in orange, Grade B AA in orange, Grade C AA in orange.