One great reason to contribute to our Jumpstart campaign…OUR TEAM!

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We’ve been sharing updates recently about the progress on our new space and the impact our Jumpstart supporters have had thusfar on making it a safe and usable working environment.  Plumbing, electrical work and walls are all important, but we think the most compelling reason to support this project is our hard-working team.

No one is more excited about moving into our awesome new space than these dedicated individuals. Your purchase of one or more of our Jumpstart perks means we can improve our new work environment, building more walls for private meetings, small-group lessons, and quiet customer phone calls.  We can improving the efficiency of our order processing area and creating an inviting employee lounge for our team members to “take 5” so they can get back to processing your orders with refreshed bodies and minds.

C’mon in and experience “A Day in the Life…”

Because of the impact your contributions have on our team, we decided to create our first two “Day in the Life” videos featuring Aimee, our Customer Care Supervisor and Lisa, our Picker Extraordinaire.  Watching each video puts you in their shoes for 60 seconds and might just inspire you to scoop up one or more of the cool packages we have available as part of our Jumpstart campaign.  The products that are part of this campaign start at just $15 and you’ll get some sweet perks in return (seems like win/win to us!)  We’ve even added  a couple new “VIP Perks” that start at just $18 and result in some very special treatment—including discounts!—for you and your order.

A day in the life of….AIMEE!


Lots of our customers know Aimee as the friendly voice on the other end of the line when they call or email us.  She is our Customer Care Supervisor and works hard to make sure folks have a great experience with B3.

What will you not miss about our little studio? I won’t miss running into people ….or book shelves ….or wall storage units. 

What are you most looking forward to in our new space? I look forward to our own Customer Care office with a door for quiet phone calls with way less background noise.

Watch the 60 second video below to see what a day in the life of Aimee is like.  Then visit our Jumpstart campaign to make a contribution that will make her new workspace fabulous like she is!

A day in the life of….LISA!


Lisa picks many of the orders that come through our website and as such, spends a lot of time moving through our inventory spaces which means running into people, tripping over things and otherwise doing what we like to call “The B3 Shuffle” (backing up so someone can get by, doing a turn around a co-worker, you get the picture!)

 

What will you not miss about our little studio? I will not miss our cramped working conditions.  There’s not even enough room to roller skate around to pick orders!  Just kidding 😉  Seriously though,  I also won’t miss our kitchen of horrors or getting stuck in “danger alley” (a very narrow hallway of active stock.)

What are you most looking forward to in our new space? I’m looking forward to have a spacious area for ring babies to grow, new picking cart for multiple-order picking fun, and the new employee lounge.

Watch the 60 second video below to see what a day in the life of Lisa is like.  Then visit our Jumpstart campaign to make a contribution that will make her new workspace fabulous like she is!

Want to help make Aimee and Lisa’s new workspace totally fantastic? Visit our Jumpstart campaign and purchase one or more of these cool products and perks. With your help, we’ll reach our $50,000 goal and make the new B3 better than we have even imagined!

Attention future chainmaille students: Vote for your preferred class times & classroom furniture!

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We’re moving into our new Edgewater location soon which means we will finally have space to start chainmaille classes, open studios and other crafty events back up – hooray!  We’re currently focusing on scheduling classes as well as furnishing our classrooms and we’d like your feedback to help us with both.

If you foresee being a Blue Buddha Boutique student, we want your opinion on preferred class times and classroom furniture.  We do ask that ONLY folks who really feel they’ll attend classes here in Chicago complete the class times portion of this survey (otherwise, we’re concerned it could skew the results and we’ll schedule classes for days and times that local folks might not really be able to make work, which would be a total bummer.)  That said, voting on classroom furniture is open to anyone.  We can definitely use some keen eyes and opinions from folks who have taken long (3+ hour) classes before when it comes to choosing a chair that will keep students comfy :)

Vote for this month’s “Featured Product” contest winner!

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CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!

Submissions for December’s Featured Product of the Month Contest are closed and the B3 team has done the difficult job of narrowing down the submissions to our group of finalists which means it’s time for YOU to cast your vote to determine the winner. This month, we challenged you to make unique pieces using ONLY bright aluminum jump rings.  As expected, you guys proved that sometimes, simpler is better.

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:


               

"Ryu, the chainmaille dragon" by Lisa L.

 

This month, we also have an honorable mention.  Because this piece uses anodized aluminum scales in addition to the aluminum jump rings, we felt it wouldn’t really be fair to keep it in the mix with the other pieces that followed the “aluminum jump rings only” guideline more closely.  That said, it was just too cute/cool not to share.  If we do another scale maille month, we hope to see this guy again!

 

 

Our contest is changing for 2013!

FEATURED WEAVE FOR JANUARY – Byzantine


For 2013, we’re changing our “Featured Product” contest into a “Featured WEAVE” contest.  That means, starting in January, you can use any and all B3 products to create your entry, but it must showcase the month’s “Featured Weave” in some way.

January’s weave (as highly requested by our fans on Facebook) will be byzantine.  We totally understand why our community clamored for this weave as it has tons of potential for variation and is also a great beginning-level weave.  To get some inspiration, as well as ring sizes and counts for byzantine, visit the “Weave Ideas” section of our blog or check out the stats & uses pages for base metal and silver rings.


 

 

“Maillers’ Choice” kits – available today only!

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This month’s “Maillers’ Choice” kits are now available on our sale page. Scoop up your fan-customized “Double Spiral” kit today only from noon to midnight CT.  Kit comes with enough supplies to create one necklace or two bracelets.

Love “Maillers’ Choice”? Join the Club!

Add a “Maillers’ Choice” Club subscription to your order and receive all kits in 2013 to your mail box automatically each month.  Please note that subscriptions purchased today will begin in January, so if you would like the December kit, you must add that to your order as well.

Vote to customize January’s “Maillers’ Choice” kit!

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B3’s “Maillers’ Choice” kit continues to be a hit! So much so that, in order to make sure our inventory can keep up with the popularity of these kits, we have bumped up voting by a month. Below you can vote for the kit we will release in January.


For January, we’re inviting you to customize a kit for a fun variation of one of our favorites – Celtic Visions bracelet! This variation uses glass rings through the center and larger T16 and H16 rings to make a thicker, more substantial bracelet.  We are also including H18 anodized aluminum as for optional mobiused edging (shown in purple on this sample.)