Blue Buddha Boutique New Studio Update!

We’re less than one month away from moving into our new studio and we seriously cannot wait!


It seems like every day we trip over each other a few extra times, blow the fuse in our kitchen trying to make lunch or experience any number of other small (and big!) pains that come along with having outgrown our current home.  Long story short, the move is being eagerly anticipated by our entire team (as evidenced by the countdown in our kitchen – shown right.)

In our new space, lots has been done to make our building safer, more modern and ready for the next chapter of our business to happen there.  Most of the work (and money) has gone towards things that will never be seen but are totally crucial like electrical work and plumbing.  The rest of what we’ve invested so far has helped to frame out the space and give our new home some good bones.

 

The graphic below shows roughly what portion of funds have gone towards everything we just described.  On the right part of the graphic, we’ve added a little overlay to the same chart to show you just how much your Jumpstart Campaign contributions have covered – pretty impressive, right?!

 

Within the next couple of weeks, the new walls will be finished and we’ll get to paint them and create our new work spaces.  As a highly visual group of people, we’re really looking forward to this stage since it will finally make the space begin to look like a new home!  We’ve narrowed down the many paint samples we gathered on a recent hardware store trip (we seriously just grabbed every blue they had!) and now we’re putting it in your hands to make the final decision on which colors we should use.  Take our paint colors survey to tell us which colors are your favorites!

It’s important to us to keep you all involved with this process because really, we’re creating this space for you as much as we are for us.  You can expect some more surveys like this one over the next few months as we ask for your opinions on furnishings for our classrooms and other spaces that customers will enjoy.  Stay tuned!

Congratulations to November’s “Featured Product” contest winner!

Voting for November’s Featured Product of the Month contest is officially closed and the winner as chosen by you is……

 

Cynthia T. with her piece “Times Square”


Congratulations, Cynthia! Your creativity has earned you a B3 gift certificate for $25! To claim your prize, please send an email to [email protected].

 


 

FEATURED PRODUCT FOR DECEMBER – Bright Aluminum Jump Rings


For December, we’re keeping it simple and looking for pieces created entirely from aluminum rings. No color. No mixed metals. No extra bling. Just this simple and affordable material. We know how versatile it can be and we can’t wait to see what you come up with to showcase how less can really be more sometimes.

December’s contest winner will also be the final one for the year to go on to the “Mailler of the Year 2012” contest! In January, all 2012 winning pieces will go head to head to determine who will be crowned our new “Mailler of the Year”, winning a $100 B3 Gift Certificate and, of course, bragging rights for the year *wink*!

Enter December’s “Featured Product” Contest. Plus, “Mailler of the Year 2012” – coming soon!


FEATURED PRODUCT FOR DECEMBER – Bright Aluminum Jump Rings


For December, we’re keeping it simple and looking for pieces created entirely from aluminum rings. No color. No mixed metals. Just this simple and affordable material. We know how versatile it can be and we can’t wait to see what you come up with to showcase how less can really be more sometimes.

December’s contest winner will also be the final one for the year to go on to the “Mailler of the Year 2012” contest! In January, all 2012 winning pieces will go head to head to determine who will be crowned our new “Mailler of the Year”, winning a $100 B3 Gift Certificate and, of course, bragging rights for the year *wink*!


HOW TO PARTICIPATE:




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!

GO TO THE SUBMISSION FORM

Submissions are closed at midnight CT on 15th of every month and are limited to 2 entry pieces 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.

Giveaway Winner + 24 Hour SALE on Chainmaille “Starter Packs”!

Wow!  What a fun couple of weeks.  Thanks to all the awesome bloggers who participated in our “chainmaille blog hop” and congrats to all the giveaway winners we’ve had so far.  Now, without further ado, it’s time to announce our grand prize winner.  The “All-in-One, Easy Start to Chainmaille” starter pack goes to *drumroll*…

Annie R.!

Congratulations, Annie!  We’ve sent an email to the address you provided with your comment.  We’re excited to help you learn this craft we love so much and we hope you really enjoy your prize :)


We would also like to take a moment to say thank you to everyone (all 381 of you!!!) who left comments on our post to enter to win this prize.  We loved reading all your comments and were really reminded what it’s like for people who are so new to this craft – both how exciting it is to try it for the first time and also how intimidating it can be to figure out where to start.

We really wish we could give away starter packs to EVERYONE who left a comment (everyone we meet actually – we just want to spread the chainmaille love!) but that wouldn’t be such a good business model *grin*.  Instead, we decided to have a special 24 Hour SALE on ALL our Starter Packs to hopefully make it a little easier for folks to achieve their dreams of trying out this craft and/or sharing it with someone in their life.

 

Starting now and continuing through tomorrow, Friday Nov 30th @ noon CT, all our Starter Packs are 5% off, so if you’ve been dreaming of trying this craft, today’s the day to take the plunge!

Note to self: Never be confused about what is in your order again!

Have you ever received an order of supplies, opened it and looked at some of the ring sizes in there like an alien placed the order for you?  We’ve all had those, “What was I going to do with these??” moments.  Well, some of you may have noticed that we added a new feature to our shopping cart recently to help with this exact problem.

Now you can add notes to yourself on items in your shopping cart and they will appear on your packing list (hooray!)  Simply click the space next to the yellow post-it icon that says “click to write a note to yourself about this product”, type your note (for example: “for Rondo a la Byzantine”), then hit your enter/return key to save the note on that item. You MUST hit the return key in order for the note to stick. Or, you can type in update notes for multiple items at once (without hitting return) and instead click the “Update Cart” button at the bottom of the page to save all the notes with one click. The moral of the story here is you must save your note in order for it to appear on your packing list!

You can edit your notes at any time before completing your order so no worries if you make a mistake or change your mind, just hit enter each time after making changes (or click the big UPDATE CART button at the bottom).  If you save your cart and come back later, all your saved notes will still be there.  Pretty cool, huh?

click for larger view

These notes are just for your own personal use.  Make sure if you have a question, concern or comment that one of our customer care folks needs to know about, you still contact us.  We hope this feature will lead to a lot less head scratching and a many more opportunities for seeing your ideas through to completion!