B3 at Edgewater’s “Edge Fest” – August 4th & 5th

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Blue Buddha will be rocking out at Edgewater’s “Edge Fest” this coming weekend, August 4th and 5th.  We’re pretty darn excited to be part of this festival (which is slated to have a wide variety of food, vendors and music on 2 stages) , especially since it’s in our new neighborhood.  Our new retail location will be opening just a few blocks away from the fest in Fall 2012!

Stop by our booth between noon and 7:30pm both days to shop a selection of our popular kits and supplies as well as participate in our “Guess How Many Rings!” contest.  Come by at 12pm, 2pm or 5pm for your chance to make one of our fun “Make + Take” projects!  Also, be sure to stop by the Chicago Craft Mafia’s booth to shop Rebeca Mojica finished jewelry as well as other awesome local handmade goods!

We hope many of our local fans are able to make it out to support our new neighborhood.  We got to see firsthand how supportive this ‘hood is of crafters last year when The DIY Trunk Show moved to the Broadway Armory.  Since finding our new space in the neighborhood, we’ve continuously felt welcomed and supported and we haven’t even officially moved yet!  So come out and show some love to this great neighborhood (plus, we always love seeing your smiling faces in person!)

Visit the fest’s event page for more information about Edge Fest!

Kickstart a new destination for chainmaillers!

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As many of you know, we will be moving into our first ever retail space later this year.  Not only are we beyond excited to move into a larger space with room for our team to…uh…breath? *grin* but we are so stoked to be able to create a destination for maillers both near and far.  Our new space will aim to be a local hangout, a place for inspiration and learning and a destination for maillers from around the world.  And no, we don’t think those goals are too lofty!

As with most lofty goals however, this build out does come with a price and we need your help to make it everything we know it can be.  In the next month or so, we are planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign that will leverage the amazing passion and support that has cropped up around chainmaille (and specifically the Blue Buddha brand) to help fund this space.  If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it is a funding platform for creative projects.  Projects start with an idea, are posted to the website and folks who want to see the project become a reality contribute money to reach the funding goal.  These supporters (called “backers” on the site) in turn receive exclusive rewards for their generosity.

Basically, through this campaign your contributions (whether large or small) will be able to make a lasting mark on our craft.

That said, we think you deserve some really cool rewards for being willing to make a contribution to this project!  We had a ball brainstorming as much cool stuff as we could to use for our campaign’s “backer rewards”, but we want to see if YOU think these rewards are compelling enough to make this campaign a success.  We also want to hear what rewards you think would be awesome that we weren’t able to dream up.

Take the survey to get a sneak peek at our rewards and make suggestions for things you’d want to receive!  Also, make sure you’re on our mailing list to receive updates about our campaign as well as our new space.

Infographic: Chainmaille Community Survey Results!

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Earlier this month, we invited you to participate in a survey to help us get a picture of our community.  When we originally published this survey in 2010, we got 135 responses that helped us learn more about you – whether chainmaille was a hobby or a big part of your income, what metals you used and what you LOVED about the craft.  This time around, we got almost double the responses and got to learn even more about you! 

To share the results, we decided to create our first ever infographic.  We’ve seen infographics (visual representations of data) for just about everything floating around the web and we thought, why not one about our community?  In addition to representing numbers from the survey, our infographic also includes some quotes taken directly from the survey that we just adored.  See if your comment was included!  (Click image for a larger view.)

 

Click image for a larger view!

 

We plan to repeat this survey in another year or so, most likely expanding the questions somewhat.  So we ask you, what would you want to learn about our community that we aren’t already asking?  Share you ideas in comments below or send them to us in an email at [email protected].

Heads up! USPS Spam Alert

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It was brought to our attention that there is currently an email virus circulating disguised as an email from USPS.  Here is information about the scam taken from the scheme alert:

Some postal customers are receiving bogus e-mails about a package delivery or online postage charges. The e-mails contain a link or attachment that, when opened, installs a malicious virus that can steal personal information from your PC.

The e-mails claim to be from the U.S. Postal Service and contain fraudulent information about an attempted or intercepted package delivery or online postage charges. You are instructed to click on a link, open the attachment, or print the label.

But Postal Inspectors warn: Don’t do it!

Like most viruses sent by e-mail, clicking on the link or opening the attachment will activate a virus that can steal information—such as your user name, password, and financial account information.

What to do? Simply delete the message without taking any further action. The Postal Inspection Service is working hard to resolve the issue and shut down the malicious program.

Please note that all correspondences about an order placed through Blue Buddha will come from [email protected] or [email protected].  If you receive an email that appears to be about your order but is not from one of these email addresses, delete it.  All links regarding your order that come from our email address are safe, however if you are feeling wary, you can always copy and paste your tracking number directly into the USPS website: https://www.usps.com/.

Vote for your favorite – July’s “Featured Product” contest!

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CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!

Submissions for July’s Featured Product of the Month Contest are closed and it’s time for YOU to cast your vote to determine the winner. Folks this month were challenged to create a piece using our newly à la carte Miyuki seed beads.  We are super impressed with the wide variety of uses – make sure to check out all of the finalists to get ideas for how YOU can use these beautiful beads in your next project. Voting will close July 31st. Voting is only allowed once per computer so choose wisely!


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:


 

                 

 

FEATURED PRODUCT FOR AUGUST – Copper jump rings

copper chainmaille bracelet

 

For August, we’re inviting you to get creative with a classic!  Copper is an awesome metal to work with – great for beginners because it’s easy to manipulate and it has a great weight.  Combine it with other metals or colored rings or keep it simple, whatever you do – get creating!