July’s “Featured Product” Contest + Miyuki Beads available à la carte!

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In honor of our freshly launched à la carte Miyuki seed beads, we thought we’d give them the spotlight in this month’s “Featured Product” contest!  We love adding these gorgeous beads into chainmaille weaves – they bring amazing color and just the right amount of extra shine to any piece.

Since we JUST launched the beads today, we are giving you a little extra time to complete your entry this month.  The submission form will stay open an extra week, closing on July 22nd instead of the 15th.  Now get busy!

 

Need some inspiration?  Check out how B3 Designers Rebeca Mojica and Kat Wisniewki integrate them into weaves by looking at our Rapid Track, Beaded Gridlock Byzantine & Glass Caterpillar projects.

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. SPECIAL for July – the Submission Form will stay open until the 22nd!




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.

Thank You for all your support!

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We’ve been asking you for a lot of extra support, votes and otherwise positive vibe action lately and we just wanted to take a moment to say….




We are truly humbled by your willingness to jump right in and help support us from voting to help us win a grant from Chase’s “Mission: Small Business” to wearing out the “like” button to help Rebeca’s epic chainmaille piece “Poseidon’s Embrace” make it on the cover of The Crafts Report (in fact, lots of you are clicking “like” right now for the second round voting which is happening today!)  It’s just such an awe-inspiring reminder of the community that has built up around Blue Buddha and the art of chainmaille itself.

We have the best customers and supporters around.  Thank you all so much!

Avoid lost shopping carts – update your bookmarks!

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Our new shopping cart has been doing lots of great things, but predictably, the transition has not been without its kinks here and there.  One thing we’ve noticed is that some folks are still ending up in the old PayPal shopping cart which means lost carts and lost orders.  We’re still trouble-shooting this but one culprit could be old bookmarks.

If you have any of our supplies pages bookmarked in your browser, we highly recommend going in and updating these bookmarks or creating whole new ones with our current page urls.  Simply go to our homepage and navigate to the page you want, for example Anodized Aluminum.  Create a new bookmark using that url instead and ditch your old one.

If you are shopping for Anodized Aluminum, your page should look like this:

Click for larger view.

If it doesn’t, you’re probably on the old page and your order will not be processed.  Our new enameled copper page looks a lot like this page as well so double check that when you’re shopping too.

Another thing to look for is that your shopping cart looks like the screenshot below.  If it doesn’t, try going back to our homepage and starting over with your order.

Click for larger view.

We expect this issue to be non-existent soon – it has already tapered off significantly.  As always, if you find yourself have troubles ordering, we are happy to help.  Just give us a call or shoot us an email at [email protected].

Cast your vote for June’s “Featured Product” Contest!

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CAST YOUR VOTE NOW!

Submissions for June’s Featured Product of the Month Contest are closed and the B3 team has completed the difficult job of narrowing down the finalists, which means it’s time for YOU to cast your vote to determine the winner. Folks this month were challenged to use color creatively – anodized aluminum, enameled copper and niobium jump rings were all fair game.  Voting will close June 30th. 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 JULY – 6mm Miyuki Beads!

 

We love adding colorful glass Miyuki Beads to some of our favorite weaves – it’s like adding jewelry to jewelry!  We’ll be releasing the 6mm Miyuki Beads that we use in some of our kits for sale à la carte in the next week or so.  In honor of this release, we are challenging you to get creative with adding them to your next project.

For inspiration, check out these kits that use these beads to add just the right amount of bling: Rapid Track, Beaded Gridlock Byzantine & Glass Caterpillar.