Congratulations to March’s Featured Product Contest Winner!

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

 

Thereze J. with her “Spring Celebration”!


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

 


Beaded Zig Zag Byzantine
Thanks to all our March contest participants.  We’ll be creating a post of O18 weave ideas using your submissions very soon!  In the meantime, we are now accepting submissions for April’s contest. Integrate Swarovski® Faceted Round Crystal Beads into your maille for your chance to win!

Happy Weaving!


Featured Product of the Month Contest – April 2012


Chainmaille Bracelet - Beaded Zig Zag Byzantine Our Featured Product coming up for April is Swarovski® Faceted Round Crystal Beads in 6mm or 8mm, available on our findings page.  We love the sparkle these beads add to chainmaille jewelry pieces and can’t wait to see what you create with them!  Check out this recent blog post for project ideas and inspiration.  You may also find this post matching our anodized niobium jump rings to each of the crystal colors helpful as well.


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.

Chainmaille Project Inspiration: Using crystals in your maille

Our Featured Product coming up for April is Swarovski® Faceted Round Crystal Beads in 6mm or 8mm, available on our findings page.  Integrating crystal beads into chainmaille is a trend that has been developing over the last several years; we love the combination of shiny rings and bling-y beads.

There are a variety of ways to include crystal beads in your work.  For this post, we pulled together lots of inspirational images of projects created by a wide variety of chainmaille artists (more information for each can be found by clicking the image and many can be found on our magazine projects page.)  You’ll notice that more often than not, the beads are added using looped wire.  We recommend using Wubbers Round Nose Pliers to aid in this task. :)

We hope these projects will inspire you to experiment with adding crystals into your own work – who knows, it could just earn you a $25 Blue Buddha gift certificate!  (Stay tuned to our blog for details.)  For even more inspiration, check out our past blog post matching the crystals to our niobium colors.  You may also find our post about caring for jewelry with fragile components helpful.


Beaded Zig Zag Byzantine - chainmaille

"Beaded Zig Zag Byzantine" by Rebeca Mojica

Timeless Teardrops - chainmaille

"Timeless Teardrops" by Karen Karon

Niobium Crystals - chainmaille

"Niobium Crystals" by Rebeca Mojica

Captive Pearls - chainmaille

"Captive Pearls" by Lauren Anderson

Lancelot Necklace - chainmaille

"Lancelot Necklace" variation by Rebeca Mojica

Rings of Saturn - chainmaille

"Rings of Saturn" by Lauren Anderson

Chain of Command - chainmaille

"Chain of Command" by Arja Aalto-Viittala

Floating Bead Pendant - chainmaille

"Floating Bead Pendant" by Rebeca Mojica

Floating Bead Necklace - chainmaille

"Floating Bead Necklace" variation by Rebeca Mojica

Beaded Romanov - chainmaille

"Beaded Romanov" by Scott David Plumlee

Byzantine Crosses - chainmaille

"Byzantine Crosses with Turquoise" by Lori Weidhuner

Crystal Quad Cuff - chainmaille

"Crystal Quad Cuff" by Lauren Anderson

Summer Breezes - chainmaille

"Cool Summer Breezes" by Lauren Anderson

Spine of the Centipede - chaimaille

"Spine of the Centipede" by Lauren Andersen

2 by 2 chainmaille bracelet

"2 by 2 Chainmaille Bracelet" by Gladys Botz

Crystal Constellations - chainmaille

"Crystal Constellations" by Miachelle DePiano


Stay tuned to our blog to find out how you can participate in our “Featured Product of the Month Contest” and create some inspiration of your own!

Vote for April’s “Maillers’ Choice” kit!


B3’s Maillers’ Choice Kit continues to be a hit!
For April, you’ll customize one of our all-time most popular kits – Celtic Visions Star Pendant.  Read more below!




Celtic Visions Star - Maillers' Choice Kit
For April, you’ll be customizing our Celtic Visions Star PendantThis project is a Blue Buddha classic and it continues to be one of our most popular kits year after year.  It’s a great beginning level project so anyone can try it out, even if you’re brand new to chaimaille!

We will release this kit on April 17th in another 12-hour sale.  Make sure to join our mailing list for reminders about the sale and a link to the kit as soon as it is available.





Stainless Steel SALE!

Over the past year, we have slowly been transitioning to stainless steel rings made from a new, easier-to-manipulate wire.  We began by replacing some of our most popular sizes (F18. H18, L16) and liked the new wire so much that we decided to replace all of them!

At this point, almost all sizes of our stainless steel rings are made from this new wire and the final sizes, N16, R16 and Z16 will be available soon.  If you have ordered stainless steel from us in the last several months, you have likely already noticed a change in their “friendliness”.  If you have not worked with our stainless steel before (or tried it a long time ago) you may want to order one of our “Try Before You Commit” stainless steel packs.  This $0.75 cent pack will give you a selection of each gauge we sell so you can see if you might want to try working with it.

To make room for our newer rings and complete the transition, we must clear out our old stainless steel rings.  These rings are not for everyone but we do have a number of customers who enjoy muscling through this awesome metal and we think you’ll find these prices enticing!  Please do shop carefully – sale items are non-returnable and we wouldn’t want you to be stuck with something you don’t enjoy working with!  Please also note our difficulty ratings and tool recommendations for each size.

Happy Muscling!