So when Kadie told me we were launching Weave Got Maille kits and suggested we try it out for another craft night, I was a little dubious. But as I considered her proposal, I figured this was something I could handle. After all, a kit has all the materials you’d need to make the picture on the box AND it has step by step instructions. (Also, they are bracelet-making kits, so I hoped to have a finished product in no time. It helps to have that positive sense of accomplishment early on when pursuing something new).

Challenge Accepted

*Note: do not wreck your chain nose pliers by trying to pry off a bottle cap, please use a bottle opener for safety

Kadie and I gathered our materials and because of the SUPER nice Michigan weather we’ve been having, we sat out on my front porch. People watching, pizza eating, and chain-mailling ensued. We noticed there was no warning on the kits for Beginner, Advanced, or Expert– so we had no choice but to jump right in and select a kit based solely on looks. Kadie chose the Byzantine bracelet because she liked the intricacies of the rings connecting. I chose the Shaggy Loop bracelet because it had seed beads in it (kill two birds with one stone right!?).

Now, I must admit, beading outside was THE BEST. Fresh air, friendly folks, birds singing, and being so close to the green grass helped me totally forget how crazy all these tiny pieces make me. I know, I know, folks often feel most comfortable in their little beading den, which is fine. But have you ever been outside? It’s great. I took a tip from one of our customers and brought out an old cookie sheet. Because my kit had the seed beads, I also brought out a dishtowel to serve as my beading mat (pretty inventive, right?). Being overwhelmed by the sizes, gauges, and types of jump rings was totally cut out of the picture with these kits. Upon opening, we found each type of ring in its own separate bag– made organization so easy! Then, my favorite part…the directions!! All we had to provide were the pliers. Kadie and I found ourselves using a mish-mash of different types of pliers, but decided using chain nose pliers without ridges was the best. It seriously cut down on ‘marring’ the rings. (At one point I started in with a pair of pliers from my travel tool box– thanks, Dad!– and while they held the rings well, the “grips” on there really dug into the jump rings).

Down to Business

Kadie got off to a great start. With over 200 rings before her and a first instruction of “open all your jump rings,” she was a little exasperated. But WOW. Be sure to listen to that first instruction! It makes it so much easier to get into a groove while chain maille-ing! It seemed like a silly instruction– and why not open while you go?– trust us, these Weave Got Maille people know what they’re doing! My kit didn’t have nearly as many rings as Kadie’s, but it did have the seed beads. I actually snatched a few other colors from Lima Beads’ stash because I wanted to make a Michigan State themed bracelet…so I needed some greens to go with the included whites.

After about an hour, we had definitely made some progress: all our jump rings had been opened, we started in on the patterns given us, AND we had nearly polished off a whole pizza (mmmm!). Alas, the sun was setting so we had to move the operation indoors. My living room coffee table hosted our very portable cookie sheet cum beading tray and we were back at the assembly.

Kate, trying not to go cross-eyed and facing her fears!

 Wrap Up

All in all, these little kits were great. It provided all materials (except pliers). It explained things clearly. And it made some pretty fancy looking jewelry! A mere three hours and what an accomplishment! Kadie thinks her bracelet was a little more difficult than mine… because it involved a little extra ‘weaving’ rather than just open/close of the jump rings. However, the instructions taught her how to do it. If a couple of novices could handle it, I think you can too! If you’ve ever been curious about chain maille, but overwhelmed by where to start, these little kits will set you up right and get you on the path to making your own tie-dyed-t-shirt (thanks, Pinterest!) in no time!! (No joke- we’ve got tons of multi-colored rings, perfect for a tie-dye project!)

Happy crafting!

We truly enjoy doing fun things like this on our site. Whether it’s the Crossword Sale in January, weekly Lunch Specials or the Big Green Bead Machine, there are lots of unique and interesting ways for you to save on beads. Stay tuned to see what we’re cooking up for the future.

Fun Facts

This year's most clicked egg

All of the eggs were found at least once. The hardest egg was only found once. I’d tell you where it was, but I think we’ll save that one for next year.

The egg clicked by the most hunters was the one on the main beads page. We were a little surprised that the giant egg on the home page that said “Click me to begin” wasn’t the most clicked…

The most talked about egg was the one hidden in the search engine. All you had to do was search for “Egg.” 702 of you found this one.

Is it an understatement to say that the check marks were a welcomed addition?

Here are a few more locations I had a lot of fun hiding.

This Year’s Winners

Congratulations to everyone who ended the hunt on the Leaderboard. As promised, we’ll be sending all of you a $20 gift certificate to Lima Beads.

We were watching the top ten intently throughout the hunt. It goes without saying that those hunters were determined to have their name in the hat for the grand prize. Speaking of, the winner of the $250 Grand Prize is… Hilda M! You can see a video of Kadie drawing her name out of an empty Twizzlers box on our Facebook page.

Gift certificate winners, keep your eyes peeled for an email from us in the next 24 hours!

Thanks for participating in this year’s Easter Egg Hunt. It’s going to be hard to beat, but we’ll give it our best in 2014. I love playing the Easter Bunny and look forward to stumping you all again.

The time has come for the 5th annual Easter Egg Hunt at Lima Beads! There are more prizes than ever, including more than $2,000 in gift certificates. We’ve also made the hunt a little easier and more fun by scattering double the number of eggs across our site. Read more about the hunt below, or check out the Hunt Page to get started!

The Basics

We’ve scattered 200 eggs across all corners of our website. The more eggs you find, the more prizes you get! We have a leaderboard to track the progress of hunters from all over the world, and the top hunters will all get gift certificates this year! The hunt lasts all week, and ends at 11:59pm Pacific time on Easter (March 31).

The Prizes

We have 5 different levels of prizes this year, including some great bonus prizes. You have to find at least 10 eggs to get your first prize, and you can unlock additional prizes after finding 25, 50, 75, and 100 eggs (for seriously insane egg hunters only) As a bonus this year, we’re giving away a $20 gift certificate to every single hunter on the leaderboard when the hunt ends. This means we’re giving away at least 100 gift certificates! Keep an eye on the leaderboard and read more about the prizes on the Hunt page.

The Rules

We have detailed rules and some FAQs on the hunt page, so we suggest you check those out. There are a few things we want you to know, however. When you place an order to redeem your prizes, normal shipping rates apply (as low as $2 for U.S. customers). We have lots of great gifts this year, but we can’t guarantee they will all be available when the hunt ends on Sunday. So place your orders early to make sure you get the gifts you want!

What are you waiting for? Start hunting!

Thanks to technology, we were able to conduct a long-distance interview from Ann Arbor to Lexington to get the scoop on Nellie the artist and her world of fiber arts.

Q. What drew you to spinning?

A. One reason I love spinning is because I enjoy playing with all of the different textures. There are so many different types of textures to play with when using a number of different breeds of sheep and other various textiles.  I also enjoy how the experience while spinning can be somewhat versatile; I can either relax and have a zen like experience of just making the same motions with my hands while not really having to focus on anything specific, basically enjoying it for the pure pleasure of spinning…and yet I can also be creative with it and let my mind run in different directions with ideas of how to create new types of yarn and spinning methods.

Q. What are your favorite colors? least favorite colors?

A. I would say my fave colors are within the blue/green spectrum…my least fave is pastel/cotton candy pink.

Q.  Do you have any pets we should know about?

A. I have one cat named Chloe and is all black and she is my cat pretty much. There is also a dog here in the house which is my mom’s named Casey…she’s a German Shepard.

Casey supervises the day's work

Q. What is your favorite hobby besides the fiber arts?

A. I haven’t had a chance to do this much recently, but I really enjoy playing pool (billiards)

Q. Where do you find your inspiration?

A. I would have to say helping people to find their creative outlet inspires me. When people tell me they are learning how to spin, or how to do something particular with fiber prep, or learn how to knit– that sort of stuff really makes me happy to help them to be able to accomplish their creative endeavor. I’m not really sure why..I guess I have just found spinning/finding my creative outlet has affected my life in so many good ways that I’m happy to see it might do the same for others.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to talk to a passionate person about their passion…read Nellie’s final comments to our Q&A session:

We just really love WoolyWire! Check it out and let us know what you think. Can’t wait to start seeing pieces pop up in the Design Gallery… In fact, I was so excited about this particular launch, I posted a few ideas, to get your creative juices flowing (earrings & bracelet). Check ‘em out. Tell me what you think!

Announcing the Winners…

We had lots and lots of people take time to solve this year’s Crossword Puzzle, and we’ve shipped out tons of free gifts. But there are only 3 $50 Gift Certificates to hand out, and I want to announce the winners here. The winners were selected at random from the entire list of people who solved the puzzle. And the winners are…

• Lee from Reno, NV
• Nancy from Port Hadlock, WA
• Cheryl from Cascade, WI

I’ll be e-mailing you the gift certificates personally today. So keep an eye on your inbox!

A Big Thanks…

We are always surprised by how many people take time out of their busy lives to fill out a crossword puzzle about beads. We want you to know that it would be impossible for us to have fun promotions like this without beaders like you. So, from the bottom of our Lima Hearts, thank you!

We’ve got some more fun on the horizon, too. You have all probably noticed that we have Free Shipping February going on… And I just looked at the calendar, and noticed that Easter is really early this year. You know what that means

A Craft Nite is born

Kadie and I decided it was time to put some of these tips, techniques and design inspirations to the test by holding our own crafting night to see if a) we could follow directions enough to make something someone might actually want to wear; and b) see if Kate could actually finish a project instead of hiding one more half-finished project under the living room coffee table…

We started by picking a project: the Anchor Bracelet. Nautically themed & classy. Our friends at TierraCast had posted a video to YouTube teaching us how to make a couple knots and voila! An easy 5-minute bracelet! (In actuality it took Kadie the prescribed 5 minutes, while Kate spent most of the time trying to select which color leather cord to use…her total time came to approx 13-minutes. But no crying! So that’s good ).

It just feels good to actually get a project completed, doesn’t it? Sometimes I feel like we all need a little “quick and easy” project to re-calibrate our creativity and talents. To get us over any lingering “winter-blahs”. Or to simply have a starting point from which to embellish and re-invent. So, I know it’s a little late (the first month, nearly over), but Kate & Kadie craft nights are going to be our New Year’s resolution. To try to carve out time from our busy day-jobs and get crafty What’s your favorite Q&E project? Or is that asking to reveal too great of secret?

Here’s the video from TierraCast on how to make the soon-to-be-very famous Anchor Bracelet:

Watch this video on YouTube.

And here’s Kadie following instructions like a pro:

Our finished products:

What you’ll need to make the bracelet:

1.5mm leather cord

 
A TierraCast Anchor pendant (antique brass, gunmetal, antique silver)

A large hole bead (we found the bead used in the video to be a little too small). Here’s our suggestion:

A dab of Hypo Cement (or any other adhesive)

The Details

We’ve built a crossword puzzle with 31 hints, one for each day of the month. Every day, we’ll reveal a new answer that tells you which products are on sale that day (if the answer is “purple,” you’ll save on all purple beads!) If you print the puzzle and solve it ahead of time, you’ll have a preview of all the remaining sales. The sales only last 24 hours each, but as long as you add an item to your shopping bag on the day of the sale, you’ll have 7 days to complete your purchase and get the reduced price. But don’t wait too long–these prices are while supplies last!

The Bonus…

There’s also a bonus for solving the entire puzzle, just like last year. Unscramble a hidden message in the puzzle and get a prize! You’ll have to solve the puzzle to see what’s behind the curtain though, so grab your pencil and check it out.

The BONUS Bonus…

Just like last year, we have an extra bonus. Every beader who unscrambles the secret hidden message mentioned above will be entered to win one of three $50 Gift Certificates to our shop. Just enter the correct answer on the Crossword page, and you’re automatically entered to win.

Follow Along!

You can follow along with all the sales over on the Crossword Puzzle page. And if you have questions or comments, just leave them below!

Today is a big day. We’re introducing a new Artist to our line-up and she’s got a suitcase full of really cool metal pieces with her. You may have heard of Saki Silver by name before, but you’re in luck today because we’ve got an exclusive interview with the Sultina of Silver, all the way from Thailand: Liz Chumtong.

The Meat & Potatoes

Q. What sort of pieces/offerings should we be expecting from the Saki line?

A. White bronze is our new feature! It looks a lot like silver but is half the price. It blends well with other metals, so people are really enjoying it’s versatility. And we are always working on new designs. This spring we’ll bring out a new line of charms, as well as some fun new earring findings.

Q. What exactly does “metal working” (“silver smith-ing”?) entail?

A. There are many facets to what we do. The first step is to design a piece and get a master made. This can entail hours, even days working on one piece by hand, getting it just right. There are 3 of us who design and often times we collaborate. Sometimes the process is as simple as drawing a design and getting a wax mold carved, and we just cast from that. Most of our findings are made using lost wax casting, and then hand finished. The earwires are made by hand so that requires our silversmiths to do a lot of tedious work, as they make each tiny ball one by one, and solder them to the wire. My sister-in-law, P Boo, makes the majority of the earwires.

Q. We’ve been seeing the word “Shibuichi” more and more in our jewelry world. What’s the big deal??

A. Shibuichi is a copper/silver alloy that has been used in Japan since the 8th century for jewelry making. It has become popular in the art jewelry world because it is so unusual in color, and the finish can vary depending on how it’s made. I think most of us learned from artist Bob Burkett, who has been making shibuichi for many years, and he’s always very generous in sharing his expertise. At our studio, Nui is the shibu master, and no one touches it but him.

Q. Waking up every day facing mounds of metal, what things keep you inspired and fresh in your designs?

A. My inspiration comes from all over. Sometimes  I awake at 3AM and have a design I need to sketch. Sometimes I get architectural books, or other design books for reference. And sometimes designs pop in my head, like one day I was at the beach with the kids, and I ended up designing a line inspired by water and bubbles and waves.

Sometimes I ask my head silversmith to come up with something new and interesting, and the things he comes up with!!!! He’s very creative and isn’t exposed much to the US bead market, so his perspective is fresh and very unique.

Q. OK, quick! The first three things that come to mind when you hear the word “SILVER”:

A. This is a tough one. But honestly: Saki, Family, Life

This word is very powerful for me. It’s how I met my husband, Sak, selling silver on the street. It’s how I raised my children, and it’s my passion. I remember the first time I walked into a wholesale silver shop in Bangkok as a teenager. I thought, “This is what I want to do”. I remember how inspired I was by all the beautiful designs, as well as by the sheer magnitude of the shop itself. It’s still how I feel when I walk down the aisle at a bead show, and I’m just thankful to be a part of it.

Q. If you weren’t in the business you’re in, what would you do? (AKA what are your other hobbies & passions)

A. Sak has had a life long dream of creating a “chill lounge” on the beach in Thailand, and he has, in fact, just opened one on a small island in southern Thailand. So for now I’m here running the business, but once the kids are grown, you just might find me on that same beach, and if it had to be something other than jewelry, I’d probably have a restaurant with lots of organic, homegrown veggies and home-raised chicken, and fresh seafood right from the ocean.

Last but not least,

Q. If you played Major League Baseball, what would your “coming up to bat” song be?

A. Here’s where you’ve got me! I don’t know what that means but I’m guessing it means what song pumps me up and inspires me. Ohhh so many. Sak loves music so we have a massive music library, with lots of world music and every other kind you can think of! Here are a few that have always made me want to get up and conquer the world!

• Boom Boom Pow
• Eye of the Tiger
• I Did it My Way

And there you have it, folks.

Complete with a mini iPod playlist– if you’ve ever wondered what makes the Saki world go round, you’ve heard it here first. And don’t forget to check out our selection of Saki Silver!

Signing off,

Kate, World-Wide-Reporter-Extraordinare

Fresh Pick Contest Winners

We had a TON of entries in the Fresh Pick contest this year, and the winning entries are in… drum roll, please!

Best Composition: “Wolfen” by Gina P – Delta Chick

We love this shimmering pick by Gina P – Delta Chick! The cool colors of the night aren’t traditional Halloween colors, but definitely speak to the spooky feel of October. There’s an eerie balance to this pick that ties everything together. Love it!

Best Costume: “Iron Man” by Lady425 aka Beth

I’ve seen the Iron Man movies, and I even know one 4-year-old that dressed up as Iron Man for Halloween yesterday. But I definitely didn’t see this one coming… Lady425 aka Beth really built a crime-fighting superhero robot here! Her meticulous choices and vision for the pick led the Lima Team to nominate Iron Man for Best Costume.

Scariest Story or Poem: “Spiders Lair” by Daisy Chick – Dawn

Let’s face it, poetry is hard to write… but Daisy Chick – Dawn makes it look easy. We loved the spooky rhythm of the poem that accompanied her pick… and the beads as well! Our favorite thing about the poem was the personification of the spider–it brings her deceptive face to life!

People’s Choice: “Headless Horseman” by J Shane

The people have spoken… and J Shane’s Headless Horseman pick is the winner of the People’s Choice award! We have to agree… this is a beautiful pick! If it hadn’t won People’s Choice, I have to admit I would have voted it for the Best Composition prize. Lovely colors, theme & arrangement.

The winners will receive their $25 Gift Certificate code in an email from me within the next few hours. Thanks for playing along this year! We can’t stress enough that you all are the ones that make this possible. Thank you!

Onward to November

The Lima Team took a short lunch yesterday to share some homemade (and some store-bought) spooky treats with each other. There were some graveyards, pumpkins, severed fingers, orange & black spreads, and more. We got to talking about dressing up when we were kids, and we dug up a few pictures to share. Enjoy! And thanks for another fun Scream Week!

Matt dressed up Frankenstein

Kate as Peter Pan... she never wants to grow up!

Steve as He-Man

Make a Fresh Pick and Win

Conjure up those ghost stories, costumes, and creepy color combos… and make a Fresh Pick to share them with everyone! We’ll pick 4 winners from the Fresh Picks submitted as a comment to this blog post (instructions are below). One winner will be chosen for each of these four themes:

• Best Composition: The overall composition is one of the most important qualities of a beautiful Fresh Pick. Creating the best possible color & texture arrangement (with a Halloween theme, of course) is key to winning this category.
• Coolest Costume: Were you a crayon? A princess? A robot? A superhero? Show off by making a Fresh Pick inspired by your costume idea. Sure, colors are important… but try and tell more about the costume through the items you choose.
• Scariest Story or Poem: Everyone loves a good ghost story (*ahem* most of the time). We’ll read your description that you add to your Fresh Pick. It could be a scary story, a tale about your favorite childhood Halloween memory, a poem (that you write yourself), or pretty much any type of Halloween prose.
• People’s Choice: We’ll total up the number of favorites that each Fresh Pick entry receives… and the one with the most favorites will be the People’s Choice winner! Make sure your vote is counted by going to the Fresh Pick and marking your favorites.

Now, for the important part…

The Prizes

The winner of each theme will receive a $25 Lima Beads gift certificate. You can use it to buy anything from our shop!

When you’re ready to submit your Pick, just select it from the drop-down menu in the comment form below. You’ll be able to choose from your 10 most recent picks. Choose the one that you’d like to submit to the contest and “Voila!” Not sure what a Fresh Pick is? Find out how to Design Your Own Fresh Picks!

Here are a few final ground rules before you get started:

• There will be 3 submissions allowed per person. If you make more than that, only your most recent 3 will be counted. You don’t have to match your picks with the themes above–you can do all costumes, all stories, or a mix of everything. Just remember, 3 is the limit!
• All Picks must be submitted as a comment on this blog post by Wednesday, October 31st at midnight.
• You can win up to one gift certificate per person.
• The Lima Beads team will pick the winners on Thursday, November 1. The People’s Choice winner will be selected by the number of favorites received. The winners will be announced here on the blog.

OK, get picking! Good luck!