Yay, Yippee, Yee-hah....at long last, BRASS!!!!

The day is finally here.....after months of research and testing of material we at long last are happy happy happy to announce that our BRASS production is up and running!! We are very pleased with the type of brass we decided on, it is strong and springy but also a bit lighter weight than traditional brass cuffs on the market. And even I have to admit, they ARE prettier than the aluminum cuffs, LOL! (not that that matters once you cover them up with leather or fabric or beads or whatever.....but they really are shiny and pretty) To celebrate, we have put almost all of our brass cuffs on sale! You will find them on the "on sale" page, located HERE.
We will be offering the brass individually and by the dozen to start, but if you need a gross quantity (144) email me at hlizzieb1@aol.com and let me know what you need and I can get you a price quote. We are not doing the brass cuffs wholesale as of yet (orders of 4 gross or more).....mainly because we just haven't had time to crunch those numbers yet, but we will get to that as soon as we can. We are also not doing custom sizes of brass yet; doing custom sizes always results in lots of scrap or unusable material, and when you are talking about brass, that means alot of money, lol! But if you really need a custom size, email me and I will see what we can do! :) Don't get me wrong, we will be doing custom sizes in brass, we just need to figure out a fair way to charge for it. :)
 Thats it for now; be sure to check out our SALE PAGE and as always,
Have a Beady Good Day!

NEWS NEWS NEWS!

I know it has been awhile since I have been on here...we have been uber-busy around the shop and studio! First of all, we purchased a new shear! Whats a shear you ask? Whats it do? Well, a shear is a machine that cuts sheet metal. I already had one of course, but that was a BABY machine compared to my new one! My old machine had a 12 inch cutting capacity. My new one? A 37 Inch cutting capacity!! This shear is big enough that we had to hire professionals to move it into the shop, lol.  And it will cut through not only thicker material, but tougher material as well. It also cuts VERY square.....which is AWESOME because it is way easier for me to round corners on a square piece of material than on one that isn't perfectly square. So.....what does all this mean to you my friend? It means faster production, more options and, best of all, a much higher quality cuff. Which is always a good thing!

Another good thing is that with the new shear in place, we are now ready to branch out into BRASS. The brass production will be up and running in a week or so.....maybe less. I will post again when it is, as well as send out a newsletter. If you haven't already done so, you can sign up for the newsletter by following this LINK.

One more announcement, and it is a good one!! With the popularity of custom sizes in our aluminum cuffs going crazy, we have decided to put the two most often asked for sizes into regular production. Yay!  2 1/2 inch bracelet blanks as well as 3 inch bracelet blanks are now available all the time, so come n' get em! :) click here and scroll to the bottom of the page!

I think that is it for now, I'll be back soon to gab some more....until then, 
Have a Beady Good Day!

Challenges!

I wanted to take this opportunity to let everyone know that we have changed the type of aluminum we use to make our cuff bracelet blanks. We are now using what is called "3003"; it is a definite upgrade! It has more "spring" to it and seems stronger even though it is the same thickness as the old aluminum. Does using a better grade aluminum mean that we will be raising our prices you ask? NOPE! How awesome is that?? It IS a bit more expensive than the old aluminum, but we will be absorbing that difference ourselves in order to bring you a superior product at the same great price! Yay! :)
One other announcement:
We have been working with our sheet metal supplier to find a type of brass that will work well for making our own brass cuffs. (like we do our aluminum cuffs) There are many types of brass (didn't know that before we started looking into buying the stuff lol) and what we need is something strong yet lightweight, with the "spring" needed for bracelet cuffs. But we need it to be inexpensive enough for us to be able to buy it, make it into cuffs and then sell it to our customers at a better price than the brass cuffs we sell now are. (those we have to buy from a manufacturer) This has proven challenging, to say the least! We are being very picky; we want to be able to provide our customers with a quality product at a great price! I am confident that we will hit on just the right material soon, hopefully within the month......Just wanted to give you all a heads up to be on the lookout for brass cuffs, coming soon!!! And, while we are on the subject, what would you think of copper cuff bracelet blanks? Should we or no? In the process of looking at brass, our supplier also showed us some copper that we got samples of and made into cuffs.....I was very happy with the end result (very pretty color and easy to work with material) but we don't know how many folks would want copper cuffs. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!! :)
Thats it for now, have a Beady Good Day! :)

Decoupage and More......

I have been playing around with Decoupage lately and I am so excited about the results! I used our aluminum cuffs to experiment with and whatever paper items I had lying around....magazines, ribbons, metal leaf, opal papers, tissue paper etc, and Mod Podge. (which I picked up at Hobby Lobby) It was soooo easy, I was shocked! Just apply a thin layer of the Mod Podge to the cuff and start laying down paper, then apply another layer of Mod Podge over the top to seal. Let dry and apply more Mod Podge.....do this several times and Voila! A decoupage cuff!!  Here are a few examples of what I came up with on my FIRST TRY.....here, a cuff I made with leaf patterns cut out of a magazine and purple tissue paper:

 

 

Not too bad, right? Here is another view:

 
 

And here is one I did with opal papers, metal leaf, tissue paper and a picture I cut out of a catalog that I sandwiched in between two silicone bubbles:

 
 

And another view of the same cuff:

 
 

Here is one I did using Black and Hot Pink tissue paper, special request from my daughter:

 
 

And now here is one that I did using tissue paper and metal leaf on top of Lacy's Stiff Stuff, backed with deer skin and beaded around the edges:

  

Two more views of the same cuff:

 
 

  

Now, I KNOW that these cuffs are not professional grade...but these were my FIRST try! Imagine what you could do if you already have experience with decoupage!! Imagine what you could do even if you don't. I have to tell you, this was FUN. Really fun. And easy. And best of all, didn't cost an arm and a leg! The cuffs (If I had to buy them from myself, lol) were no more than $1.30 each, the Mod Podge was around $5.00, (and will last a long time) and the rest was just stuff I had laying around anyway! So there you go.....$1.50 to make a cuff, maybe $2.00. What could be better? :)

Until next time, Have a Beady Good Day! 

 

 

 

We Have a WINNER!!

We have a winner for our Christmas Give-Away, Congratulations DEB!!! You can check out her gorgeous work at the bottom of this post or on our homepage HERE. We are SO glad that we did this give away as a random drawing because if we had to choose just one winner from all the absolutely stunning pictures we were sent.....I do believe I would have lost my mind, LOL! Every single entry was gorgeous and we can't wait to feature all of them on our Artist Gallery page! The amount of talent out there is amazing and I want to sincerely thank everyone who sent in pics....I adore the eye candy!!! 
The give-away was so fun and so successful that we are already planning our next one.....but haven't decided if it will just be for blog followers or for folks who have signed up for our newsletter or maybe even for both.....so be sure to follow this blog, (look to the right for the link to do that) and if you haven't signed up for our newsletter yet, you can do that HERE.
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Holiday, (and being good so Santa will come...hee hee hee...I LOVE Christmas!) Alot of us are in for some really BAD weather this Christmas, so please...BE SAFE! And Until next time, have a Beady Good Day! :) 

Still Time to enter!!

Just a quick reminder that you still have time to enter for our Christmas Give-Away....one week, in fact! The deadline for entries is December 19th, 2009 at 11:59pm Central time. You can get the full details on our website HERE or from this blog, HERE. You could be the lucky winner of a $100.00 shopping spree on our website or $50.00 in cash......so enter now!!! :)

I also wanted to remind everyone that we are always on the look-out for new, unique, useful and/or gorgeous items for the website; if you have any suggestions, we would be more than happy to hear about them! Maybe there is something you have been looking for? Let us know, maybe we can find it for you! Or maybe you have seen something really neat that you think would be great for us to carry on the website....again, let us know! We want to be THE source for everything beadwork!!!
Thats it for now, I hope you all are having a Beady Good Day! ;)

CHIP STRANDS GALORE!!

Just wanted to pop in and let you all know that we just received a shipment of beautiful chips strands! Stones are: Tiger eye, Red Goldstone, Rose Quartz, Snowflake Obsidian, Rainbow Florite and Cherry Quartz. You can see them HERE! (And look below for a few teaser pics!)
These strands are perfect to use in jewelry of course, but I LOVE using chips in the fringe of my beadwork.....so pretty and just seems so darn luxurious to see and feel those semi-precious stones cascading from a beautiful piece of wearable art!! :)
Submissions for the Give away have started to come in and WoW! Do we have some talented customers or what?!! Gorgeous pieces!! Keep those submissions coming....tell a friend, blog or twitter about it....we'd love to see this become our biggest give-away ever!! :)
Thats it for now, everyone be safe out there this Holiday season...and have a Beady Good Day! :)