We upgraded R&T’s online store.  Enjoy the easier and convenient-er times you’ll have shopping with us!

Same look. Way better!

The old dog can do some new tricks, like these…

• It saves your shopping cart: automatically, even, when you close the browser window! Just view your cart when done shopping session.  (It saves only what you’ve viewed.)
• It won’t interrupt your shopping: so you’re not taken away from the page you’re looking at!
• It redeems more than one gift certificates: at the same time (on the same order).
• It previews product categories for you: just scroll over a product picture & there’s a pop-up bubble.
• It collects recent product reviews: from your fellow shoppers.
• It finds multiple previous carts: if you’re a registered R&T customer, this is a snap now.
• It lets you check out as a guest: so you don’t have to register if you don’t feel like it.

Happy shopping!  Let us know how you like your new, improved R&T store.

R&T now features a growing collection (a raster roster?) of jewelry-making videos.

2 highlights:

…For perfect crimps everytime, a crimping-tool video, and…

……some help for those of us with 2 left hands…a knotting-tool demo, video-style!

Visit our videos, and you can scroll up that page for many more fantastic free artists’ resources!

Notice anything new
at Rings & Things' home page?   

Kudos to our website design team!

Subscribe to the “feed” from the Design Gallery.  You’ll have 10 new design ideas at a time delivered to your desktop.

How?  Click the orange RSS link, the iGoogle link, or the MyYahoo! link.  You’ll get a constantly updated list of our 10 latest jewelry projects.

Just like that!  We’ve had plenty of people say that they turn to us first when they have a new project idea.  Let us return the favor with some jewelry inspirations.

Enjoy!

Introducing “Search by Color” for crystal beads in our CRYSTALLIZED™ -
Swarovski Elements section!  Thanks to Melissa for a ton of hard work to make this happen.  (Maybe I should say a gross of hard work…uh…)

Now you’re just a click away from seeing every single crystal bead color that we have, laid out in an attractive table.  As you can see, similar colors are grouped together — which makes it easy to build on a color theme, or find a substitute for a color you can’t get.

Let us know how you use “searching by color” in your crystal shopping…

Great Southwestern-influenced earrings to introduce you to a really handy jewelry finding, the bead bar…

Our bead bars show off pretty amazonite beads...

Seasonally appropriate shark charms & rad surfboard pendants make this one a perfect guy / beachwear item… (update on August 13: I’m wearing this one to Rings & Things’ anniversary sale this weekend, so come see it in person):

A midsummer day's inspiration! The Shark Week necklace.

Here’s another finding we sell that will find an appreciative audience this time of year…

A fun, customized bottle opener for your thirsty customers! (Read the lettering)

So get yourself to the shade of a beach umbrella in a place that has wi-fi, pour some iced tea, and browse the dozens of fun new designs in our Gallery!  Did I mention we’ve added several whole new design categories?  Resin designs, beadables (great gift ideas), metal stamping, causes & awareness, and more…

Have a fun summery design idea?  Share it in a quick note below!

DON’T MISS OUR June-July giveaway:
* in our online store, find a fave product & review it there, then…
* …leave a comment about it at the contest article in our blog
* On August 3, five winners will receive coveted Rings & Things gift certificates!
* Enter often & see if you win!

Our "Facebook" earrings. Epoxy resin tips can help you make these & more!

Rings & Things has added a page of tips for epoxy resin!

Now the basics are at your fingertips, so bookmark that page.  Learn how to:

• Prevent image “bleed”
• Stop “floating” images
• Keep resin projects from sticking to your work surface

And much more, all in a handy single .PDF sheet.  (Perfect for printing out and tacking up in your workshop!)

PS — Soon, you can look for a new Resin projects area in our Design Gallery!

Do you have a helpful resin hint that you’ve learned the hard way?  You can share it here, by leaving a comment!

You'll be charmed by our gift registry!

An improved gift registry: This feature provides a great way to let your friends and family know what you want for Christmas, birthdays and other special events.  (Just make sure they know about our $25 minimum order, and $4 small-order fee for orders between $25
& $50).

The gift registry feature is not just for requesting gifts, though!  Bead societies can use it to create project parts lists,
businesses can use it to share upcoming order info between employees, and anyone can use it like a wish list of things to buy
in the future.  In fact, the gift registry has an advantage over the wish list feature of our store, in that it allows you to save desired quantities!

Here’s how you set up your own Gift Registry:

• Login from our main online store page by clicking my account
• Manage Gift Registries
• Create New Registry

Now just fill in some blanks:

• Specify the Event Type — the “occasion” for people to buy you R&T items.  (Birthday?  Wedding?)
• Give it a name.  (”Dave’s 29th birthday”?)
• And a date. (You don’t mind folks knowing when your birthday is, do you?)
• Specify what kind of shipping address the items should go to.  (”My address” goes right to you; “Customer’s address” goes to your generous friend.)
• :Look at the other few options that display, and check any that matter to you.  Now click Continue.

From here, it’s easy to shop for products to add to your Gift Registry.  You know which ones you’ve had your eye on!

Have you thought of other features you wish were in our online store?  Suggest them here in a comment!

"We're here to help you": join a bead society & meet some new faces!

There are lots of reasons to join a local group of beaders or other craft/jewelry artists.

• Socializing with people who have similar interests
• Learning new techniques & tricks that’ll help you “grow your business”
• Donating your skills for a cause: editing a newsletter, scheduling workshops and field trips, organizing charitable fundraisers or educational workshops in local schools…
• Membership is usually very inexpensive or free!

…but the simplest reason to join is for FUN! ☻☺

Do you realize how incredibly many of these groups exist?  Check these constantly-updated resources to find a group near you:

• Our discussion forum about bead societies.
• Our page about bead societies, polymer clay guilds and other art groups.

There seems to be quite an upswing of interest in forming local groups lately.  If you don’t find a group near you, will you be the founder of a new one?

Rings & Things wants to hear from YOU about any more bead societies and art guilds that haven’t made it onto our lists yet.  Leave us a comment here with information!

By the way, Rings & Things doesn’t track the meeting times & places of all of these groups.  (We’ve found that these may change.)  But you can announce your bead society’s latest meetup schedule right here — so just leave a comment below to plug your group.

March news: New monthly lottery, right here on the Rings & Things blog.  Here’s how it works:
* You enter by leaving comments. Comment on any March post(s).
* At the end of March, I’ll randomly draw 2 winners of surprise goodie packs! …So read the blog regularly to see if you won!

Rings & Things has uploaded dozens and dozens of these new entries to our Design Gallery!  (Finally done.  I see the light at the end of the carpal tunnel.) ☻☺ At last count we had something like 668 designs up. We group this free inspirational material into some useful categories:

• Earrings
• Necklaces
• Wrist Wear, i.e. bracelets and watches
• Baubles and More, including ID badges, metal stamping, glue-on designs, and many more ideas
• Holiday Jewelry Design Ideas
• Art Clay™ Silver
• Design Contest Winners

Every design is illustrated by a great big beautiful picture of the finished piece.  The Design Contest Winners come with the artist’s statement.  All the others are accompanied by a parts list, complete with links to our online store if you’re going to buy the components.

You’ll also find links to free downloadable PDFs with full instructions for making each design.  The PDFs come in two flavors, faster-loading or higher-resolution.  Hard to choose, right?

Subscribe to our Design Gallery RSS / Google Desktop / My Yahoo feed to keep updated!  Whenever we upload a new design, we’ll send a blip right to your desktop or browser window, whichever you choose.

Have a favorite Design Gallery item?  Ever been inspired by one of our designs?  Saw your contest entry on our site?  Leave a comment to talk about it!!

March news: New monthly lottery, right here on the Rings & Things blog.  Here’s how it works:
* You enter by leaving comments. Comment on any March post(s).
* At the end of March, I’ll randomly draw 2 winners of surprise goodie packs! …So read the blog regularly to see if you won!