Posts Tagged ‘Rings & Things bead shows’
Monday, August 10th, 2009
If you live in the Northeast USA and can attend one of our late September bead shows, you could be a winner!
We’re scouting for our first-ever Guest Bead Helper! You could be an honorary BeadTour bead-show worker, with all the fame and glory that come with that honor.
Who set that table so nicely?
For our first foray into roadie recruiting, we’re looking for someone who can say “Yes” to all of these questions:
- Can you leave a comment below, to enter?
- Can you attend one of these bead shows?
- Rochester on Sept. 24
- Boston on Sept. 26
- New Haven on Sept. 27
- East Hanover NJ on Sept. 29
- Philadelphia on Sept. 30
- Can you “set tables” with trays of beads?
- Will you let us buy you lunch and give you a goodie tote?
Other perks of the “job” include meeting our friendly crew and getting a behind-the-scenes look at how bead shows are put together — not to mention getting to start bead shopping before we open the doors to the public!
PS: It’s a bonus if you’re an active Facebook-er, Twitter-er or blogger. We’d love it if you talked online about your roadie experience!
We’ll announce our winner on Wednesday, September 16th. Good luck to everyone who enters the drawing!
So enter by leaving a note below…mention which city you’d like to help us in!
Tags: bead shows, BeadTour, boston bead show, contest, east hanover bead show, guest bead helper, new haven bead show, new jersey bead shows, philadelphia bead show, Rings & Things bead shows, rochester bead show
Posted in About Rings & Things, bead shows, contest | 26 Comments »
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
Thanks to a number of kind people who talked about Rings & Things in the last week…
Bead Origami has already made some splendid beaded beads she shows in her blog, that use amethyst just bought at our trunk show.
In other tour-related blogging, KJ at the Silver Parrot tantalized us with a promise to show off her discoveries at our latest bead show. AJ at Erthefae managed a mini-vacation to our BeadTour show and to the Bead Museum in Arizona…lucky! SoftFlex Girl Sara also managed to visit us at the Phoenix show, and blogged about it.
Heather at Humblebeads paired some Rings & Things brown lava beads with some cool, lustrous-toned beads and a striking handmade wing pendant in her Earth Angel necklace.
Heather also posted a nice-looking “Luna Flor” (Moon Flower) bracelet design at the Art Bead Scene blog. Dawno at Dawno’s Beaded Badge Lanyards devoted one day’s post to interviewing me. I’m humbled… She also wrote up an informative review of Rings & Things’ black rattail cord!
Tish over at JustATish wrote up a nice project using some of our hammered-oval gunmetal chain for a necklace and matching earrings!
Margot Potter put up a fun design of her own, the Peekaboo mixed-media necklace, at her Impatient Crafter blog.
A discussion over at Etsy about “what free gift do you include in your sent-out orders?” mentioned our candy in a positive light. The conversation generated a huge amount of response, by the way, and is really worth reading to get your marketing gears turning.
Thanks so much to everyone who found us worth talking about this week!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: As seen in, bead origami, bead shows, beads, BeadTour, brown lava beads, Dawno, erthefae, gunmetal chain, hammered oval chain, humblebeads, impatient crafter, justatish, lava beads, margot potter, Rings & Things bead shows, silver parrot, softflexgirl, thanks
Posted in As seen in | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 8th, 2009
We like to end the week on an up note, by thanking people who are good to us.
This week, the BeadStyle blog discussed a favorite find of emerald slice beads at a past Rings & Things show.
And AsetMekti was kind enough to suggest people visit our BeadTour bead shows. Fab Fibers shared the excitement of preparing for our trunk show to come to town, and some bead finds when we showed up. The Lampwork Art blog was nice enough to publicize our Louisville, KY show.
The Little Bead Shop showed off the awesome competition winners' creations in our 2009 "Your Designs Rock!" contest.
Meanwhile, Dawno generously steered her readers to our contests, even though the more entries, the lower her chances of winning are!
CraftGossip.com gave some handy tips on Finding Jewelry Artists Through Twitter, using us as an example. (Okay, this was back in April, but we just became aware of it!)
Wendy at Craft Dinner recommended stone cold stone lovers to check out our popular Gemstone Beads Index. Another recommendation of the “Gem Index” appeared at Winged Heart Studio.
In an excellent tutorial on how to dabble in mixed media with porcelain blanks, The Rabbit Muse kindly gave a shout-out to us as a good supplier for bails to hang them on.
In other design news, Margot Potter recommend Melanie’s (of Earthenwood Studio) designs using our lava-rock beads.
Thanks so much to all of you in the blogs and on Twitter for your nice words about Rings & Things. We appreciate you!
May giveaway:
* You enter by leaving comments this month
* At the end of May, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly, to enter a lot & to see if you won!
Tags: asetmekti, bails, bead shows, beads, beadstyle blog, BeadTour, craft dinner, craftgossip.com, Dawno, earthenwood studio, fab fibers, gemstone beads index, lampwork art blog, little bead shop, margot potter, rabbit muse, Rings & Things bead shows, rings & things design contest, winged heart studio, Your Designs Rock
Posted in As seen in | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Plan ahead for May birthstones!
There’s one main birthstone for May, emerald. This is also the seasonal birthstone for Spring, so it’s doubly appropriate. For an economical emerald look, think about glass beads. Anything from these metal-core Calypso™ (“Pandora”-style) lampwork beads…
…to the ever-popular, economical Cosmic Crystal™ bicone…
…can be an evocative way to play on the emerald theme. Just search our online store for “emerald”! Or for “sapphire”, which some consider a birthstone for Taurus. Now that’s multi-purposing your components!
Speaking of zodiac signs, Gemini’s birthstone is agate. We always seem to have dozens of varieties of it at Rings & Things’ BeadTour bead shows, and you can always find agate beads in our online store. A couple of favorites are Botswana agate, like these faceted rounds…
…and blue lace agate, like this bib:
Less well-known May gemstones, according to various traditions, are chrysolite, carbuncle, and chalcedony. For reliable, honest background information, you can look these and many more up in our popular Gemstone Beads Index!
What’s your favorite May birthstone, or birthday jewelry? Share it in a comment below. You can even link to pictures of your own creations!
April giveaway: “DIY Display Ideas”:
* You enter by leaving comments under the March 31 giveaway announcement
* At the end of April, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly to see if you won!
Tags: agate beads, bead shows, beads, BeadTour, bicone beads, birthday jewelry, birthstone beads, blue lace agate beads, botswana agate beads, calypso beads, cosmic crystal beads, emerald beads, gemstone beads index, lampwork beads, may birthstones, multi-purposing, multipurposing, pandora-style beads, Rings & Things bead shows, sapphire beads
Posted in birthstones, multipurposing | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
We’re sorry to inform everyone, our Friday (03/27/2009) bead show in Salt Lake City, Utah has been cancelled. Our crew got stuck in Denver, Colorado and couldn’t get through the snow that a surprise blizzard brought. So they weren’t able to set up our show in Salt Lake.
We regret the inconvenience to our Utah customers, and we’ll be back in town soon!
Idaho customers: Our Boise bead show scheduled for Sunday is still on. See you there!
–Dave
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!
Tags: bead shows, BeadTour, Rings & Things bead shows, salt lake city bead show, utah bead shows
Posted in About Rings & Things, bead shows | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 13th, 2009
In honor of our “on the road” season, starting today in Houston and going till some time in November…
Russ the Bead, perched high atop the Rings & Things bead truck
5 things you didn’t know about Rings & Things’ BeadTour:
- “Our trunk shows grew out of doing a hotel room show nearby a trade show. In that case it was an order-only glass or ceramic craft show. We couldn’t sell any stock and had lots of one of a kind strands that sold best at delivery shows. We had a booth at the show and invited our customers to walk a block to the hotel and see our delivery goods there. It worked. [General manager] Kim said “Ah HAH!” and the R&T trunk shows were born.” — our owner Russ
- Our crew packed up one show & immediately left town to avoid AM rush hour next day in another city. But busy small-town streets ate up their head start… Then, at our hotel, no one could find any of the boxes of stock that we’d had shipped to us. We spent an hour and a half tracking the shipment, watching video surveillance tapes and finally, finding them in the restaurant storage. One box (of 16 boxes) was marked “Plated Chain” so the hotel had put it all with Plates and China in the kitchen!! Our general manager Kim was disappointed that our crew’s lunch was not served on “plated chain.”
(We maintain a whole web page of more funny things that’ve happened at our shows!)
- We’ve done about 600 shows in dozens of cities in 36 states, selling [secret number deleted
] tons of beads every year.
- Our bead shows are a great way to personally meet a bunch of the Rings & Things people you deal with by phone, email, and Internet. So you can come say hi and pick our brains about nearly any subject!
- If you really really look, you might see Russ the Bead (above) at our shows!
Have a favorite “R&T” bead show story? Any questions about our shows? Comment below…and be automatically entered in our raffle!
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!
Tags: bead shows, beads, BeadTour, Rings & Things bead shows
Posted in Events | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Regular readers will know that I try to write about each upcoming month’s birthstones. For April, it’s more of a challenge to match the birthstones with Rings & Things stock. Which is great, because I love having gantlets thrown down in front of me.
I want to dig right in with Diamond. We don’t sell many diamonds here, if you mean that carbon-based life form that telepathically makes people act weird. What we have (at the moment I’m writing) are “cash & carry” fancy strands of rough diamond beads, at our bead shows only. (Which start this Friday, March 13th!) Here’s a peek at them:
But for a great diamond-y look, spend a moment checking out clear crystal beads! 
They’re faceted, and they’re as brilliant as many gems are. Clear rock crystal quartz beads 
can be mighty nice-looking, too…And don’t forget the countless diamond-shaped gemstone beads you can find through our store’s “Search by Shape” feature!
Sapphire is another April birthstone. It’s also a little “precious” for us, since we specialize in semiprecious gemstones. But again, great color matches are on hand. Try 
sapphire crystals and 
sapphire glass beads.
Carnelian is the third traditional birthstone of March. Browse our selection to see all the great shapes of beads made of this stone in our store. (Pictured above: 12mm faceted rondelles.)
To match any of these stones, you can always come to Rings & Things’ “BeadTour” shows near you! The new season starts this Friday, March 13, with our Houston show…We specialize in great-priced gemstone beads at our road shows, so it should be well worth your while.
Have more birthstone substitutes to suggest? Talk about them by leaving a comment!
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!
Tags: april birthstones, bead shows, birthstones, carnelian, clear crystal, diamond, diamond beads, diamond substitutes, Rings & Things bead shows, sapphire, sapphire crystal beads, sapphire crystals, sapphire substitutes
Posted in birthstones | 4 Comments »