Author Archive: Matt on The Blog

Our First Christmas

First, I’d like to thank everyone who commented on last week’s “Matt Needs Help Beading” post. They were all great ideas and useful hints, but I couldn’t decide on just one of the Fresh Picks that were suggested. Therefore, I created a new Fresh Pick based on the stones, colors and textures that I liked from your Picks.

Since CAS was nice enough to create a Fresh Pick for the occasion, I decided “Merry Christmas Newlyweds” would be a good place to start. As you can see, I chose a similar color scheme and even some of the same stones. You’ll find Plum and Orchid Freshwater Pearls as well as Smoky Quartz in both of the Picks.

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If you guess how many beads are in the jar, we’ll give you a $100 Lima Beads Gift Certificate!

The rules are simple:

• You have until 2pm EST on Monday, November 24th, 2008 to make your guess(es).
• Guesses can only be submitted in the comments of this post.
• The winner will be the closest guess (without going over).
• If there’s a tie, the earliest entry will be the winner.
• You can guess up to once per day. At the end of the contest, only your most recent guess will be considered.
• If someone guesses the exact amount, we will announce it immediately. That person will automatically be the winner and the contest will end.

The Prize

The winner will receive a Lima Beads $100 gift certificate. The gift certificate can be used for absolutely anything in the Lima Beads shop and must be redeemed within 1 year. The winner will also be announced on the blog, so the whole beading world will know how incredibly awesome you are!

The first person to guess within 25 beads of the actual amount will receive a $25 gift certificate, so hurry and start guessing, but remember — you only get 1 guess per day!

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Purpleheart Tree

I’m in need of some expert advice! Since Deidra and I are newlyweds and saving for a house, we decided that instead of buying expensive gifts, we would make something for each other this year. Naturally, the first thing that popped into my head was jewelry. The only problem is, even though I work at Lima Beads, I’ve never even held a beading tool or cracked open a beading magazine.

That’s where you come in. Ali has already agreed to teach me a few beading techniques, but I’m not sure what beads I should be using. So as my first step, I want to choose a Fresh Pick that will be the inspiration for my design.

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It’s 8 PM on Thursday and I’m leaving for Frankenmuth (and my wedding!) in just a few hours. After being engaged for a year and a half, I honestly can’t believe that it’s already here.

I hope that after the wedding, things will slow down a bit. This past week has been the most hectic week of my life. The only thing keeping me sane is the thought of what comes after this Saturday. Not only do I get to spend every minute with my best friend, but we’re spending next week in Costa Rica.

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We love food here at Lima Beads. Who doesn’t? Arguably, the best part of working downtown is the food. The restaurants in Ann Arbor are an eclectic mix of the greatest tastes from around the world. You could easily eat Cuban for breakfast, Middle-Eastern for lunch, and Chinese for dinner all in the same day. The best part is, you’d only have to walk a couple of blocks. Since were sending out new lunch specials today, I’d like to share a little about lunch here at Lima Beads.

For the people who live or have visited Ann Arbor, the restaurants that stand out in their mind are Palio, Real Seafood Co., The Chop House, Gratzi or The Earle. While these are all fine establishments, they’re not exactly “Quick Lunch” material. We love going out to lunch, so while our taste buds may be happier with those restaurants, our bank account wouldn’t.

Lunch at Lima usually takes place at one of the following:

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As a member of the Lima Web Team, I’m one of the only people at Lima Beads that has never really been a beader. It’s not that I’m not interested in the art of beading, I just can’t see myself wearing a beaded necklace or a set of earrings. Despite the fact that I’ve never had the desire to design anything for myself, I’ve been a closet “Fresh Picker” since the inception of the Design Your Own Fresh Picks (DYOFP) feature on Lima Beads. However, you won’t find a “Fresh Picks by Matt” page anywhere on the site because I’ve been creating them under a pseudonym. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it later on in the post.

The Life Aquatic

It all started when we were testing the new feature internally. Since then, it’s been hard to keep myself from creating a Fresh Pick every now and then. At the time, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to publish them under my own name, just in case everyone thought they were terrible. So, I created a pseudonym that would allow me to continue picking. Even when I’m not picking, I really enjoy looking through the snapshots to find color schemes and texture combinations that I never thought possible. Being an artist, I’ve always been pretty good with color, texture and composition. It’s easy for me to look at some of our more popular Picks and tell you why people like them.

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