You can read a bit of background about Zack in this blog post by his mom Heather as she tells her story about why Elmo was so special to her son. Knowing about Zack, his family and how dedicated they are to honouring his memory and raising money to build not one but two special rooms at the York Central hospital, we didn’t hesitate when Heather asked for an auction item for the silent auction at the Being Elmo event.

So, if you’re in the Toronto area, want to see a fantastic film and support a great cause, and if you’ve been eyeing our @ symbol necklace, there’s a fantastic opportunity to bid on one this Sunday, March 18th. Tickets for the screening are available here (they’re only available online as they won’t be selling tickets at the door).

Like many guys, Eric doesn’t actually wear jewelry all that often (even though he is half the driving force behind Blend Creations). With necessity being the mother of invention (yes, that link goes to one of Eric’s old “wallets” that he made out of paper. George Costanza is his hero), we’ve recently prototyped this lovely wallet, complete with a bit of bling:

As evidenced by the photos, Eric carries a lot of cra.. er.. stuff in his wallet: 15 cards, some big bills and various other slips of paper. This wallet carries it all with room to grow, especially since leather will stretch with use.

It’s a hand saddle-stitched leather wallet, using waxed cotton thread. The leather is of 4 oz. weight (about 1/16″ thick) and comes from cattle that has lived a full life. (The full hide has evidence of a brand, scars, bug bites and other interesting marks). We’re still playing around with various options, but we expect to be able to offer these soon at a price tag of around $100.

Let us know what you think!

Update: The wallets are now available in our store!

We’ve been playing around with wool felt and our laser cutter. It seems only natural that we put it to some good use, so we made this pretty coaster with our Flower Lace pattern.

What do you think?

We had a few requests to have custom ornaments available in the future and while it’s no longer the season, these things take time and we’ve put our thinking caps on! Behold, a first prototype in 100% wool felt, in a beautifully vibrant shade of red:

As fun as they were in acrylic, the ornaments are spindly which could lead to the little limbs snapping off, and frankly, it smells horrible to laser cut plastic. (Not to worry, our laser has a carbon filter, but it certainly does not smell like roses or anything good for you).

Wool felt on the other hand is quite pliable and doesn’t smell any worse than a hair dryer. We’ve washed the final product and there’s actually no residual odor.

So we’ve got our thinking caps on and will be experimenting with designs for some trivets and other household goods aside from the ornaments. What do you think?

If you’re a fan of Blend Creations on Facebook, you’ll recognize our new hashtag circle pendants. They’re part of our geek chic line and celebrate social media trends offline, in-person (or around your neck!). If you’re not sure what a #hashtag is, you can read all about them on Twitter’s page, “What are Hashtags?“.

Also new in the store is our Custom map disc bottle-opener pendants. We started with our Worldly series (featuring maps to the birthplaces of international brews), and then added our American and Canadian brew series.

The problem was, there are just too many great craft and micro- brews out there to add them all, not to mention all of the fine home-brews that exist. So now, you can get a custom bottle-opener pendant featuring whatever location you’d like, and we’ll make a pendant with that specific map.

The back of the pendants are even personalized — so you can commemorate any place (not just breweries) that has significant meaning for you (like where you met your spouse, where your child was born or where you first made that great IPA, etc.).

We’ve just added our newest design to the store – our Fusion necklaces! There are three styles: the assymetric fusion, the petite fusion and the long fusion.

They’re so-named because each necklace has two pieces of stainless steel: one with a brushed finish and one with a polished finish, that have been fused together. They’re modern and simple-looking, but can be quite symbolic of a union. Each necklace is personalized with a visual accent: either a Swarovski crystal in birthstone colors, or a faux-pearl. You can further personalize it with the engraving of initials, a date or a special word.

Want to stay updated of our new product designs and get a special promo code? You can join our e-mail newsletter, or go to our Facebook page.

In the meantime, we’re preparing for our own celebrations and our Jr. VP has certainly helped out by designing some ornaments:

Santa and his elves? Nope. The Jr. VP did a self-portrait and drew his best bear friends, which we turned into ornaments.

We hope you and yours have a wonderful and restful holiday season :)

Here’s the Canadian series with maps to the birthplaces of seven different brewery birthplaces:

We’ve also added a #hashtag tab pendant (in the same style as our ‘at’ symbol twitter pendant):

It’s one of many products in our ‘geek chic’ collection of products and great for someone you know who’s a Twitter fanatic :)

The holidays are just around the corner and if you’re shopping for holiday gifts you’ll want to make sure that they arrive to your recipient in time.

Here are a couple of order deadlines you’ll want to keep in mind:

Friday November 25th:
- Order deadline for shipping internationally (outside of Canada & the US)

Friday December 9th:
- Order deadline for shipping to the US and Canada (outside of Ontario) using our $7 standard (Expedited Parcel) shipping method.

Friday December 16th:
- Order deadline for shipping within Ontario using our $7 standard (Expedited Parcel) shipping method.
- Order deadline for shipping to the US and Canada (outside of Ontario) using our Xpresspost/FedEx Ground method.

Monday December 19th:
- Order deadline for shipping within Ottawa, ON using our $7 standard (Expedited Parcel) shipping method.
- Order deadline for shipping within Ontario using our Xpresspost/FedEx Ground method.
- Order deadline for shipping within Canada/US using our Courier method.

Tuesday December 20th – Monday December 26th:
- Orders placed during this time will start shipping out on Tuesday December 27th.

For full details, and shipping costs, consult our shipping table.