Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Support indie crafting by voting for Blue Buddha!

Exciting! Blue Buddha Boutique has been nominated as an "inspiring small business" and we are being considered to win the Shine A Light award from American Express and NBC Universal. If we are a finalist or a winner, we plan to invest the $10,000 - $50,000 grant to speed up the process of in-house manufacturing, thereby creating more jobs in this challenging economy and helping ensure that the materials we use in are jewelry are 100% made-in-the-USA. If we are the final winner, the marketing support will increase the visibility of not only our firm, but of chainmaille and handcrafted items as a whole.

If you would like to see an indie crafting company win, please endorse our nomination! We need to be one of the top 150-most nominated businesses in order to move to the next round.

Here's how you can help:

Register at http://shinealight.ivillage.com/register— you will need to create a username and password. The link to register is near the upper right corner of the page. Yes, we know registering on websites can be annoying, but registering on the site is a way to ensure one vote per user. You will see in the registration process that the contest promoters promise not to send marketing emails.

After you've completed your registration, view our nomination by clicking this link (or pasting it to your browser) http://shinealight.ivillage.com/sbo-profile/?ProfileID=4875

Click on the blue box that says "Support this story. Endorse now." . The box is under BLUE BUDDHA BOUTIQUE, all caps, at the very top left (You may have to double click the box, depending on your browser.)

Make sure you see the message "Your endorsement for "Blue Buddha Boutique - Hobby Becomes Global Enterprise, Spreads Beauty" has been recorded."

And you're done!

Please participate with us in this exciting process! And, be inspired by the other small businesses. We appreciate your continued support, and are so grateful for you taking the time to register & endorse our nomination.

posted on 9:13 AM by Blue Buddha