TribeBlog

We know that times are tough this year, economies around the world are struggling in many different ways, and that funds are thin for many of our current and potential customers. We are offering this coupon in hopes that it will help you make purchases on the unique items you wish to own or gift to others, especially since so many items we create are one of a kind or very limited run and may not be created again.

The coupon code is: 20OFFDEC2011

This will get you 20% off your order of $25 or more.

We truly appreciate your business – without your support we would not be able to do research on ancient cultures and traditional materials, or innovate in our industry to bring you new materials and beautiful designs. Because we are a very small company, discounts really hit home – we are making each item you see in our store with our own hands, which takes an immense amount of time and energy, and reduced cost for those items directly effects our capacity to produce future items. We mention this because we want everyone to remember that a small business operates completely differently than a large chain business with much more profit margin and mass produced goods. Business can and should be a mutually respectful partnership between a business and a customer. Please always do as much shopping as you can at smaller independent, especially local businesses, and remember that there are real people with passion for what they do behind that counter or website.

Please use and share this coupon to bring new beauty to the lives of yourself and your friends. Know that we are thankful for your patronage, and thank you so much for another year where we were able to do what we love every day!

(Please note that some products do not qualify for discounts – the materials or time needed to complete the piece may prevent us from offering a discount. This coupon is non-retroactive and will not apply to any order prior to the publish date and time of this blog post, nor can it be applied retroactively if it was not utilized during checkout upon original order submission.)

Starting November 25th, we are offering several free gifts at certain order totals, because we think you all are awesome and we have sweet stuff to give you

Order totals $60+ after discounts: a sample vial of our Everyday oil blend, which you can read about here.

Order totals $100+ after discounts: a 1oz sample of our favorite yerba mate tea, found here.

Order totals $300+ after discounts: our Zeep! brand soap gift pack.

You will not see mention of these items in the cart – we will check every order’s final total between November 25th and January 8th and add the item to your order prior to shipment. You’ll see a mention of it in your shipment confirmation email.

One item per order based on the final order total. This offer is valid until January 8th or until we run out of each item. We reserve the right to make substitutions if we’re running low. If you have questions about these gifts, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Every year we close for Thanksgiving and Christmas to give our staff some well deserved time to relax and spend time with our families and friends. This year, our closures are as follow:

Thanksgiving: Thursday November 24th through Sunday, November 27th. Return to business Monday, November 28th.

Christmas: 12pm December 22nd through Sunday, January 1st. Return to business Monday, January 2nd.

Please note that upon return, we will start carving and shipping the oldest orders first. It usually takes us about a week and a half to get caught up.

Shipping Information

Because of the extraordinary volume of mail during the Christmas season, from the end of November through Christmas and for a week or two afterward, the mail system experiences very high load and is prone to delays. If you require an order in time for Christmas, we strongly suggest selecting the fastest, most secure shipping method you can afford, and be mindful of products which have a production time. We will not rush orders through production and sacrifice quality – you are paying for the best that we can accomplish, not what we can do in a hurry. We cannot be responsible for delays in shipping resulting from slower or non-trackable methods.

Click here to view the United States Postal Service Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Click here to view the FedEx Holiday Shipping Deadlines

If you have questions about whether a parcel will arrive to your destination from our workshop (Richmond, Virginia 23224) by a certain date, please call the shipper. They will have the most up to date information about the status of their shipping network.

Custom Orders

Our custom order queue has been suspended until 2012 so that we can finish up what’s left in the current queue and make sure we have adequate time to produce all of our new made-to-order products through the end of 2011.

We are always looking for ways to become more efficient and accommodating to our customers. After 9 years making jewelry and developing our customer base, we have discovered as many methods for stretching and as many size and style combinations as we have individual customers. In our search for ways to continue to offer new products in new combinations, we have been considering the idea of modularizing a lot of our carving so that we can use our carved cabochons in wood and stone to produce unique jewelry in much larger size ranges and style offerings.

We will be starting with a few of our normally stocked carved designs (aztec flowers, sugar skulls, koi) in wood and expanding from there into other carved motifs and materials. This will permit us to set these carved inlays into gold or silver and hardware attach them to any made-to-order plug style or material – woods, stones, etc. in any size, including obscure and in-between sizing, in any flare configuration (double flared, single, non, mayan, top-hat, etc). We know individuals have different tastes and these changes will help us more easily cater to these needs without keeping an astronomical amount of finished jewelry in fixed sizes on hand.

As part of our mission to help educate the public on the history of body modification, we are incorporating into our new website (which will launch later in the autumn) a database of museums worldwide which offer exhibits or pieces in their permanent collections related to body modification. Our goal is to provide a means for people to find out exactly where to go to view exhibitions of specific cultures or styles of jewelry.

We are asking our customers to consider visiting their local museums and documenting the collections on a short two page form to be submitted to us for inclusion in the database. We will accept submissions for establishments worldwide, as long as the submission is either provided in English or provided in your native language with English translation.

We’d be delighted to see some very thorough submissions with photographs and detailed descriptions of the collection. In exchange for your effort we are prepared to offer up to $10USD in store credit per museum submission to help with your admission cost. You get to see some amazing things and learn, you help us out by growing our database with museums we may not be physically able to visit, but most importantly you will help everyone interested in body modification gain greater access to educational information that might otherwise be difficult to find. We are hoping that with our combined communal efforts we will be able to establish a considerable list of collections for people to visit as they travel.

You can download the form, available in PDF format by clicking on this link. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.