We are working on finishing up this batch of five new (exclusive and copyrighted, of course!) carved hanging styles. I just wanted to post a little bit of a teaser. Two are Aztec themed, one is fish fin themed, and there’s a replacement for the “seahorse” design which we are discontinuing because so many people now sell a likeness to it, and a strawberry-esque fat drop hanging design.
We plan to have these ready to go by the end of the week, or at the very latest, the beginning of next week. We just have to finish polishing and do a final count and get the product pages written and posted. Yay!
UPDATE: Here they are! 
These styles are now on the site and available for purchase. You’ll find the sailfun spiral design in the spirals category and the others in hanging styles. Alternatively, just hit the new inventory page to see them all together.
We have a slew of various stone pieces always sitting around and we’ve taken some of this week to get those pieces worked into inventory and up on the site. The two new additions are Blue-Gray Agate plugs and Ice Quartz plugs, both shown below.
Mostly smaller sizes but we do have some 1 1/4″ pieces in the Blue-Gray and 2″ pieces in the Ice Quartz. We are working on a large batch of stone plugs and hanging shapes right now and we will start adding those in several weeks. Additions will include various agates and some jaspers, labradorite, and obsidian in varying styles from normal plugs to stone concaves to stone spirals and rings.
On the normal order filling front, we have been working hard to keep up with the Holiday volume for made-to-order stuff (mostly wood plugs, tunnels and the new mayan flared styles) and we are a few days behind, so if you are waiting on an order please do be patient. Everything’s worked by date in the order it’s received.
Everyone have a great weekend!
The Onetribe Crew
We’re working like crazy over here at Onetribe HQ to get a ton of new products we are releasing finished and released for you guys. We are going to be doing Mayan Flared concave plugs and tunnels in most of our woods, starting with Bloodwood and Olivewood. All four (both woods in both a concave plug and a tunnel style) will drop next week, so keep an eye out for those.
We will continue to release them in new woods as we have the time. The style itself is a very traditional style of ear adornment not only in the form of clay and jadeite/greenstone pieces from Mesoamerica but also in some Southeast Asian silver pieces. Our pieces feature faces 6mm larger than the saddle with standard rear flares.
We’re also very happy to be in the process of working on a huge line of normal earring styles made from organic materials. These items and others are being designed and produced by Jared Karnes of Onetribe, Suzanne Phillips, a Richmond, VA fashion designer and other artists as a side project to eventually feature a full line of organic and sustainable earrings and couture fashion accessories under another company name.
Earring items with an obvious relevance to Onetribe (those body piercing related items made from wood, amber, stone, etc. in our own workshops) will be sold on the Organic Earrings section of our site. Two basic examples featured above are the Onetribe “Full Moon” earring in Tiger Ebony and Pink Ivory materials, with bio-compatible Niobium earring post and Titanium clutch.
Other items the venture will produce include earring styles made from a compressed recycled paper product, childrens books, screenprint and letterpress prints on wood and paper, earrings and other accessories made of reclaimed batik and other fabrics, organic knits and lace, as well as one-off rings, necklaces and couture jewelry items made from natural materials and precious metals. The project is currently nameless but when a name and website are finalized we will definitely be posting project updates.
I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut about things that are awesome, and these are awesome. We are debuting a few new elaborately carved hanging designs next week, which we will announce in a newsletter after they are up and ready to go. There are two 100% original Onetribe LLC designs we’ve been working on for ages and we’re finally ready to let them loose.
The Saraswati Swan, named as such because the Hindu goddess Saraswati rides upon a swan as a symbol of decisiveness and division in applying knowledge, which can be helpful or harmful to the world depending on how it is used, is an elaborately carved in the round (3D) swan hanging style. The neck is to be worn gracefully through the lobe while the body hangs elegantly below and the wings and feathers sweep upward. This style is available from 4g to 00g in Buffalo Horn, Olivewood and Pink Ivory wood at several different price points.
The Koi Fin is another three dimensional, directional design envoking the feeling of a quick splash via the curled Koi tail fin. The design features a hook hanging portion which fades gracefully into a body of scales and downward into the curled tail portion. This style is available from 8g to 00g (Horn only for 8g and 6g) in Buffalo Horn, Bloodwood, Olivewood and Beeswing Narra for a variety of available colors and price points.
The last two designs, shown at the top center are our Saddlebags, simple hanging shapes available for the time being in Buffalo Horn and Olivewood from 8g to 00g. One is narrow and taller and the other is thicker and shorter. Gemstone inlays will be a future option in addition to a variety of other wood materials for a large range of color.
All of the designs featured in the photo will be available next week, the week of November 9th, most likely sometime between Monday and Wednesday. We will be sending out a newsletter announcing some site changes, these new products, and an upcoming holiday sale.
It’s oddly chilly today here in Richmond. Right now it’s in the 60’s, overcast with a cold breeze and lots of rain. We’ve got the bay door open and things are running smoothly with a very chill atmosphere here in the studio today.
We have been working on some precious metal casting as a new company project, in hopes of getting a line of nice reproduction silver going, and some unique weight styles for those of us that enjoy a little dangle in our lives. Our first project was to reproduce a set of antique Thai Hill Tribe earrings from our collection, as we’d had a lot of interest in them from visitors to the studio but didn’t want to give up our particularly nice original set. We created a wax from the originals and cast several sets, which we divided into two piles and finished them as antiqued and high polish. The difference can be seen in the below photo.
The top piece is one of the originals from our set. The bottom left is our reproduction in the antiqued finish (the original is tarnished, so it’s darker than our cast) and the bottom right is our high polish version, which is particularly sexy I think. They weigh 22 grams, are approximately 8-6g, and measure a bit over 1.5″ in overall diameter with an inner diameter of about an inch. They were handmade from start to finish here in Richmond, VA. Here’s an in ear photo of Rachel (our office manager) sporting them in 4g ears.
We’re very happy with them, they are much nicer than many other repros we’ve seen during our travels. We have a couple of sets in each finish (antiqued and high polish), and we’ll make more once we’ve sold those. If you are interested, please do let us know. Cost is in the neighborhood of $150 per set.
A good friend of mine and local customer of Onetribe stopped by the studio last night to hang out for a bit. I keep a few skateboards, and generally a BMX bike, here at the studio because I like to get out for a few minutes during the day and burn off some energy to help me relax. We decided to go out and shred for a bit and ended with me doing rad stuff over Larry in the middle of the parking lot. Here’s an action shot
Work hard, play hard
We have released a new style specifically for those with smaller lobes (8g to 1/2″) that are looking for a classy and simple plug. We’re now doing center gemstone set plugs with the following options:
- Virtually any material we currently utilize
- 1.5mm, 2.0mm or 2.5mm gemstone (depends on the size of the plug)
- We’re able to do larger front flares to accommodate the larger stones on smaller plugs
- Two settings to choose from: .925 Sterling Silver and 14K Yellow Gold
- Many common genuine gemstones including Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Amethyst, Citrine, Peridot, Rhodolite and diamonds.
We will start adding specific configurations of these options to the site as products, which will be made in house upon ordering, however, you may custom order any configuration you’d like by sending us an email.
The below photograph shows some examples: Ebony DF Plugs (00g) with CZ, Rhodolite and Smoky Quartz, Pink Ivory DF Plugs (00g) with Rhodolite, CZ and Smoky Quartz, and Tiger Ebony concaves (0g and 1/2″) with CZ’s.
