CARLYLE, Sask. — Megan Anderson says her efforts to bedazzle a rhinestone tattoo design onto a sweater over the course of 100 days took on a life of its own.
Anderson, whose Carlyle business, the Blinging Bluebird, will celebrate its fifth anniversary later in September, posted daily videos to social media of her work on the sweater during the spring and summer.
“I’m mostly an online business, and I thought I have to figure out a way to show up every single day and be on my socials. So that’s what I came up with," she told SaskToday.
During the 100-day project, she said people asked her daily what she was working on with the sweater and its design. Even people she didn’t know wanted details.
She believes the sweater became a community project because it was so much bigger than her.
“People would give me suggestions, and it took on a life of its own. It was more than me doing it by the end,” she said.
Anderson estimates she dedicated 1 1/2 to three hours each day to the sweater, but that doesn’t include creating the content. Some designs were really big and required a couple of days of work because she was tackling the work while running the store.
Even though the sweater has been finished for a few weeks, people still talk to her about it and applaud her efforts. Interest seemed to grow as the project proceeded, and it grew her business's social media presence.
“It just became this really fun thing that we all got to do every day and look forward to," Anderson said.
When she started, she didn’t know it would last for 100 days. It started with a star on an elbow. It wasn’t until day 70 or 80 that she realized it would last 100 days.
“I really think I used almost the whole sweater. There’s little space left on it. It worked, I think, how it was supposed to,” she said.
Anderson said she has been asked what it is worth or how much she would want to sell it for, but the time and effort she dedicated make it too valuable.
The sweater is now on display at the Blinging Bluebird, and people are travelling to Carlyle to see it. She noted one person travelled from Saskatoon after watching all of Anderson’s online videos.
Anderson said she has tattoos and has always had a creative flair, with quilting, painting and drawing among her favourite crafting outlets. The passion for rhinestones came later, and it led to her opening the Blinging Bluebird.
Her interest in rhinestones came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when her grandmother — who was Anderson’s favourite person in the world — died, and Anderson couldn’t visit her in the hospital due to restrictions. Anderson struggled with her grief.
“One thing my grandma did do was she wore all of the fashion jewelry. She had rings, necklaces and the clip-on earrings, the watches, the brooches and all that,” said Anderson, who inherited some of the jewelry.
She wanted to do something with the items. She didn’t want them to wind up in the back of a drawer and be forgotten, since she couldn't wear a lot of the merchandise.
Anderson searched the web and found a woman who created collage art with jewelry, but Anderson didn’t have enough. She needed something to supplement it, and she came across rhinestones.
"I met some amazing people, and people who taught me everything I needed to get started. I realized there was a gap in the Canadian market. There wasn’t a good place in Canada to purchase high-quality rhinestones.”
She believes the gift of the jewelry was her grandmother’s way of saying this was what she had planned for Anderson.
The Blinging Bluebird started in her basement’s spare bedroom, she said, and she never imagined it would become so popular.
From there, it overflowed into her living room, and then she found a warehouse space. She was in there for less than a year when she and her husband knew they would have to build something else. The business has been at its current home for just over a year.
The Blinging Bluebird is one of the largest rhinestone retailers in the country, she said. There are bead and craft companies that sell rhinestones, but her business is specific.
She came up with the name because her husband’s nickname for her is "Bluebird."
“I like alliteration, and when you bedazzle, a lot of people call it bling or blinging,” she said.
She has more than 400 colours of glass rhinestones and ships merchandise all over North America.
Her new project — bedazzling an antique phone — is about halfway finished, she said. This project won’t take 100 days.
Anderson said she wants people to know they can bedazzle anything, and so she likes finding weird and odd projects.
“Your only limitation is your imagination,” she said.
