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Fun and Functional Jewelry for Beer Lovers

Craft beer people are so creative and their inventions that marry practicality with a love of beer never fail to impress me.

Disc Bottle Opener Pendant (Photo by Blend Creations)

A few weeks ago, I saw a link on Facebook that led me to Blend Creations, a contemporary jewelry line owned by husband and wife team Eric Jean-Louis and Vivian Cheng in Ottawa, Ontario. Among their designs, Blend Creations offers a sleek and modern stainless steel pendant that double as a bottle opener. How cool is that?!

After exchanging a few tweets with Vivian, she offered to send me a pendant so I could test it out and share my thoughts with you. I was very excited about her proposal, but selecting the style was a challenge! Along with some lovely floral designs, Blend Creations features pendants with maps of cities home to some of the most popular breweries in the United States, in Canada, and Around the World.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to choose already, Blend Creations recently added a Custom Map option, so you can tailor your pendant to your favorite local brewery or even your own homebrewing operation. A personalized engraving on the reverse side makes it an ideal gift to commemorate a wedding, anniversary, birthday, or graduation for the beer lover in your life.

Disc Bottle Opener Pendant (Photo by Blend Creations)

After much deliberation, I selected the Georgetown Brewing in Seattle, WA style because I really enjoy their Lucille IPA. Sadly, Georgetown Brewing does not bottle their beer! But the neighborhood is also home to my favorite Seattle bottle shop, Full Throttle Bottles, which specially ordered some pendants of their favorite local breweries to carry in the store.

The disc bottle opener is the second piece in Blend Creations’ FUNctional Collection, added about six months ago. “Our first ‘functional’ piece of jewelry was a hex wrench pendant,” Vivian explained in an email interview. “Shortly after that was released, we asked our customers and fans what other sort of functions they’d like to see incorporated with jewelry and a resounding number suggested a bottle opener.”

After some testing to get the right shape for the pendant, Vivian and Eric had some fun during “product testing” to make sure the bottle opening function worked with bottles. It might take me some time to get used to the design of this bottle opener since I’m used to the leverage of my keychain bottle opener, but practicing sure is fun!

Disc Bottle Opener Pendant (Photo by Blend Creations)

I asked Vivian what she loved most about the pendant and she said that her favorite thing is that the design is functional “but doesn’t scream ‘I’m a bottle opener!’” I have to agree with her on that point. When I tell people that my necklace is also a bottle opener, they’re always surprised because it’s a great pendant on its own; as a bottle opener, it’s a conversation piece too.

One of my favorite aspects of this necklace’s design is the adjustable, hand-knotted waxed cotton cord. You don’t have to worry about clasps and you can choose the length that best suits your style or outfit. It’s truly a unique piece that lots of ladies who read this site would love to wear.

Which reminds me…Blend Creations is giving away a disc bottle opener pendant on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at noon EST! Fill out the Jewelry Giveaway form on Facebook to enter the drawing.

Visit Blend Creations to find more jewelry that’s modern, functional, and fun.

Girls Can Tell – Beer Swag

Posted By: Stevie Caldarola

Girls Can Tell is a store with a collection of useful house goods with dual purposes- the first- the obvious use, and the second- a diagram. Sara Selepouchin, the brainchild behind and owner of Girls Can Tell, has always loved useful things, and her study of architecture and mechanical drawings lead to the beginning of her store.

My favorite, of course, of Sara’s lovely and informative designs is her illustration about the different types of beer glassware, and the use for each glass. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to receive a care package from Sara with towels and a note card in it:

While I wouldn’t use the towels as actual towels (because they’re too awesome to mess up!), I’m excited to get them hung up in my kitchen as not only a nice decoration, but as a quick reference guide for my next refrigerator beer raid!

To see what else is available from Girls Can Tell, visit the webstore here, or like the store on Facebook and follow Sara on Twitter at @girlscantell.