Charm Campaign

Change your Look Without Breaking the Bank

Lets face it good quality brand name charm beads are not cheap, Collecting charm beads can be an expensive hobby, so if you are going to make an investment in a you want it to get as much wear from your charms as possible.  With a little thought and care you can make your money go a long way and still have a charm collection to impress.  

 

Lets start with the basics the bracelet or necklace to put your beads on.   It’s easy to spend US$50 for a silver Pandora bracelet with a silver lock, even more if you decide you’d like your bracelet in gold.  If you want a necklace to go with it you’re looking at another US$90 and that’s even before you’ve bought a bead.   

For a cheaper but no less stylish option you can always go with leather.  Pandora sells leather necklaces at US$30 in a range of colours all with silver clasps.  Or if you fancy a more flexible look they have a leather lariat style necklace that can be worn in a variety of styles or even wrapped around your wrist.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I picked up a Thomas Sabo leather necklace for US$9.90. They come in a range of sizes and styles and the beads slip easily on over the one side of the lock.

 

 

Feeling like saving even more money, then visit your local craft store and for a few dollars a yard stock up on some leather cording, and simply wrap it around your neck or wrist as many loops as you like and tie it off firmly and you have a whole new look for your beads.

While the snake chains that come with the beads, make it harder to be flexible with how  you wear the chains, if you decide silver bracelet or necklace is for you, it’s worthwhile make sure you get one that can take more than one brand of bead  This will give you a lot more choice in the looks you can create by mixing and matching beads.   If you stick with a Trollbeads bracelet, the new Lovelinks Universal design (make sure not to accidentally get one of their older designs) or the Tedora and your bracelet will be able to fit any of the major brand beads including Trollbeads with their smaller sized holes.   If you are happy to limit the number of Trollbeads you can wear then as long as you avoid the Lovelinks bangles and old regular design bracelets you can wear pretty much any of the other major brands beads on any of the chains they sell. 

 

Want to get more wear from your beads?   Don’t wear them all at once.  If wearing a leather necklace I tend to just wear 3 or 5 of my beads at once, odd numbers always look better to my eye.  I will even try to theme them, I have beads I have received from my Niece and Nephew over the years so I will just wear those 3 of those at a time, or all my pet related ones at once.   It makes it fun in the morning deciding what combination to wear, and as people don’t see all my beads at once they tend to notice what I am wearing more.

April Birthstone Bead Ideas

Aprils birthstone is the diamond, personally I think that is unfair as a diamond is pretty much always a great idea for a birthday present, but maybe that's just me.  So if you are planning on buying someone a Charm for an April birthday then look no further than any of the beautiful diamond charms available from Pandora.

 

Gold and diamonds not quite in your price range? Then you can get some equally nice silver with gold highlights and teeny tiny diamond charms from Pandora too.

 

Or if diamonds are not your thing you can get a lovely range of cubic zirconia beads and quartz beads, and if you don't tell anyone they aren't real diamonds I sure won't.  Pandora's official birthstone bead has a lovely quartz bead as a dangle, which I think would be a nice touch on any bracelet no matter when you were born.

 

Or from Chamilia you can get a lovely sterling silver and quartz heart or crystal spacer bead bead that anyone born in April would be happy to receive.  That is a terrible picture of the heart bead, but the best I could find, it does look much prettier in real life.

For those of you like me that like to mix and match your charms even Thomas Sabo has a birthstone charm. 

Gold Pandora Bead Prices to Rise

If you like gold Pandora beads I'd hurry out and buy them as soon as possible.  Rumour has it that due to the rising price of gold in general the prices of Pandoras gold and their gold and silver beads will be rising in April 2009.  Their silver beads price will be remaining the same.

So if you have always wanted one of their gold beads or gold and silver beads I would hurry in now and get it and beat the price rise.  If like me you are trying to be good and not use your credit cards, if nothing else get it on lay-by or lay away now.  

I suspect that Pandora beads won't be the only one feeling the crunch over rising gold prices in the current economy so it might be worth buying now if you fancy gold beads from any of the companies, or maybe just a good time to change to collecting silver beads.   Though when the beads are as cute as these the siren call of gold is hard to resist.

What Length Bracelet?

So you are thinking of getting a charm bracelet.  Maybe one of the major brands be it a Pandora, Lovelinks,  or Chamilia but they aren't that cheap to buy and you are not sure what size to get.

Well its easy to work out just what size you'll need.

Measuring Up

Firstly you will need to take a measurement with a tape measure.  

If you want to wear the bracelet the regular way, opening and closing the clasp when you take the bracelet on and off, then you will want to take the measurement around the widest part of your wrist.

Make sure you do not wrap the tape around too tightly and that it sits comfortably and that the tape sits flat so that you get the right reading. Then read the measurement on the tape, I usually suggest if its a part reading to round it up to the nearest centimetre (or half inch - see comparisson of bracelet sizes in centimetres & inches at the end of the post).

For example, if the tape measure shows a length measurement as 16.5cm. Rounding that up to the closest cm makes it 17cm.

Adding space for all your charms to fit

So your bracelet doesn't sit to tightly, and because the more charms you add to the bracelet the more snuggly it will fit you want to allow room for all the charms you are going to be buying.

As a general rule of thumb add 2cm (1 inch) to your wrist length

For example

Your wrist measurement rounded up came to 18cm + 2cm for charms = 20cm

If you intend to fill your bracelet up completely, or to use a lot of munaro glass or other large beads, or if you just like a looser fit you cand add 3cm instead of 2cm, to give a bit extra room.

Selecting your bracelet length

Using the Pandora sizings as an example

They have the following sizes available

Length

                    16cm    (6.7 inches)
                    18cm    (7.1 inches)
                    19cm    (7.5 inches)
                    20cm    (7.9 inches)
                    21cm    (8.3 inches)
                    23cm    (9.1 inches)

You now simply choose the closest bracelet length to the size you have calculated.   So in the example given earlier we would choose the 20cm bracelet.  By the way the sizing table above is correct and Pandora don't make a 22cm size bracelet so if your sizing came to 22cm (which mine did when I went for my first bracelet) can choose the 23cm length instead.            

           

Things to note    

This measuring system works with both Pandora type locks and the lobster claw style ones.  Lovelinks bracelets come with a variety of styles of locks included with the bracelet so the size given by the company are pretty accurate. 

Trollbeads brand bracelets are sold without their cute little locks, which are purchased seperately so when buying a Trollbeads bracelet remember to allow for the extra length of the lock/clasp. 

          

Some people like to wear there braclets so they can slide them on and off like a bracelet, if that's the case make sure to take your initial measurement tightly around the widest part of your hand instead of your wrist.

If buying a bracelet as a gift for someone and measuring their wrist would give away the surprise I recommend you go with the 19cm length as its the average size for most women.

Good news if you are buying a Pandora bracelet, from the many stories I've heard, and from my own experience if you buy a bracelet and find its the wrong size most Pandora retailers (I'm talking bricks & mortar shops here online suppliers can be a  little trickier) will exchange your bracelet for another size if you take it back to the place of purchase within 30 days.   Pandora have a great exchange policy with their dealers so if the store you bought it at won't exchange it, try anothe store, and remember who was nice to you next time you are out bead shopping.

Ten Hints for Shopping Etsy

Now before you are distracted by all the lovely shiny beads over at Etsy there are a few things to look out for when shopping there.

1.  If you don't see exactly what you like try contacting someone that makes something similar to what you are after.  The best thing about this site is that usually who makes the items sells the items and a lot of them are more than happy to do custom orders for people

2.  If buying a glass bead check that the bead has been kiln annealed.  This means that after shaping the bead is placed in a kiln before cooling down.  I am not a glass making expert, so I am not sure of how it works, but kiln annealing helps to make the glass incredibly tough.

3.  Check if the bead has a core.  Not all beads on Etsy have the metal core you find on Pandora and the like beads.  This is not always an issue as if the beads have been kiln annealed they are very tough, but it can help protect the bead and make it match up to any other beads you have.  Susanne from Suuz Design was also kind enough to let me know, uncored beads are actually harder than sterling silver, and beads without a metal core sliding up and down the silver of a bracelet or necklace can damage the silver. 

4.  Make sure that the bead will fit on a Pandora style bracelet/necklace (or whatever brand you have).  You don't want to buy something that fits on a trollbead chain, only to find it is too narrow for the chain you have.  Beads are usually marked as Pandora style, or to avoid copyright problems they can also be known as large hole beads

5.  Unlike eBay this is not a auction site you are buying the bead outright when you click on it so make sure you are going to pay for it and that they accept a payment method you can use.

6.  Make sure that they will ship to you, now I'm based in Australia, and all but one seller I like are based overseas and they all ship "elsewhere".  Which is something else I rather like about Etsy, it is so depressing to find a bead you love on eBay only to find out as you are about to buy they won't ship outside the USA.

7.  Check the sellers rankings.  Though having said that I don't think I have ever seen a seller with a ranking less than 100% but it pays to be sure.  Also check the ranking comments and make sure that the rankings are recent.

8.  I try and stick to a payment method that accepts chargeback.  I have never had a problem buying on Etsy, but it is always better to be safe than sorry.

9.  Be careful of buying anything labeled as "Tibetan Silver" beads.  The silver mix is not the same as what we think of as sterling silver and can contain lead.  The beads in many cases are very pretty so I can see the attraction but I personally don't like the idea of wearing anything that close to my skin with lead in it is however a personal choice, and not all sellers will mention the lead content so watch out.  The main worry is if you have children or babies and they are likely to suck on the beads, lead and children is a dangerous mix.

10.  The most important tip of all.  Remember you don't have to buy all the beads you love at once.  The good thing about Etsy is if you come back in a week and look around, there will be a whole new range of freshly made goodies to fall in love with.