Charm Beads

Chamilia Charm Disney Collection

2009-09-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

You may have heard of the Chamilia charm bracelet? It is a less known, but still very popular charm bracelet made in the US. The Chamilia company originated in 2002, and was lucky enough to get approval from Disney to produce a specific set of Disney Charms.

Disney charms are rather cute reproductions of some of the more famous Disney characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Tinkerbell, Eeyore, Pooh Bear and even Cinderella's famous Pumpkin Carriage!

All in all there are a total of around 48 Disney charms, made mainly from Sterling silver. There are also gold beads though, and silver beads with a gold part such as the lovely Silver Pooh Bear carrying a gold honey pot, or the Silver Minnie Mouse with a gold bow in her hair. They also have Disney Murano glass beads, with a very cute black Mickey Mouse face set on it.

My favorite has to be the beautiful, finely crafted gold Tinkerbell. She really is a wondrous charm, delightfully crafted with fantastic detail.

The great thing about Chamilia Charms too is that they can fit on Pandora bracelets, and Troll bead bracelets as well! So if you want to mix and match some charms from this fabulous collection, it is easy to do so.

Pandora Grape Bead - Limited Edition

2009-06-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

I just found out that the stunning Pandora grape bead is actually produced only as a limited edition. This means that unless you buy it now, while stocks are still available, there's a good chance that you won't be able to buy it at a later date. Seems it will go the way of all retired Pandora beads.

Perhaps, if popular enough and in enough demand, it's possible that they may decide not to make it a limited edition after all, but there's definitely no surety of that!

Some Pandora Charm Retailers are already said to be running out of stocks of this bead, and many are not willing to let you order by mail or online, but instead request that you actually physically visit their shop to purchase the bead.

Summer Fun with Pandora Charms

2009-05-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

Looking for something new and classy, and very, very summery to add to your Pandora charm bracelets? If you're thinking along the lines of 'summer' then you should really consider the Pandora grape charm. It's really adorable, and well made.

The charm itself is made from Sterling silver, and it's a bunch of grapes hanging from a vine. It actually looks fairly realistic and I think is one of the nicer Pandora fruit charms on the market at present. (I also really liked the gold strawberry bead, it's retired now, and of course it was way, way out of my price range.) Anyhow, as far as current 'fruity' beads I think the new Pandora grape charm wins hands down!

The bead itself has a semi-precious stone hanging down from the bead. I believe the purple stone is an amethyst and the green stone a peridot. They add a really nice touch to the stone, and yes you can have either the purple or green grape charm, just like when you buy real grapes.

Pandora Beads--Retired Charms

2009-05-18T02:00:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Pandora retires some of its charms, usually each time they put out a new batch? I'm not exactly sure why they do this, but to date there are now quite a few retired beads.

What does it mean? Simply that they are no longer making that particular bead. This doesn't meant that they aren't available to buy, they are but only while current stocks last.

So, if there's a charm that you're attached to, or that you're saving up for but that you haven't been able to buy yet, you might want to keep an eye on it and make sure that it doesn't slip into the retired charms category.

There doesn't seem to be any real rhyme or reason as to why they retire them. With some, from looking at them, it seems likely to me that it's because they're not really the more popular charms, but with others I really can't tell why they have retired them.

Troll Charm Beads

2009-05-13T03:37:00.000-07:00

What's New with Troll Beads?

New Troll charm beads spring release included some beautiful new beads this year--a total of 44 new charms were released in January 2009. It's hard to say what my favorite bead is this year but it would have to be a toss up between the silver fairy sitting on a glass bead, the summer butterfly (which, incidentally, is a limited edition) and the guardian angel. I also liked especially the gold forget-me-not.

Another 'limited edition' troll bead, is the 'Stribe of the Sea', a glass bead, selling for $150. You can be sure that will end up as a collector's item before long, as only 5,000 were made.

Troll beads release new charm beads once or twice a year, and I know that I for one am hoping that they'll be making a second release again some time this year.

What's your favorite troll bead from the spring 2009 collection. If you have one, just drop a note in the comments section.