Cat's Corner

Well it was bound to happen some day – after almost four years of collecting, my dream Trollbeads bracelet is finally complete!  I’ve always loved amber; the age and history of it, the gorgeous variety of colours and the light weight especially.  I’d always imagined an all-amber and silver/gold combo would be amazing and I’ve been picking up ooak ambers here and there since very early on in my collection.

Eight stunning ooak ambers later, here is the result:

Clockwise from Mexico Lock: Fairy, Stopper, Smiley, Alabaster Amber, Letter G, Amber OOAK, Space, Amber OOAK, Around the World, Amber OOAK, Daisy, Amber OOAK, Gold Endless, Amber OOAK, Tulip, Amber OOAK, Letter C, Alabaster Amber, Small Planet.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking part in a Cancer Research UK ‘Race for Life’ and to mark the occasion, I’ve created a special pink Trollbeads bracelet.  Unfortunately I don’t have many pink beads, so there are four artisan (non-Troll) beads, but I hope you’ll forgive me, since this is a charitable occasion!  This combo also includes a gorgeous pink and white python from the Cancer Research Empowerment Trollbeads collection. 

Wish me luck!  P.S. If you’d like to sponsor me, you can do so here.

Spring is here at long last!!  With the sun shining, I couldn’t resist creating a new Trollbeads bracelet to brighten up my transitional wardrobe from winter to spring:

You’ll have seen this combination of gold and silvers on the blog before, which all have special meanings to me and are among my most precious beads.  To keep it fresh, I often switch out the glass and amber Trollbeads and usually stick to one or two colours.  I really did try to use more than two colours in this one (honest), but I just loved how the turquoise beads looked with the ooak ambers!

This bracelet has three artisan beads – the turquoise scales and the two turquoise stones, which were all gifted to me at Christmas.  The ambers are all One-Of-A-Kind Trollbeads, as is the white with turquoise daisies, which was in my goody bag at the first UK Trollbeads Convention last year.

I’m enjoying this look as the colours remind me of being at the beach!  Are you making a new bracelet to reflect the change in seasons?

Buy Trollbeads from the Amazon UK ’Charmed Life’ Shop here.

Read all my Trollbeads blog posts here.

With Valentines day just around the corner, it’s time for a girly pink Trollbeads combo…thing is, I’m not really a ‘pink’ kinda gal!  But of course I do have a few pink Trollbeads so I thought I’d give it a go.  My twist?  A leather bracelet instead of a chain to take the edge off the girliness and a multicoloured bead to make it ‘pop.’  I often do this with bracelets that are mainly made up of one colour, so that the eye knows where to settle when looking at it.  If you haven’t tried this before, give it a go, I’d love to hear if you like the results!

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas this year!  I certainly had a lovely time seeing family, catching up and eating far too much chocolate!  I both gave and received Trollbeads as gifts, and all of mine were lovely surprises.  I received two of the Christmas 2010 Collection – Snowball and Sparkling Star – they’ve certainly given my Christmas combo the festive look in the silvers that I felt it needed:

I also received another bead that I loved, but already had in my collection.  I popped into ‘Pearls of the Orient’ today, explained the situation and the lovely lady who served me said I could swap it.  So what did I choose?  A type of OOAK (One Of A Kind) that I’ve been lusting after for a while – a carved amber bead.  This one’s a real stunner and helps me on the way to my dream combo of amber and gold:

Did you get any Trollbeads this Christmas?  Please let me know in the Comments box – I’d love to know what you got ;o)

Read all my Trollbeads posts here.

Christmas is most certainly coming and it’s definitely time for a new Trollbeads bracelet combo!!  I love the look of green and red together and adding the Winter pendant provides a focal and makes this combo ‘pop’.  I know the silvers aren’t particularly festive, but the Ice Bear is in his element, don’t you think?!

Happy Christmas Trollbeads fans :O)

You might remember that a few months back I won a prize in the Trollbeads People’s Bead 2010 competition – it arrived at the weekend!!  The competition was to design a new Trollbead and the winner, Kristi Denning’s Ice Bear was added to the permanent collection.  My design, an SLR camera, was picked in the top 100 and I was lucky enough to win a bracelet, lock and the finished Ice Bear bead!  He’s very cute indeed and I felt he needed his own autumn/winter combo to show him off…

Thanks Lise for this wonderful gift!

Read all my Trollbeads posts here.

Last Sunday saw the first ever UK Trollbeads Convention and it seems it was met with mixed reviews!  I will attempt to write a review of the day as I saw it…

I have been long awaiting this event and made a long journey with another trollie friend (thanks for driving!).  We arrived pretty much exactly at 11am, the start time stated on the ticket, and joined the queue in the pouring rain!  Whilst waiting, we spotted other collector friends and discussed our expectations of the day – we agreed that as it was the first year, we weren’t expecting everything to run smoothly.  However, people were already complaining when they saw the length of the entrance queue – this increased ten-fold when we got inside and saw what a small room and what a huge queue there was for the ’shop’! 

Fortunately, I wasn’t just there for shopping and I don’t think it’s fair to chastise Fable Trading or the supporting retailer, Steffans, too much as they clearly had no idea of quite how crazy it would get!!  Personally, I was really glad I went, as I loved seeing all the retired beads in Lise Aagard’s private collection (the ‘museum’ – see pics below) and hearing Niels from Trollbeads HQ speak about the history of the brand and how our beloved beads are made.  My favourite tip was when he told us that pearls should always be worn, rather than hidden away in your jewellery box, as the oil from our skin “keeps them alive!”  [Although, of course, be careful of hand cream, hairspray, perfume, etc!].

Later in the day, Steffans had separated out some of their stock (v smart move!) and I was able to pick up a limited edition red jasper and an OOAK in the same colours as the elusive ‘Tibet’ bead that I’ve been looking for to complete my Tibet set!!  You can see both the new beads on my latest design here <-

I also got to meet some of the lovely people from Fable Trading, which was great as they like the blog too ;o)  I think that they were genuinely shocked at the turnout and I was pleasantly surprised to see how they reacted to the negative feedback they got from other fans – not only was there a public statement but today I also received a letter in the post promising for better things next year – I can’t wait!!

Overall I had a great day, was able to see some of my trollie friends, got to see some old beads and hear more about the brand!  My suggestions for next year?  Put up the entrance fee but include a limited edition bead (so no bun fights for them  in the ’shop’!), include an area for chilling out and for bead ’swaps’, a much bigger venue, something for the husbands not interested in beads and maybe…consider removing the shopping element?  A step too far?!  Certainly it needs more thought regarding crowd/queue control.

Anyway, I hope the fans will come back for 2011…in the meantime check out some of my museum snapshots…

Read all my Trollbeads posts here

Well it’s been a while since I last bought a Trollbead – since that splurge back in May in fact!  I’m waiting for the first UK Trollbeads Convention in October for my next purchase(s)!  However, I was lucky enough to get a couple of gorgeous Trollbeads for my birthday – Third Eye Chakra and Black Armadillo.  I originally had them both on a black/purple/gold combo but have since switched to a simple, classy black and gold design:

This goes with pretty much any outfit and really shows off the beauty of the gold beads, don’t you think?  These are also some of my most treasured for sentimental reasons – Daisy was a first wedding anniversary present from my husband (daisies were our wedding theme), Around The World was my prize for winning a Trollbeads ‘Be Original’ competition, Gold Endless was a leaving gift when I left my last job and Small Planet was bought by all the attendees of the first UK Trollbeads meet-up in 2008.

Clockwise from Mexico Lock: Safety Chain, Stopper, G, Grey Wolf, Space, artisan, Labradorite, Around the World, artisan, Black Diamond, Daisy, OOAK, OOAK, Gold Endless, Milan, artisan, Small Planet, Black Armadillo, C.

View all my Trollbeads posts here.

Well I’m having a very exciting day so far in relation to Trollbeads!!  First off, a guest blog I wrote for Trollbeads UK went live today – read it here.

Then I had an email from TB HQ to say that my People’s Bead 2010 entry – a camera design entitled ‘Capture the Moment’ – had made it into the top 100 designs!  I’ve won a bracelet, lock and the winning bead :O)  I’m verrrrrry excited indeed!  View the top 100 and the finalists here.

Read all my posts about Trollbeads here.