The name says it all !

Charm Necklaces – Do It Yourself

Written by jenny on June 15, 2010 — Leave a Comment

By laurenblythedesigns

By laurenblythedesigns

I have to start this post with an appology for the time between this and my last post its been to long. In the meantime i have been quite excited by a recent trend in charm jewellery the charm necklace. Ok so you think charms are only just for bracelets – not so. Why not put them on a necklace to make a lovely cluster of charms with a personal meaning. Why spend £30 on ‘generic’ a necklace and pendant combo that every tom dick and sally is wearing when you can make something personal. Indeed why spend £100 on a designer pendant and chain from somewhere life Tiffany’s when you can do a far better job yourself.

Ok so what do we need ? Charms and a Necklace ovbiously. A light diamond cut curb chain will be perfect for the task, why get one in silver plate when a sterling silver one can be had for around £5 / $7.50 online and has no risk of going a funny green colour. As we have covered there are a load of places to get charms online you can get some real bargins out there with sterling silver charms as low as a fiver online. Buy a couple and pop them on a necklace and voila you have you lovely charm necklace.

Inspiration can be hard to come by however i have a solution checkout etsy.com its a wonderful marketplace full of handmade goodies and treats. Indeed maybe you want the indie look but don’t want to put something together yourself. If so this is the place for you its full of adorable items mostly made by artisans, crafts men and women.

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Posted in Types of Charms | Tagged , ,

Sweetie Bracelets – Good If Your Budget Stretches

Written by jenny on May 20, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Sweetie BraceletApologies for the wait since my last post, it has been a while…I recently posted about fake links of London charms, and whilst I was researching the post I ended up reading a lot about sweetie bracelets, so I thought I would do a quick post about them.

Firstly, what are sweetie bracelets for those who don’t know?  Sweetie bracelets were pioneered by Links of London, but they have been adopted by a number of different charm bracelet companies since then.  They are made by an elasticated centre which is surrounded by tiny silver rings which vaguely resemble jump rings.  The overall effect is a bracelet which looks like a really tight coil of silver and you can hang charms from the individual rings, or just wear it plain.

They are massively popular, and I think in some respects they have proliferated the current craze for charm bracelets and charms, adding a modernity to standard charm bracelets of the past.  I think most notably sweetie bracelets are favoured by younger wearers (by which I mean girls between the ages of 14-35) whereas older women seem to opt for standard chain charm bracelets.

There do seem to be a few concerns, however, about sweetie bracelets, mainly because they are elasticated (I should mention at this point that sweetie bracelets are sometimes called elasticated bracelets).  The first major concern that many of my friends have is that the elastic will not be strong enough and could snap.  This would be a massive disaster sending charms and tiny rings of solid silver tumbling all over the place.  I have a few sweetie bracelets, however, ranging from plated cheap ones I bought off of ebay, to the real deal, and none of them have ever shown signs of breaking, the elastic seems to be very strong, even amongst the cheap ones.  As ever, I would advise you to go with a reputable brand if you are going to get one of these just to be on the safe side.

The second fear about sweetie bracelets is also to do with the elastic, and that they might be too tight.  Normally girls wear 7” bracelets, with those who have larger wrists needing an 8” bracelet and younger wearers or petite girls needing a 6” bracelet.  There is not a huge difference, however, between the sizes (only 2 inches across the spectrum from petite to thick wristed).  Whilst such a difference might be very noticeable in a standard chain bracelet, and you would risk it slipping off if it were too big for example, the elasticated sweetie bracelets are very much designed for the middle ground.

The elastic will mean that they should happily fit younger girls who would normally wear a 6” bracelet.  Some of my friends, however, who would buy an 8” bracelet, have been worried that it might be too tight, but I think I have come up with a solution if you are worried about that.  The elastic obviously stretches, so by adding extra links around the elastic you can make the sweetie bracelet slightly larger.  Obviously you cannot cut into the elastic without breaking the bracelet, but if you buy some jump rings which are the same size then you should be able to slip them over the elastic and then close them up again (you will need a pair of plyers).  By adding in an extra 10-15 jump rings you can make the sweetie bracelet a slightly looser fit, and you don’t need to worry about it getting too tight.  Most importantly, it also means you can add even more charms!  For a bit of style, you could also consider adding gold plated jump rings – if you can find them – to add a little colour to your larger sweetie bracelet!

On the downside, sweetie bracelets are heavy, they use up a lot of silver, and even more so if you follow my advice and add a few more rings of your own.  This means they do not come cheap, and other chain bracelets will often be a much cheaper way of getting started with your charm bracelet collection.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Fake Links of London Charms & Charm Bracelets

Written by jenny on April 9, 2010 — Leave a Comment

fakelinksoflondon 300x142 Fake Links of London Charms & Charm Bracelets It is a sad fact that the internet has spawned a whole pile of fakes, rip-offs and scams, the trouble is that with a good looking website, a search engine ranking and a few convincing graphics its very easy to get drawn into thinking you are buying the real thing.  This is what happened recently to a friend of mine who took her beloved and not entirely inexpensive Links of London charm bracelet in to one of the Links shops to complain that some of the links on the sweetie bracelet had fallen off revealing the elastic underneath, only to be informed that what she had was a fake.  Like loads of people she had searched for her favorite bracelet on the internet and had looked at a few sites til she found some charms she liked at a price that was agreeable, so I thought I would peruse some of these scam sites myself and draw up a quick list of how to tell if a links of london bracelet is fake, and how to spot fake links of london websites.

Firstly if you insist on buying charms from links of london, then you should make sure you should do just that.  Their website is linksoflondon.com and that is the only website so far as I am aware that you should feel confident in buying genuine links of london charms and charm bracelets from.

The bracelet itself should have one of the Links of London links in it (this is a round circular bead with links of london written on one side, and their logo of 3 rings interescting on the other).  They are an expensive brand, and the bracelet should look and feel high quality with the correct number of links on a sweetie charm bracelet, and all the charms soldered on to big bails.

Telling what is and what is not a fake links of london website is easy.  As with all websites you are obliged to put your business name and contact details – if a website does not have its company name (this is different from its website name) and a contact address, then it is probably a fraud.  For example there is a website called linksoflondonsale which states it has a 100% authenticity guarantee, and yet it doesn’t tell you what the business is called nor any of its contact details.  The website should normally have a terms and conditions page which also outlines who you are buying from (again many of the fake links of london websites do not have this).  Lastly Links are a big brand and their charms aren’t cheap, so you should beware of any website which shows links of london products and reduced or sale prices.  Sadly a lot of the fake websites including www.linksoflondons.com, www.linksoflondonstore.com and www.coolinks.co.uk/ have high prices to try and make them seem more authentic.  You should definitely be warey of these websites.

Sadly there will always be people trying to make a quick buck out of fakes, and charms are pretty damn popular so it seems like an easy thing to cash in on, but don’t be like my friend and buy charms from a fake website, you won’t have any recourse if something goes wrong with your product, it might not even turn up at all, and if it does it is just going to be a cheap knock-off which isn’t worth anything, and probably won’t look very good!

Posted in Types of Charm Bracelet | Tagged ,

Finished With Enamel

Written by jenny on March 12, 2010 — Leave a Comment

enamelcharms 300x300 Finished With EnamelWell I was bored last weekend so I decided to have a little go and trying to enamel some old charms thinking that it would be a bit of fun, and might breathe some colourful life into charms which I have otherwise pretty much stopped wearing on any of my charm bracelets.  Anyway, this led me to a local art store where I asked what I needed to put some enamel onto my charms.  I should explain here that I have no experience of enameling charms, and to be honest didn’t really know what I was talking about.

The assistant pointed me in the direction of some enamel painting kits which I bought unquestioningly, however the results have been very disappointing so this post is as a quick warning to those who might try and follow in my footsteps.  It turns out that ‘real enamel’ isn’t paint at all, but actually glass which is applied in tiny little shards to a metal surface and then fired in a kiln to melt it into place.  This process is repeated to build up layers and the result is a beautiful smooth glossy finish to the charms.  Enamel paint is not like this.  Now obviously I don’t have a kiln, so I am never going to get the results which ‘real enamel’ achieves, but I found enamel paint very disappointing, it doesn’t have any weight, it doesn’t have any shine, and within a few hours of it drying it had cracked and was starting to peel off one of the charms.

So fun charm enameling experiment over, I’ve learnt the hard way that if you want beautiful enameled charms then you are probably best off buying them.

Posted in Types of Charms

My Findings on Findings

Written by jenny on March 4, 2010 — Leave a Comment

lobsterclasps 300x267 My Findings on FindingsOk so its been a while since my last post, and I feel I should move away from my general discussion of different styles of charms and charm bracelets to some nitty gritty charm bracelet geeky stuff.  I’m sure you are all delighted to hear this, but sometimes the difference is in the detail, so I am going to have a quick chat about my findings with, erm, findings…

Charms have to be attached to bracelets.  And yes, its probably not the most exciting thing in the world, but there try telling me that its not important when one of your prized tiffany charms has fallen off in the street somewhere and has no doubt been run over by a truck by now!  Findings are the small attachments which attach charms to charm bracelets.  Actually I believe technically that jewellery findings is an overarching name for any small intricate pieces of jewellery which are used in the assembly of earrings, pendants, necklaces and the like, but its only really with charm bracelets that I have come across the phenomena.

There are a number of these different ‘findings’ which you can use, and I’ve seen some people invent their own out of all sorts of string, wire, twine etc, but to be honest I don’t think its a long term solution, especially if you value your charms in anyway (plus I think they look daft).  The most common type of attachments for charms are lobster clasps, split rings, jump rings, spring rings or bolt rings.

These all have various benefits and downsides, and I’ll try and take each in turn to address their respective issues.  Firstly Lobster clasps.  Aptly named after their resemblance to a lobster’s pincer, you pull a little trigger back to open the clasp, and you can then attach it to pretty much anything.  Lobster clasps are sturdy and won’t open themselves so you can feel pretty confident that it is not going to loosen over time and drop your charm off.  That said, the sturdiness of them also means they can look clumsy, especially if you like small charms.  You can buy lobster clasps in solid gold and silver, as well as plate.

Split rings are like tiny little keyrings, you have to work the ring around whatever bracelet link you are attaching the charm to just as you would a keyring to a key.  The only problem is if you have a chunky bracelet they can be quite fiddly, and they might not fit at all.  They are quite standard, and most shops and websites will give you free split rings when you but a charm.

Often confused with split rings are jump rings.  These are rings with a little split in them (hence the confusion) which can be bent back to allow something (like a charm) in, then moved back into place to close the loop.  There are issues in that there is nothing keeping the ring shut, and over time they can work themselves open.  Accordingly you can get solder jump rings and no solder jump rings, but if you want to get these rings soldered then you will have to take them to a jeweller most of whom will charge anything up to £15 per charm which, depending on where you buy your charms from, is often considerably more expensive than the charms themselves.  A soldered jump ring is very secure, however, and does not have any of the bulkiness of lobster clasps.

Spring rings and bolt rings are like other varieties of lobster clasp, only circular.  The spring ring has a loaded spring mechanism which you can pull back to put around a bracelet, and the bolt rings a screw mechanism.  Both are secure, with a bolt ring probably being the most secure of the three, but they again suffer from the bulkiness of lobster clasps, and having a dozen of them on a bracelet really does look a bit clumsy.

My advice is go for what you feel looks best, but make sure its a secure option.  Soldered jump rings can be costly, but they are probably the best looking way to securely fasten a charm to a charm bracelet.  There’s no point in scrimping on your findings and if you would choose solid silver charms over plated, then I would say you want to do the same for your findings.  Plating can wear off over time, especially on findings which constantly rub against the other metal components, leading to miscolouring and sometimes rust, and you wouldn’t want that on your charm bracelet would you?

Posted in Making a Charm Bracelet | Tagged , , , , , ,
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