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.

Sponsored Post. Need hip flasks take a look at Hip flask.co.uk which has a comprehensive selection of stainless steel hip flasks and classic english pewter hip flasks.

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.