Trollbeads: Creating my First Bracelet and Beyond Too

For those of you who read my Trollbeads articles and wondered how exactly it all started for me with these beautiful beads, here is the story.

I collected Pandora Charm Bracelets for about 9 months or so and one day one of my good friends who also collected Pandora with me decided she was bored and needed to switch it up.

The conversation actually switched to Mother's Day and what we were getting from our husbands and kids. Any holiday for the past few months, I would get some sort of Pandora from them and she from her family. We both were at a loss as to what to get this time though.

She proceeded to tell me she started to look at Trollbeads and was thinking of doing the Mother's Day special, which consisted of a starter kit with the bracelet, clasp and 6 beads in a kit for $167.

My first reaction was "No thank you, I will stick with Pandora and that is that." Well, she ordered and was wearing it, when we were going out for the day to New York City for a Pandora Meet and Greet. Believe it or not, I took one look at her newly started Trollbeads Bracelet and fell in love.

We left the Meet and Greet and ended up googling a local Trollbeads Store in NYC. We found it and I bought my very, first Trollbeads Bracelet and Clasp. The special was get a Bracelet free if you purchased a clasp. The clasp, I purchased, was $69. I also purchased five production beads, which varied in price either $31 a bead or $43 as well, which is shown in the photo to the right.

After purchasing these 5 production beads, I of course craved more and starting to speak to another one of my friends that I made from collecting Pandora. She had collected Trollbeads for some time. Her first advice to me was hunt down and collect what are called unique Trollbeads, not the production Trollbeads if you can, because the unique beads are just that unique and each one is slightly different unlike the production beads which are mass produced and not really vary.

Part of the fun according to my friend was hunting down or trolling down these uniques to build your bracelet around them. So I bought a few right after that and you can see them in the pictures below. By the way, each unique bead costs at least $43.

And of course this was just the beginning, because I bought a few more and then yet a few more after that. I decided that this first bracelet would be for the summertime and include bright, fun summer-like colors, like hot pink, purple, green and turquoise. Below will show my bracelet undergoing the various change ups over the course of a month's time.

Now as the summer is dying down and we are heading into the fall season, I have toned down the bright colors and begun slowly to add more neutrals and even some blue tones to balance it out a bit. Again this will probably change slightly as the weeks go by and I find more beads I may like. My bracelet is constantly evolving. I also don't believe in buying more than one bracelet, when I can just switch beads on and off easily. To help me do just that, I recently bought myself a Dritz Looper Turner, which can be bought on Amazon and are really for sewing. But this little tool can be clipped onto the end of the bracelet and then you can slide all the beads off onto the metal rod, so if you want to change a bead at the far end, its is just that easy.

As I have changed up the beads on my bracelet, I have also tried to phase out some of my production beads, but still own a handful, but then again also just bought two more production beads from the Fall Collection (because they were absolutely gorgeous and I hand picked them) and believe me when I tell you I am never really done, but just keep evolving with what I like and don't like.

I truly love both the unique and production beads too, both are beautiful in their own right. Keep in mind though that no two people probably have the same taste and there are so many different bracelet combinations that can be made from production beads, unique beads and both. I have to be quite honest and tell you that I have seen some beautiful bracelets that some others would say aren't so beautiful. And then have also seen some bracelets that others think are just stunning and I am not so convinced. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder here and thankfully Trollbeads has some many different beads available that there really is something for everyone.

What one needs to keep in mind, when starting this venture is to have fun and as my one friend so eloquently put it most of the fun is in the hunt for these beads. I have ordered online many beads, but have also made sure to ask for pictures (plural), because if I can't be there in person to hand pick them out at least the pictures do help. However, hand picking these beads when you can is truly the best and most fun to me. And once again, as was said to me in the beginning of my adventure, 'Happy Trolling!'

Janine is a freelance writer, a stay at home mom of two little girls and an avid collector of Pandora and Trollbeads. One of my favorite past times is to buy, sell and trade Pandora and Trollbeads. You can checkout her profile and more of her Pandora/Trollbeads related articles here.

Are you interested in writing for Hubpages? You can sign up today and publish your first article!

© 2012 Janine Huldie