A couple of months ago I found out about troll beads. Having been in the market for a charm bracelet for a long time and not found anything that spoke to me, I fell in love with these at once. I have since found out that pandora beads also fit the bracelet, as will beads from this fantastic little mother and daughter jewellery company A String of Beads (found through Collectively Yours design team member Amber Jane's blog).
How lucky am I? I now have all of these! What I want is a bracelet that tells my story, I am going to tell you the story of all my beads, clockwise from the pearl. All of them are troll beads except the one my Godson gave me.
- pearl - originally the birthstone for June (chosen by me with gift vouchers given by staff when I left my teaching job this month.
- red china - I was born in China and this also is my pledge to go back there next year with Mum, hopefully. I bought it when I bought the bracelet.
- silver 'k' - chosen for me by my friends at work as part of my leaving present.
- earth - a token of my commitment to the environment and a memento of my involvement with Friends of the Earth when I was younger. I chose this one with my leaving gift vouchers too.
- yin and yang (showing from the side) - from my husband for my birthday, a symbol of my life view and hippy roots
- wisdom - also from kind husband for my birthday. It holds an opal for loyalty, an amethyst for peace of mind, a
garnet for devotion and grace, a turquoise for courage and success and
a lapis lazuli for competence. All good stuff! - symbols - I chose this one too with my leaving gift vouchers. It has a frog for fertility, a scarab for life, a spruce and a turtle for longevity, a star for the spiritual, a heart with a copper spot for love, the sun as the source of life on earth and
ying and yang for harmony and balance. More good stuff! - third eye (purple glass and gold) - more leaving gift voucher loot. Celebrates enlightenment and that extra sense, whether you call it psychic, intuition or instinct, there is a lot of it in my family.
- harmony (looks like the troll bead named harmony) - this is my most prized bead. All of the others could be replaced, but this was given to me by my Godson from his hoard of precious things, just because he liked the idea of the bracelet. It was the second bead I had).
- heart chakra - from my husband for my birthday, for the love.
- coffee beans - from my husband for my birthday to commemorate our Seattle trip earlier this year.