I have found something completely adorable to collect recently and I'm now totally addicted.
In the past my obsessions have been in no particular order:
Stephen King books (active)
Silky cute nightgowns (dormant except for what's available at Soma)
Lingerie (Definitely active given I lose a few more pounds)
BOOTS! (Hell yeah, that's never going to work itself outta' my system. My boot addiction is incurable.)
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| Steve Madden boots |
Puffkins (cute little round stuffed animals - much like beanie babies only better) (dormant due to lack of new products to buy - I think the company folded or just stopped making them.)
High heels (non-boots) (active always - always must have more shoes)
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| Prada heels |
Halloween village items from Department 56 & Lemax (Active!)
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| hehe |
And that leads us to my newest passion.
Juicy Couture charms!
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| box of crayons |
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| frappe |
Juicy Couture started out as a very small company selling fashionable track suits in the late 1990's by Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, 2 best friends in California. They got very lucky after sending Madonna a sweat suit that she wore out in public and the company began to get some major attention. The rest is history...they opened store and store across the country and expanded into clothes other than track suits, jewelry, perfume, shoes, and handbags.
Unfortunately in 2003 the company was bought by Liz Claiborne and the original founders left over creative differences.
In 2004 the company started a line of charms and charm bracelets that have only grown in popularity in the last 7 years. To date, they've produced about 675 charms in all and some of the most popular include holiday editions for Halloween and Christmas.
I found out about these in March of this year while I was looking for a new charm bracelet. I always wanted one since I found out as a little girl my mom used to have one. I liked the idea of expressing little things about yourself through a piece of jewelry. Something that literally made a statement without saying a word about yourself. The problem with other charms were that they were usually 2 dimensional and a bit bland. Only coming in either silver or gold (and don't get me wrong precious metals are always nice) and still really expensive for plain looking jewelry.
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| boring 4 leaf clover |
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| looks more like a guitar pick doesn't it? |
Fast forward 20 years later and I find out about these charms online. As soon as I discovered them, I knew I had to have these. I've always had a thing for miniatures (see above past obsessions).
There are a ton of places online to purchase these as well as shopping malls across the country. The prices range from $42.00-68.00 each depending on limited availability and intricacy of details. The charms have no lack of imagination - they do all sorts of items. Things like food, animals, flowers, wedding items, school things, and countless other items in 3d miniature.
Ebay is the best place to find older, retired charms that are no longer in production, but there is a dark side to all of this. There's a very large market for counterfeit charms. They copy all the little details of Juicy charms and sometimes it's very hard to tell the difference even for someone who's been looking at these for a while.
I'm always careful to study the charms I'm about to purchase on websites I've never bought from, or sellers on Ebay. There's a new batch of 13 due out in Mid-July and I have already pre-ordered my set! I know I'll mention them again since they are always coming out with new ones.
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