People's Bead 2011! My favorite time of year!!!

Hooray! The People's Bead competition for 2011 has started!!! You have until April 26th to submit your idea for a bead design. Follow the link below to read the rules & deadlines for the contest. One important note for those in North America, (or anywhere else behind the Denmark timezone), make sure you leave plenty of time for your entry to be submitted just in case you have problems uploading your photos & ideas. It's nice to have an extra day in case that is the moment your internet connection misbehaves.

http://www.trollbeadsuniverse.com/global/en-us/events/people

There is only 2 more painful days- wait, just 1 more now in most places - to find out just what lovely beads lie in store for us with the UK World Tour release. OK, OK, OK. I must confess I have seen microscopic blurry pictures of the beads & at first glance I think most people will be quite pleased with most of them. If not, don't worry, I'm sure they will grow on you like most of these beads seem to do. Then they almost magically appear in our beadboxes whilst we scratch our heads wondering just what the heck happened???

And for your daily inspiration, a photo of what I did with my new South Africa World Tour beads. 2 of the "Africa" glass and the "Drum Beat" silver.

UK World Tour - April 6th Release

The UK Trollbeads distributor has finally posted on Facebook that the big release day for the UK World Tour beads will be April 6th. As a bonus, they are posting a "polaroid" picture that will give a clue as to what the beads may be on their website for each day of the countdown. Follow the links to see for yourself by clicking the picture link above, or the ones below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyTrollbeads?ref=ts

On the web: http://www.trollbeads.co.uk/

April 2011

April will be busy - if the rumours are all true. The UK World Tour beads are set to be released. No official release date or sneak peeks of the beads have leaked out yet. Speculation is thick though that the April date may tie into a Royal Wedding bead??? The jury is out on this one, as I'd imagine that the bead designs & production would have been completed long before the engagement was announced. But stranger things have happened.

Strange, like the Europe OOAK mystery, for example. After the recent price increase the OOAK glass price when up to 39Euro from 28. Then, back down to 28. Now the 2010 OOAKs are to be 28, but the "new" 2011 OOAKs will be 39. But, so far the "new" OOAKs have not appeared to be any different than the old. And then someone threw the idea in that the new OOAKS would have "universal" size cores, larger to fit other brands. So now we don't know just what the heck is going on. Will there really be "new" OOAKs so different & wonderful that we won't mind the 39 Euro price? Or will it just be more of the same? Will they all have larger core size? Gaaa! I'm going to leave this one alone for now. I'll believe it when I see it.

However the US now has access to the same beautiful OOAKs from TB Denmark that Europe has traditionally had. Which should mean more stable prices & more desirable beads. I don't know about you, but if any more uglies turn up the message really has to be sent to TB HQ to make the types & colors of beads the customers love & will buy instead of forcing the customers to collectively pay for unsold ones. Why punish the collectors? Nuff said on that topic.

Final tidbit - I have heard whispers that the People's Bead contest will begin in April of this year. I would look forwards to this change in the hopes that it would bring forth a different season of bead ideas and less of the "holiday season - winter - frigid cold" types of entries.

Oh, and later this year Trollbeads has their 35th Anniversary. In November 2006 they released the Anniversary Bracelet to celebrate 30 years of Troll. Let's hope they may have a little treat for us to celebrate this new milestone!!!

Ltd Edition Kimono Japanese beads

I have seen a photo of these new beads. Only one thing to say... I think, I THINK... that they are matte like the old Donna bead was. A sneak peek of my favorite color in the 6 beads.

If you haven't already, you must see the South Africa release video. It's awesome! Music is pretty good too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xJQGZBVinic

The UK is next up on the World Tour for March.