As someone who didn’t often wear bracelets before but who now feels “naked” without one, the concept of wearing more than one bracelet on my wrist didn’t even occur to me when I first started collecting. But, since I have spent some time trolling the Internet to find real-life pictures of beads to inform my buying decisions, I’ve run across quite a few people who stack their bracelets. And, although most of the time I was able to dismiss the idea as “not my style”, every once in a while I saw a beautiful stack. A stack that made me revisit my “not my style” mindset. And so I would try. And I would fail to capture whatever it was that made the original stack work. And I would revert to my “not my style” mindset and move on, without too many glances back.
Except then I started to noticed stacks even more. Was it that more people were stacking? Or was it that stacking really is my style, and I just needed to find the right combinations to work for me? It has taken me a while, but I’ve finally found what works for me and now I enjoy adding an extra bracelet every once in a while.
The easiest to stack, for me, are my X by Trollbeads bracelet and my bangle, with a slight edge to the X bracelet. I think because they don’t move up or down my wrist much, they just feel a bit more natural to double up with. Both are also very light, so they’re easy to add without adding too much weight. My X by Trollbeads bracelet is so light, in fact, that I sometimes forget that I have it on. The bangles, being a bit stiffer, I stack more sparingly, but because I only use my bangles for 1-5 beads, they are still light enough to pair with my fuller bracelets.
If you’re looking for some more inspiration on how to stack, Mars from Curling Stones seems to have the art of it down pat! A few of her stacks are featured in her favourites from last year or check out her Story stacks for more ideas.
* The brown leather bubbles bracelet in the larger picture is from Karin Jacobson Design and is one of the bracelets that I did wear quite a bit before I started collecting charm bracelets. It still gets tons of wear and, as I’ve discovered, is perfect for stacking too!