Today’s post brings my first Pandora Winter 2015 review, with a closer look at the delightfully festive Christmas Holly murano charm. I am a big fan of Pandora’s murano glass beads, and I’m always particularly excited to see their new designs. 😀
It’s been a slow news week in the Pandora world, but I am hearing more and more about the Valentine’s 2016 collection. 🙂 I’m hoping to have pictures soon, with any luck. In the meantime, enjoy some close-up shots of this new festive murano and some inspiration as to how you might style it!
The charm
The stock image simply does not do this murano justice. All the examples I have seen in person and in live images have had beautiful cherry red berries, and not the burnt orange shown in the stock image; the green of the leaves is also generally much lighter.
In person, it’s entirely different and far more lovely: the red really pops, the green is subtle and foresty. There is often dark purple detailing at the edge of the leaves (you can see this quite prominently in the stock image too), but I purposely chose one that had only a very faint shade of purple. I wanted mine to be as light and bright as possible!
As with all the murano glass with hand-painted detailing, this one varies a lot in person. Luckily, I had a lovely SA when I got my murano and we both went hunting through the charms they had in store to find one with nicely defined leaves and cherry red berries. This one was the best of the bunch – many had quite distorted leaves, or blurred colours. The size of the berries also varied a lot – for the best effect, you probably want to choose one with large berries, so you get a nice, deep red.
You can start to get a sense of this variation in the following image, courtesy of reader Pamela Vaughn. The picture hasn’t blown up that well, but you can see the differences in the size of the berries between the muranos, and the variation in the definition of the leaves.
The details are painted on to clear glass, which wraps around a white core. The Holly murano has the smaller Pandora silver coring, with branding on just one side of it.
Styling
Of course, while it is really very pretty, this is one of Pandora’s least versatile muranos, and I had to think reasonably hard about how I might style it for this review. Its festive colouring and theme mean that it doesn’t easily blend into a bracelet design that doesn’t already predominantly feature a red colour scheme or holiday theme.
For a simple styling that’s appropriate for celebrating Christmas or simply the winter season, try adding the murano to the cheery red leather bracelet. The white daisies complement it nicely, and suggest a pretty, snowy winter garden.
If you are looking to move away from the red, however, this is perfectly doable. Pairing the murano with a little delicate two-tone gives a wonderful sense of opulence and festive warmth. The addition of the Vintage Allure with its green spinel helps to delicately emphasise the green in the murano.
Of course, as you have already seen in my Layers of Lace review, I am going to be using my Holly murano for my Christmas bracelet design. I had originally planned to use it as the centrepiece of my bracelet, as pictured below. However, I recently received all my lovely new Winter 2015 pieces from Australia – the Dainty Bow clip and SC, the Reindeer and the Christmas Puppy. I added them on to my bracelet and, as it filled up, I felt like the Holly murano was somehow lacking as my centrepiece. Its colour just isn’t quite vibrant enough to stand alone for me, especially when paired with the vibrant Fascinating Red murano and the green Looking Glass bead.
Consequently, I have moved the red murano to the middle alongside it and have put the Sparkling Bow as my centrepiece instead. It complements my Dainty Bow pieces nicely and makes me think of beautifully-wrapped Christmas presents. I have ordered the retired Mint Candy-Stripe murano to go opposite the Looking Glass and I think the overall effect should be rather fun! ^^
Conclusion
This murano is such a lovely, cheerful offering for the holiday season, and I love its pretty colours. It is not the most versatile design, admittedly, but, unlike other red Christmas charms, you could always incorporate it into a nature or garden-themed bracelet once the holiday season is over. It could also make for just a nice winter-themed charm. It may not quite match up to the intricacy of the earlier Wild Flowers murano from Spring 2015, but the hand-painted details are beautifully done. I would love to see Pandora make muranos on a larger scale again, as we only get a handful of new designs each year.
I am probably going to save the rest of my Christmas pieces for review nearer to December itself. ^^ This will hopefully give you some ideas/inspiration as to any Christmassy designs you might already be planning.
The Christmas Holly murano is $45 USD, or £30. If you’re in the UK, you can purchase it alongside the rest of the Pandora Winter collection from authorised retailer John Greed.
What do you think of this new murano design from Pandora? Are you a fan of their murano glass beads?
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