Charm Bracelet

What it is

Charm Bracelet is a page with one thin string curving across it and eight glossy beads waiting at the bottom: song, image, word, location, drawing, link, color and trinket. You fill beads in, hang them on the string and send the finished bracelet to someone as a link. The background is soft pastel blobs, the type is small and mostly lowercase, and it has the feel of a friendship bracelet made at a kitchen table.

How to play

Tap a bead. A small card asks for its contents: the word bead takes up to three words of under six letters each, the song bead takes a track name, and so on. Press place on string and the bead appears, hanging from the line. Repeat until the string is full enough. Save is bottom left, send is bottom right. Send says it will open a new page with the shareable link and offers a box for an optional note first. On a desktop, tapping worked better than dragging in our check.

What makes it different

Most greeting toys hand you a template and a text box. This one makes you assemble a message out of objects, and the limits do the work: a word bead that only holds three short words forces a choice, and a trinket next to a color next to a place reads like a sentence nobody wrote. The result is sent as a link, not a screenshot.

Why it is on Bored

Some pages are for passing time and some are for sending to one person, and this is the second kind. It sits in Visual toys because the bracelet is the picture you make, but the reason to bookmark it is the next birthday that lands on a weekday.

Tips

• Start with a word bead, the three-word limit sets the tone
• Use the color bead to break up a long string
• Add the optional note at the send step, it is easy to miss
• Tap to place on a desktop, dragging did not work in our check

FAQ