"Charmed" Bracelet Part One

Growing up, I had admired my mothers charm bracelets. She collected a charm from each place she visited all over the world. Last year, she gave each of her daughters one of her charm bracelets and I recorded her talking of each charm and her memory associated with each. She was given the key to the city in Alabama, held a Kola Bear in Australia, competed in a Dairy Princess contest, lived in New York, was a Rodeo Queen, etc. Each little charm tells a story.

When I was young, my family went on a U.S. vacation and we traveled all over the country for a month or so. With 8 kids, it could get expensive but my parents gave us each an amount that we could spend at each place. I thought that I would buy charms at each stop as my mom did. So, each place we went, I bought a charm until I was out of my spending money. Here is my bracelet from that trip. Liberty bell, White house, Niagara falls etc.

When our kids were young and we would take them to a tourist spot, they all wanted to buy something from the gift shops. At first, I would let them each have a few dollars but that wouldn't buy much and then we ended up with all sorts of stuffed animals, plastic bead necklaces, little purses etc. So, I remembered back and thought it would be great to get them each a charm from that tourist spots and put it on a bracelet they could enjoy.

We would search for a charm and if we couldn't find one, we would look for jewelry or some other small reminder of that place that we could attach to their bracelet. Then, when they started doing recitals etc. We bought them flowers and little dancing bear figurines and those items also ended up all over the house or died so I thought, I should give them a charm on those days as well. A charm holds the memory, value in the silver, functional to wear and are an enjoyable size to store.

Sometimes the silver charms would be $20 each. For five girls that is $100 each stop. That wasn't going to happen. However, if I bought one bracelet that I could break into five pieces or had five charms on it, I could save $75 or more. In this picture, the turtles were off a bracelet bought at the Boston aquarium. I broke off two turtles for each girl's bracelet having to buy only one item in the gift shop. The crown next to it was a pin I purchased when my mother and her daughters went to see the Miss USA pageant in Chicago and I couldn't find them any charms but thought that pin would make a good charm and just broke off the sharp part on the back.

This key was all we could find at Plymouth Plantation and they had a little basket of keys so each girl picked a small key for their charm. The little blue charm that looks like a tear is when we went to an amusement park. We couldn't find any charms but it was raining the day we went and they had those tear drop looking earrings so we bought two sets of earring for the girls that went and remember the rain the day we went to that park.

You can see in this shot, Disney pooh bear collector, flute player, dancer, danced in and watched the nutcracker, went to an Olympic event, piano player, fresh lobsters in New England, had a cat, the monkey with the banana was all we could find in Vegas, and the feather symbolized a movie she was an extra in. Above you can see she swam with and hand fed dolphins, loves to play Bunko with friends and family, whale watch in New England, Nantucket basket, and the high heel shoe from her prom night.


Here is her first flight, cheer tryout, lunar eclipse, dance competition and below is one of the earrings she bought with her "ortho cash" when she got her braces off. There are many more but that just gives you an idea of how a charm bracelet can bring you many memories with little space. They also hold their value. A stuffed animal loses value the minute you buy it. However, silver in any form always maintains the value of silver. So, if they don't want it years from now, they could still sell it for some value.

To be continued....