Thank you for the great article on charm bracelets. I am an avid collector of charm bracelets and love them. I have 27 bracelets full of charms that I have collected over the past 20+ years. I have them from my travels, from friends and found objects. I recently found a wonderful place that lets you make your very own charms. I created mine at a home party. The name of the company is Lilly Ollo. I don't take very good photos, but they have a few on their website at http://lillyollo.com/gallery/charmbracelets/ I created 4 charms and it the cost of the entire party was about $40. The charms are pure silver and they had something for everyone. I want to go back with my kids and make fingerprint charms! The class was fun - I did it with 7 girlfriends. Anyway, just wanted to share my experience. Cheers, Erin

My college roommate and I shared a charm bracelete. It began with our ten year reunion - where we celebrated her engagement by each buying heart charms and took off from there. We used to go on annual girls' weekend trips and we'd pick up a charm for our braceletes every year. Not matching charms but ones that reminded us of the trip. We've fallen out of touch now but I still love wearing that bracelete. I'm planning on adopting the idea with the birth of my first child (a girl!) in the fall - one for her and one for me.

I'm another fan of charm bracelets, funnily enough it was my love of scrapbooking that got me into them. Now I am never without a charm or 2 on me. I wear them not only on bracelets but on silver and leather necklaces of varying lengths and colours to go with my different outfits and also have some earring adaptors I bought online and I can wear my lovely murano glass charm beads as earring.

I love having not only jewellery that is different to anyone else's because its personalised I love carrying the memories with me where I go. Nothing makes a bad day at the office better than to look down and see a little silver love heart charm my boyfriend bought me for my birthday to make my day.

I love them so much I have started a blog on typepad about them Charm Campaign

my husband for my birthday discovered "Pandora" jewelry which is awesome and beautiful. i have the bracelet which you can add beads and all kinds of neat things which are in everyones price range. every holiday i get a new bead, he wants to see the bracelet full yeee haa i dont mind. its so beautiful. i am surprised you didnt have them in your article. check it out for a charm bracelet it is so nice.

My favorite charm on my bracelet is the one that displays my son's name on one side, and his birth date on the other. He was stillborn on August 2, 2005, and in October 2005 I won my charm bracelet at a fundraiser for our local women's center. My partner took the charm to a jeweler and had it inscribed right away so that my sweet Oscar could be with me every day. I find myself rubbing his charm between my thumb and finger when I am stressed at work or thinking about him. This year, I added a new charm to my bracelet -- a heart for our baby girl, Norah. She's now 10 months and loves the sound of my bracelet when she bats at it or holds the charms and shakes them.

My sister-in-law (my brothers wife) and I have the 2 halves of my great grandfathers heavy gold watch chain. She has the fob with his initials and I have the pc. that held it in a button hole. My father is 96 yrs. old so I am sure the chain must be about 150yrs old. We treasure these as you can imagine.
My parents have given me a '13' --for my birthdate, and 'R' for my first name and a 'leo' for my sunsign. My husband has given me a heart. I will add to it and pass it on to one of my daughters in due time.

I have a charm bracelet given to me by my husband the Christmas I was expecting our first child....a little girl. During the ultrasound, I gasped "There is our little tadpole!" And the Ob/Gyn laughed and said "Looks more like a Peanut." Thus the baby had her first nickname. My first charm was on the bracelet that Christmas morning when I opened it, a solid gold peanut.

I also have a heart shaped locket that I bought when my brother died. I sealed a strand of his hair in the locket to keep with me forever. My sister liked the idea, and for Halloween, she bought me a charm that is actually a mini cofffin with a small skeleton in it. It sounds SO morbid, but we both love Halloween, worked in a Haunted House together and like the locket theme. She bought herself one for her charm bracelet.

I have a half of a "Best Friend" charm from the ONLY friend I made while living away from home for 7 years. She was like my sister. She would walk the floors with my newborn who had colic. I helped her kids study. We were very close. When we announced we were selling our house and moving home to Massachusetts, she cried. I got one half of the charm for a going away present. She has the other. Everytime I wear it, I think of her, and normally call her....It's a good reminder to keep in touch.

Lastly, I had a dog I raised since puppyhood. She was my child in a time in my life when I had no one. She was the best dog one could ask for. Her death was a VERY hard thing to deal with, yet so many people couldn't understand my grief, since she was "just a dog". Not my little sister! She bought me a charm shaped just like a German Shepherd. In the box was a note that simply said, "I miss Katie, too. She was better behaved than most people." I will never forget my sister's kindness in my time of grief.

I have a love of charm bracelets as well. When I was about 5 years old my parents gave me a silver charm bracelet with a charm engraved with my name and my birthdate as a present. Then every time my dad went on business travel, he'd bring me back a 'state' charm - either a charm in the shape of the state he went to, or something that represented the state. And I would collect new charms everytime I went somewhere.
When I was 10, my house burned down. And the only thing that was saved in my room was that charm bracelet, that by then had 3 charms to every link. It was covered in soot and smoke but it did survive because I had put it inside a metal jewelry box inside a wood jewelry box inside another jewelry box since it was my most prized posession.
A few years ago I took all the charms off, bought 4 more bracelets, and restrung all the charms so that now I have 4 very special charm bracelets that remind me of my Dad's love coming back from trips, and special memories of my own.

My husband and I are buying a gold charm for our daughter at each Christmas - something that is symbolic from the previous year. So far we have a pacifier, a shoe, and an "I love you" charm. Hopefully it will be meaningful to her some day...

My story about my favorite charm was born from a miracle and a tragedy. My grandson Alexander Jack, nickname JAX was born with biliary atresia and had a liver transplant at 6 months of age. After the transplant my daughter and son-in-law composed a letter of thanks to the donor's parents and eventually heard back from them. We learned from them that the donor was a young man of 23 who was killed in an auto accident. His name was Don. My daughter designed a charm (that I wear as a necklace) of two jax; one hangs a tad above the other and is gold and the one below is silver. The gold jax represents Don, the silver one respresents Jax. My two daughters and I have the charms and wear them every day, and there is one saved for Don's mother and one for his sister when they are ready. I've had lots of charms in my life, some with great memeories attached, but this one has the most meaning.

My charm bracelet was given to me by my husband 42 years ago on our wedding day. It had a little gold wedding band and diamond ring dangling from it. On our 1st anniversary we went to Hawaii and I got a pineapple charm. We went to Bermuda one year and I got a charm of the island. As the years went on we added two gold heads for the birth of our two sons, a bowling pin and ball for the sport we played, a matron-of-honor charm from my friend who I stood up for, a sewing machine when I took up sewing as a hobby, a tennis racket when I played tennis, a typewriter when I worked as an executive secretary and a little gold house to celebrate our first home. I haven't added to it in many years, but I plan on sharing my charm bracelet with my three little granddaughters when they get older.

This July my family gave me a charm bracelet for my 72nd birthday. Family members had to purchase a charm that made it easy for me to identify
the giver. Siblings, children, spouses and grandchildren are represented in the beautiful silver bracelet of 21 charms.

Over the years I have collected charms as we traveled. Some favorite ones are: packet boat-Erie Canal, trumpet- New Orleans, Fort McHenery, World Trade Center, Kennedy Space Center, maple leaf- Montreal, mark Twain-Hannibal,MO, Expo 86, Amana Colonies, Aztec Calendar-Mexico. Disney World and Disney Land

When each of my parents 17 grandchildren were born, we sent my mother a charm, boy or girl with the child's name and date of birth. When my mother passed away, each charm was sent to the child's mother.

My charm bracelet story starts with a charm. During a family vacation just following my Sweet 16 birthday I admired a beautiful Sweet 16 charm, complaining to my Mom that I would love a charm like that but I didn't even have a charm bracelet. Upon our return home she presented me with said charm and the suggestion that I could ask for a bracelet for Christmas. At Christmas my Grandmother's present to me was a beautiful bracelet, which over the next years was filled with charms by family and friends representing my life during that time. Over the years, I have worn and received many comments and shared stories. A colleage recently suggested a "charm bracelet day", where we would all wear our bracelets and share our charm stories. A great idea, don't you think!!!

My favorite charm is a 4-leaf clover with the number 13 engraved in the center. It reminds me how lucky I am to be one of 13 children sharing the same mother and father. Looking at this charm always makes me smile and brings back many happy memories from my childhood as well as my adult life. My oldest sibling is 72 and my youngest sibling is 48 and we continue to be very close. Whenever we take a sister trip (there are 8 of us), people we meet all tell us how lucky we are to have each other. Of course, we don't need to hear that--we all know how lucky we are.

On Christmas 1995, I received my grandmother's charm bracelet. This was such a sentimental moment as my "Mama Dot' had just passed away the month before. I remember as a child being fascinated with the tinkering noise it made as she wore it. Not until I received it did I pay attention to the charms. One stated "no occasion just time for charm", "love the love", 'with all my heart." These were inscriptions my grandfather put on his charms to her. He died the summer before I was born in 1972, but on that day 25 years later, I could see his love for her. I will definately get out her charm bracelet after reading this.

My father's job kept us moving around the world. At each place we lived or visited, he bought charms: gold for my mother and silver for my sisters and me. The charms include a tiny Eiffel Tower, a copy of the statue of Romulus and Remus with the wolf (Rome), an abacus (Hong Kong), an alpaca (Bolivia), and a map of Thailand. My mother's bracelet also includes Dad's Elks Club pin and his company's 10-year service pin, both converted to charms. When my mother passed away and we were deciding what to do with her jewelry, I chose her bracelet. Since I don't wear bracelets, a short chain attached to the fasteners lets me wear it as a unique necklace. It gets a lot of attention and is one of my favorite mementos of my parents.

I have a very full and heavy charm bracelet from the three years I lived in Germany. I traveled extensively and on every trip, hunted for a charm to represent the city I was visiting. I believe there are in the neighborhood of 60 charms on that bracelet. That being said, my favorite charm is one on my childhood charm bracelet.
When I was about 7 or 8, my family traveled from our hometown in eastern PA to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB in Ohio. I loved the museum, had always loved airplanes, and my mom let me choose a charm from the gift shop as a souvenir. Of all the planes they had, I chose a KC-135 stratotanker. God knows why, with all the cool fighter jets. I loved my charm, it was detailed enough that you could actually see the boom hanging off the back of the plane.
When I was in college in PA, I met the man I would eventually marry, an Air Force Academy cadet. We dated long distance for a while, got engaged, broke up and ended up back together after he had finished pilot training and moved to his first assignment in Altus OK. The plane he was assigned to, as his first AF assignment out of pilot training, was none other than a KC-135 stratotanker.
Of course, by this time, I had lost the bracelet and long forgotten the story. On one of our many moves with the AF, I found the bracelet and much to my surprise, the KC-135 charm. Was it fate?

Approaching my 50th birthday two years ago, I thought long and hard how I wanted to celebrate the milestone. I was at a point in my life that I neither wanted nor needed "stuff". I decided that I would send an e-mail out to my friends and family (both male and female) and suggest that if they wanted to give me a gift to send a charm. My only stipulations were that it have silver on it and that when I opened it, I would "get it" as to why they chose that charm to represent our friendship. I had a small party at a pottery painting shop in our town. My girlfriends brought wine food and most of all fun. They were so excited for me to open their charms to see if I "got it". I was stunned by their cleverness at their choices. The local jeweler worked with friends/family from near and far and provided a nice discount to them. The jeweler commented that she felt she knew me, too, after hearing all the stories and helping everyone select the perfect charm. She also helped to prevent duplicates. Many charms arrived by mail with such moving notes accompanying them. I was so surprised at how the men enjoyed the challenge, too, of pursuing just the right charm. I now have 4 beautiful charm bracelets...one from those who came to the party, one from family/friends from near and far, one from my children, and one with the "Irish/Catholic" theme. Such memories!!

My charm bracelet goes back to when my children were born in 1949 and 1951. But the most memorable is a ferris wheel charm that actually turns. You see, the 1st date with my husband-to-be was a carnival date and the 1st kiss was at the top of the ferris wheel. I recieved the charm on our 15th wedding annivarsary which was 45 years ago.
Thanks, Love the remembering.
Peggy Norris, Huntington Beach CA