I love charm bracelets. I think my love of them began with my mother’s traditional charm bracelet (shown below). On her 16th birthday she received the bracelet and lock from her parents. And every person who came to her birthday party gave her a little charm. The tradition continued over the years.
I loved the idea of each tiny charm having meaning behind it. Perhaps a memento of a happy memory, a favourite trip, or a loved one.
When I inherited my mom’s bracelet, I had all the original charms soldered on so none of them fell off. The only one I lost over the years was a little Coke bottle charm someone gave me that was not soldered on.
When I turned 50, I received three charm bracelets. One from Tiffany from my now ex-husband
One from Thomas Sabo from my bonus mother. It has onyx beads with a ring holding two little tuxedo cats
And another one from my bonus mother and cousin – a Nomination bracelet with a South African flag charm. Since then I have built up several nomination and non-nomination bracelets. The top four are Nomination and the bottom three are not.
I also belonged to a charm club for a couple of years, and built these two bracelets
I also have this Biagi charm bracelet that is really nice to wear
The charm bracelets I wear the most are my nomination bracelets. You can wear one at a time or several. You can move the charms around and arrange them according to colour, theme or mood. And they do not make a noise. I move my arms a lot when teaching and talking so clanky bracelets get on my nerves after a while.
Given that I am so interested in charm bracelets, it is strange that I had never heard of slider charm bracelets until recently. It seems they began in Victorian times but have been mass produced by companies such as Goldette in base metals more recently.
I found this site which has an interesting article on the history of slide bracelets, as well as starter guides, complete bracelets, and different themes.
