My Charm Bracelet Favorite
When I was a girl, I had a charm bracelet with little 3 dimensional animals, buildings, people and other trinkets. The tinkling sound of the charms knocking against each other was a real treat. I was fascinated when I saw some pretty sterling silver charms on the web recently. It reminded me of that treasured bracelet from long ago, lost during one of our family’s moving adventures.
Isn’t it strange the way you get attached to things as a child? My parents often brought me new charms after one of their trips, which they took together from time to time. I would stare at my new charm, trying to envision its origin. I longed to travel, and my little charm gave me just a hint of an exotic location.
There are some thoughts on silver dog charms that have been written that make me feel I am only one of many who still collects charms. One of the things I like about charm bracelets is the fact you can be very creative with them. Nowadays you can find all kinds of charms, from skulls to all different kinds of animals.
If you love particular animals, locations, food or whatever, you can become a collector of hard-to-find charms to represent those things. To me, the fun of being a collector is the fact that you have to be really patient once in a while to get the precise design you’re searching for. I once looked for a palm tree charm for 6 months! Sure there were a lot of them available, but none of them looked like the exact tree I had in mind.
You may wonder what all this has to do with being an artist. Well, I think part of being artistic is expressing yourself in a way that makes you feel like an individual. We all have our own taste, and all of us are individuals. I would never wear either a polyester pantsuit or a teensy bikini, and I imagine a young girl sunbathing on the beech wouldn’t want to be seen in some of the wild thrift store outfits I dress in from time to time. We all have our sense of what is artistic, and what is right for us.
Life is all about creativity and it can be a sort of art form itself. So collect things for your charm bracelet that say who YOU are!