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As a child, I had a charm bracelet with little 3 dimensional animals, buildings, people and other trinkets. I loved to shake it and hear the charms knocking against each other. 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, which has long ago disappeared.

It’s funny how you get attached to things as a child. My parents used to bring me new charms when they returned from trips, which they took together from time to time. I would stare at my new charm, trying to envision the exotic locale where it came from. To me all places away from home were exotic, even if it was Peoria Illinois!

There are some thoughts on silver dog charms that have been written that make me feel like I’m not alone in the sentiment of collecting for fun. 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 endangered animals.

If you have a certain love for a particular animal, location, food and so forth you can become a collector of unusual charms that represent those things. I think a lot of the fun of being a collector is the fact that you have to be really patient sometimes to get the exact thing you’re looking for. I once searched for a palm tree charm for 6 months! Sure there were a lot of them available, but none of them looked like the very tree I had in mind.

You may wonder what all this has to do with being an artist. Well 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 getups I get up in from time to time. Nor would any pantsuit wearing matron be seen in a pair of sparkly pink flip flops!

Life is all about creativity and it can be a sort of art form itself.