Greetings my Little Junipers!
Today I want to show you how to make your very own charm bracelet!
A few years ago I inherited some beautiful vintage charm bracelets from my Nanny (my dad's mum. She's my Grandma but I've always called her Nanny)
One of the bracelets I received was empty and since then I have always had plans to fill that bracelet with my own little treasures and memories.
The cool thing about Charm bracelets is that they are a way to carry around itty bitty momentos of special moments with you wherever you go. Some highlights from my Nanny's Bracelet would be the mini sombrero, the bagpipes charm that I actually have transferred to my own bracelet, and the charms from different states and provinces that must have been important places to her.
Doris Grace Morrison. Mum says she named me after Nanny and that I get my musical ability from her. She was incredibly creative and kept the minutes for her local Lion's club in rhyme. She was really involved in Guiding and it's funny how much I am like her even though she lived in Nova Scotia and I only ever got to see her a handful of times in my life.
So here is my tutorial for a do it yourself charm bracelet.
MATERIALS
- A BRACELET or link of chain with fasteners. Think of this as your blank canvas. (you can find chain link at Michaels and also all the other tools!)
- A HANDY SET OF PLIERS that are little enough to handle delicate jump rings.
- A healthy selection of JUMP RINGS (the little metal circles) that are large enough to attach a charm to the bracelet.
- A variety of CHARMS and TRINKETS that can be turned into charms.
DIY CHARM
It is remarkably easy to make a charm for your bracelet you just need to think outside of the box. You don't want anything too big and bulky clanging around on your wrist so you need to think small.
Just a quick note about using jump rings... when you open them make sure you aren't bending them out of shape... you don't need to pull them open you just sort of crack them open as shown in the picture.
As I was looking around my house for things that could become charms I found some fantastic things.
- Buttons
- Teeny Tiny toys
- Shrinky dinks
- Dangly earrings
All you need to do is attach some jump rings. For the earrings I detached the anchor from the earring hook and then put a little jump ring in the same place. For the Hippo I used a larger jump ring around his belly with a smaller ring that I could attach to the bracelet.
Get creative! This is the most fun part! Other ideas I had were little felt charms or important pictures that have been laminated so they are waterproof or little ribbons tied in bows.
If you feel like you need some more inspiration I created a little treasury list of some charms that I found on Etsy!
Slight break... Ava couldn't help getting involved in the whole process. I think I was giving too much attention to the bracelet so we had to have a little break for cuddles.
FINISHING
Once the charms are ready to be attached to the bracelet think about spacing and how you want to the bracelet to look. For my bracelet I had some repeating elements (note buttons) so I spaced them accordingly. Think about the longer charms next to shorter charms.
(HERE SHE IS)
Also consider how you are going to attach your charms. Some people will attach the charms on both side of the bracelet creating a kind of frenzied eclectic look (like my Nanny's bracelet); while others (myself included) prefer to hang the charms all on the same side so that there is a little more order to the creative chaos.
BUT ABOVE ALL ELSE : HAVE FUN!
Here are a few images of other bracelets I found around the web to inspire.
I can't wait to see what you come up with!
TTFN
