Every Charm Tells A Story

As I mentioned in my gift guide and my wishlist post, I love getting Pandora charms as presents. If you know me you’d know I wear my Pandora charm bracelet every day and it’s one of the most sentimental pieces of jewelry I own. Each charm on my bracelet has a special meaning to me and I thought I’d use today’s post to share that.

To start of with the bracelet itself. I bought the bracelet myself out of combined money I got for my 18th birthday from my Granny and my Godfather. The reason I bought the bracelet was because my Granddad passed away the April before my 18th birthday (my birthday is in June) and it made me realise that people won’t be around forever so I decided I was going to put as much money together from my birthday as I could to buy something that would last forever and I could keep adding to as the years went on.

With the bracelet I bought 2 clips that stop the charms from falling off and an 18 dangle charm for my 18th birthday.

That Christmas my parents got me my second charm which has a pretty funny story behind it. The charm they got me was a snowman, relevant as it was Christmas time but also because of a home video we have of me when I was 5 or 6.

One year we had really good snow so myself, my brother and 3 girls we lived next door to were all out in our backyard collecting snow to make an attempt at making a snowman. My dad being the old-school “vlogger” he was decided to film us from inside the house. We all went off with our buckets collecting snow from various areas around our garden but the cunning 5 or 6 year old that I was decided to follow one of the girls and steal the snow from her bucket and claim it as my own. The video is funnier than reading it but unfortunately the footage is buried on some hard drive somewhere that we can’t find a the minute.

The birthday cake was the next charm to join the family. This was given to me by my godmother for my 19th birthday.

Another birthday present I got was my camera charm. My best friend Sarah (shout out to you Sarah 😛 ) gave me this. I love taking pictures and in more recent years I have started to become one of the unofficial family photographers at any of our family occasions. I have two really large families on my mam and dads side, dad being one of 14 and mam being one of 10 there’s always a crowd at our gatherings and I love being able to capture the moments and memories at those events.

Next up is probably the most meaningful charm on my bracelet because it’s not actually mine. Four months before my 21st birthday my aunt passed away, we hadn’t been close for a lot of my childhood but in the 7 years previous as a family we all got really close and we were always in and out to each other or meeting up for lunches and my 21st kind of became the big event of that year, I was having my entire two large families to my house for a massive party and everyone was really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, Rita passed before that and her daughter was going through her jewelry collection and was giving Rita’s Pandora bracelets to her 3 little girls. But she spotted this little present and decided to give it to me as Rita’s 21st present to me. Having a little piece of Rita with me everywhere I go means so much so this charm is definitely the most special one on my bracelet.

My cousin and his now fiance bought me this little ice-cream cone for my 21st birthday also.

Christmas 2016 brought me this little charm with my initial on it and I love it. The detail in the charm is just beautiful, and very similar to the Gemini charm in my wishlist 😉

This year saw two new additions to my bracelet.

First up, my graduation cap. I did a post back in August about my college experience and how I never imagined I’d graduate from where I did with a degree in what I studied so this little cap is pretty special to me. The inside of the cap is engraved with the words “Hard Work Pays Off” which has 2 meanings to me, the work I did in college to get the degree but also the work I did when I was on my work experience in college. I was given an opportunity to really prove myself so I worked really hard and it really did pay off because I got a permanent job out of it.

Last but certainly not least.. My little Big Apple. It’s no secret I went to New York this year after many many many years of waiting so to add a memento to my bracelet I bought a little “Big Apple” charm when I was in New York to add to my collection so I’ll always have a part of New York with me.

My bracelet is filling up quite quickly now but there’s still load of room to add more memories and more meaning. If all comes to all I’m just going to have to get another bracelet!