What Time is It?

I have a hard time getting rid of things. Even if they are broken. Usually I'll stash them somewhere for future use. Cracked pottery and china want to be made into a mosaic table top. Stained sweaters want to be reconstructed. And broken watches, well they still want to be worn. For years I've been collecting discarded watches I find at yard sales and thrift stores. All of them have stopped working but are still beautiful or interesting. I have been wanting to link a group of them together to make a bracelet, I worried though that w/o proper link soldering, the heavy watches would come apart. So the watches sat in a box for years, forgotten. When I came across them this month, it struck me that I could thread them onto a piece of ribbon and tie them on my wrist with a huge bow. One watch does work, so I check that one for the time... the others stopped oh so long ago.

Have you looked at your broken and old pieces of jewelry and thought about how you could remake them into something wearable today?

Charmed, I'm Sure

My mother has the most amazing charm bracelet that she started high school. A glass encased mustard seed, a typewriter, an air force strike for when my dad joined, empire state building, a yellowstone charm, mary and her little lamb, a moose from Alaska, Utah charm, a piano with a hinged top, a stage coach from a road trip, baby buggy with moving parts, a bowl, old time roller skate with moving wheels, a cob of corn (!?), and more.

When I was in high school, I received a charm bracelet of my own. My grandmother, a jewelry maker, had taken special consideration to select charms that really spoke about the young woman I was. A sleek cat because I was a cat owner, a clef because I was a musician, a peace symbol for my slightly hippie ways. 8 charms in all that told a story about who I was.

These days I feel my life just gets busier and busier. Littles to make meals for, a husband to adore, a career to coddle. I find that at the end of the day I have neglected so much and wish that I had something to remind during my busy life of the things that are important, a symbol. It came to mind that a piece of jewelry with a silhouette would help me to remember the important things. I also thought it would be nice if this piece of jewelry reminded me of how far I had come in my life and where I wanted to go as well. This was how I decided to give my old charm bracelet a makeover.

I removed her old cat charm, a comedy/tragedy mask and most of the others, leaving a pearl and a silver '93 (the year I graduated high school and met my husband.) I rummaged my jewelry box for unused bits (like my beloved single moonstone earring) and went through my beading supplies for any extras to assemble the beginnings of her new adornments.

One jewelry box find was a single Buffalo head nickel earring from a set I got as a child on a road trip. To make it into a charm I used pliers to make a loop from its post and attached it with a link.

Other ideas for a charm bracelet can be

• scrapbook embellishments
• game pieces
• small toy bits (like barbie acessories)
• charms from road trips
• beads or buttons

For further inspiration take a looksie at this flickr group