Charming Pandora Charm Bracelets!

My all-grown-up daughter first introduced me to Pandora Charm Bracelets. She loves them, collects them like crazy and always puts them on her birthday or Christmas wish-list. I am a firm believer in getting people what they like and will use for gifts, so I checked out the latest Pandora Charms selection to see if I could find something I thought she'd like.

I looked at charm after charm after charm in the Pandora bead jewelry section. Then I checked out the bracelets. I fiddled with them, and played at putting something together that I would like to wear. I think the shop assistants thought I was buying one for myself. They looked at me a little oddly, a 40-plus year old woman playing around at making a Pandora Charm bracelet. Presumably they are primarily the bracelet of choice for younger women.

I couldn't resist though. I found the perfect charm for her--a cute silver and gold clutch purse that reminded me of her--then I decided I would like to have a bracelet of my own. And so began my Pandora bracelet charms obsession.

They are released in increments, with a new set of Pandora beads appearing on the market each spring and autumn. There are also sometimes 'special release' beads too to mark special occasions or holidays.

One thing I really like is that they donate a fair sum to charity. For example, they donated 15% percent of the retail sales for the gold and silver angel beads to the Red Cross in Australia recently in an effort to help families there. They also donate a portion of sales of the breast cancer awareness charm to breast cancer charities.

Charms are also 'retired' throughout the year, meaning that some Pandora charms are only available for a certain amount of time. Naturally, this has made some of the 'retired charms' greatly sought after and more expensive to buy than when they were first released!

Well, I don't know that these are my absolute favorite charms, but it is my favorite 'charm group' at the moment. Probably because I'm such an absolute animal lover it won't be a big surprise, but yes, I adore the 'animal' charms. They are so cute and, of course, well crafted. I love it that some actually look like animals and some...well...they look more like cartoon animals. It doesn't really matter to me!

I realize that an entire pandora charm bracelet made up of little teensy animal shapes wouldn't really look that stylish. But they are just too cute to totally exclude from your bracelet.

I don't know what my favorite would be. It changes with my mood. Sometimes it's the dolphin, sometimes the bear, sometimes the 'donkey/horse' as they call it. (Really you would think they'd know the difference between a donkey and a horse. After all, you do, right?)

I admire the craftmanship. If you ever get a chance to look at these charms under a magnifying glass I would highly recommend you do. Awesome! It's not cheap to build Pandora charm bracelets, even if you only buy the Sterling silver beads, but the completed bracelets are fantastic in my opinion, and even better than some other similar style bracelets.

In 1982, Per Enevoldsen and his wife opened a small jewelry shop in Copenhagen, Denmark. They weren't 'thinking big' nor did they expect that Pandora Charm Jewelry would take off to the extent that it has. But it did--first becoming extremely popular in Europe and then moving onto the US in 2002. Just think, in a little over 25 years they have gone from being sold in a store in Copenhagen to now being sold all throughout the world and their small jewelry business has gone global!

All Pandora charms are still hand-crafted, though naturally there are a few more people working on them these days. The craftsmanship is superb. Charms are made from sterling silver, gold, murano glass and some are studded with precious or semi-precious jewels. The original inspiration behind the creation of Pandora jewelry was the Greek mythological story of Pandora and Pandora's box, which when emptied retained only hope. Pandora Jewelry later credited hope and inspiration as the main driving force behind their designs. Giving women the opportunity to design their own jewelery and to change that jewelry to suit their activities or dress made the Pandora Charms incredibly popular with women of all ages.

The beauty of the Pandora Charm bracelet is that you can start by adding just two or three beads to the bracelet, and then build this number up over time. They're not cheap, and not everyone can start with a full bracelet but over time it is possible to add to the bracelet till it is pretty full. You can also add fillers to take up some of the space. The ability to be creative and individual with your jewelry is a real selling force behind the Pandora jewelry.