The Charm of Charm Bracelets

Lately I've been getting a lot of custom order requests for multiple charmed Charm Bracelets. Bracelets are a jewelry piece I've never just made on my own because I don't wear bracelets myself, and neither does my partner; I don't sell them regularly in my shop because they tend to give people sticker shock. Even when charms are only priced at five dollars each, when you put ten of them on a bracelet, the price racks up quite quickly, and I don't want people to think I charge over fifty dollars for items regularly. I try to keep my charms and jewelry extremely affordable for their quality, while still charging enough so that's it's worth all the time that's invested in their construction.

The first different charmed bracelet I was commissioned to make was this lovely little Kingdom Hearts Charm Bracelet. It had me regular Sea Salt Ice Cream, Paopu Fruit, and Crown charms, as well as two new ones, made especially for this project. One was the little heart logo, normally it would be hollow, but that just was not practical for a bracelet, it would have been too fragile for my taste, so I decided to make it have a lowered, white inside. That way it would contrast the other custom charm better, the little Heartless Symbol. That is a charm that looks fairly simple, but was actually rather difficult, mostly the painting because my red is very weak, and it was hard to do multiple coats on the tiny thorns and keep them looking nice. This photo was taken before I put the shiny gloss coating on the charms, because I am not very skilled at taking photos, and I can't get around my glare problem when taking photos of anything shiny.

After that project was completed, I got another order for a charm bracelet, but this one was a tad more challenging. The Legend of Zelda Charm Bracelet called for two charms that are really too big to appropriate for a bracelet, the Heart Container Charm and the Bottled Fairy Charm. I made a special scaled down version of the heart container without too much trouble, but the fairy is already so small, I had to put my tiny making magic to full strength in order to make one small enough to fit into my tinier bottles. With the Ocarina Charm, the Triforce Charm, and another new addition, the Bomb Charm to fill it out, this is probably my favorite bracelet so far. I like all the differently shaped elements, the alternating colors, and the other all magical theme of the bracelet. Plus the fact that I'd just finished playing Twilight Princess before I made it probably didn't hurt this little guy in my decision for my favorite.

Of course I save the best for last, or at least the most impressive, my 15 Charm Pokeball Bracelet. As I am probably most well known for, I've made charms of all 24 official Pokeballs, and even many of the ones that just make special appearances in the anime, but this little bracelet topped them all. Not only did it include many of the most challenging Pokeballs to make, but I had to make them each smaller than a dime, that's about one centimeter in diameter, and they all had to match each other with all their tiny details! It took many hours and there were several reject charms disposed of in the process, but the finished product was well worth all the struggle. This is one of the custom orders that I'd want to make again, just so I have a copy for myself, but was so much work, I'm not really eager to spend all that time doing something once I know I already can.

Now that my portfolio of charm bracelets is growing, I expect to keep making more, hopefully ones from other series or games, so I can keep making new, unique items. For all the work they entail, they've all really impressed me in the end, and I can't wait to see what's next for me!