My silver charm bracelet

This is my favourite charm bracelet, which my grandma started collecting for me as a child. Since then I have continued collecting myself so now it contains charms symbolizing my interests and my family. I love it is so personal. As I had finished collecting what I wanted it to represent I counted the charms for fun – 26 in total, my birthday date, funny coincidence or is it?

Below is the story of each charm.

Pig
This one is from my beloved granny. I love pigs. I have a large collection of different pink pig figurines, including Miss Piggy in her pink sports car. But I don’t like the taste of pork meat – my brother calls me muslim for fun.

Snowflake
I love snow! I think new fallen snow is the most beautiful sight in the world and I am SO happy, when I wake up and see my garden covered by a thick layer of snow. So I also love snowflakes and have several glued to my windows and hanging on my Christmas tree.

Christmas Tree
I LOVE Christmas! I go Christmas crazy around the 1 December. I suppose it is because it is legal to decorate, have a cosy time with friends and family, eat candy and nice food. I love decorations, colours and glitter, but most of all I love my Christmas tree, which I would never be without.

Halloween Pumpkin
Tim and I started our Halloween tradition a few years ago and we love it. Halloween is not very common in Denmark. We really need to decorate and have a spooky time in the middle of the Autumn and I love my carved pumpkin with a candle in which I lit every evening. We decorate with our homemade items and invite friends for dinner at Halloweens Eve.

Computer
I have always worked with computers since the very first pc saw daylight. And I would never be without one. I have been an it-supporter for many years and the last years I have sold software. I love to make websites and use my pc and I have made computers for most of my family and friends – so the computer was a must on my bracelet.

Skateboard
The skateboard symbolizes Tim. He has loved to skateboard since he was a little boy and is quite good at it. He skates on rinks, ramps and on the way to and from school.

VW Beetle
The tiny VW Beetle symbolizes Max. He has been a VW mechanic since he was 17 years old and his first two cars was beetles. The first one was from 1963 – a real Herbie.

Lion
The lion is from my grandma, I don’t know why she gave me a lion, but later in life I married a lion and gave birth to a lion-son. Perhaps she knew!? So now it symbolizes both Tim and Max. Max wore it as a pendant the first years of our relationship, later I gave him an ice hockey stick.

Conch
I love conches and shells. I always collect pretty things from the beach to lay in my windows or to make decorations from. I am fascinated of the construction of conches and shells.

17
I don’t have a lucky number, but if I should choose one, it would be 17. In fact it is my dad’s soldier number, which have pursued him ever since. It has been on several of his number plates. He is a mechanic and plate smith and therefore he cannot wear his wedding band daily, so my brother tattooed my mother’s name, LISE, on his ring finger. One day he looked down at his finger, and suddenly saw that her name upside down said 3, which it the number of their children (including me) and then the number 517, which is his full soldier number - spooky and funny. My grandma (his mother) always said she was 17 years old. During her last years, she turned 77, she said she was 17½. Many years ago I started using 17 in passwords and where a number was required, since then it has pursued me.

Wrench
The wrench symbolizes my dad, which is a miracle smith. It is really his vocation to repari old cars and everything else others give up. He is a mechanic of God’s will.

Bookworm
The bookworm symbolizes my mum, who reads lots of books. She laughed out loud when she saw it and said it was perfect. Note that the tiny bookworm wears reading glasses.

Pencil
The pencil symbolizes my brother, who is a talented draughtsman. In school he was word-blind so often he draw a cartoon instead of writing a paper. The teacher must have had fun enjoying his work.

Jigsaw puzzle
The piece of puzzle symbolizes my sister, who is the first in Denmark named Pusle (translates to puzzle). She has heard a lot of jokes about jigsaw puzzles in her life.

Frog
The frog is from my grandma. As a child I collected lots of different creepy-crawly from grasshoppers to lizards and lots of tiny sweet frogs from the nearby woods. We were allowed to catch the creeps, look at them all day, but in the evening we should let them out where we had found them. We loved the teeny tiny frogs from the wood, they were very sweet. One day we had collected a bucket full of them and went home to eat lunch. We placed the bucket with all the frogs right outside the door. Suddenly my huge (at that time) grandma jumped screaming into the house. She was afraid of frogs and had looked into our bucket. We were all delighted as she allows teased my mum, sister and me with spiders, which she wasn’t afraid of. Sweet revenge without even planning it.

Shoe
I am shoe crazy! One can never have too many shoes, but I try not to exceed 100 pairs! You only regret the pairs you didn’t buy, as my friend says!

Tortoise
The tortoise is from my grandma and the most beautiful charm on the bracelet. I have always loved tortoises. My dad had a tortoise from he was five years old, a large female Greek tortoise, whom died of a disease when she was about 180 years old. Dad had her for about 30 years, so I was used to having a tortoise around me. I bought my tortoise in 1980 and he is fresh, only about 75 years old. He has always been a success among children as tortoises are preserved in Denmark, so you don’t see many of them. He is practical in the garden as he eats all my dandelions. His shield is pierced so he can walk freely around in a line as he likes. I have a lot of tortoise figurines in my home and my garden. LINK til billede.

Lighter
The lighter is from my grandma and I don’t know why she gave it to me. I think it is because I always draw the curtains and lit candles for granny and I to have a cosy time. I still love to lit candles – I wouldn’t survive the long, dark, Danish Winter without candles.

Hedgehog
The hedgehog is also from my grandma. At our cottage at the Isle of Moen we put out milk on plates every evening for the hedgehogs. I stood in the half-door to watch them come and drink the milk. Later Mrs Hedgehog came to present all her young ones in a line behind her.

Pistol
The pistol is from my grandma too. My favourite toy as a child was a shiny six-shooter, my dad gave me. It was a real gun – it had been used for starting signals in competitions, but in my world it was a REAL gun. Today, it is on my bed table as a reminder of my childhood – and it is always nice for a woman to have a gun nearby. ;)

Perfume Bottle
I have been collection perfume bottles since I was five years old and now have quite a collection. It all started with the miniatures but later I couldn’t resist the larger ones.

Lipstick
I love makeup and especially lipstick. I cannot resist colours and of course everything has to match.

Elephant
The elephant is from my grandma. Granny loved elephants and if they had their trunks in the air it meant luck.

Mouse
The mouse is from my dad. It is half of a pair of earrings I used as a child. I love mice, I think they are very cute and pretty animals.

Icecream
I LOVE icecreams! I have two stomachs like my dad – the normal one and one for desserts! I can always eat an icecream although I’m full.

Lizard
As a child I catched lizards with my dad at the Isle of Moen. It was quite an art to catch them without loosing their tails and they were really quick. I think the lizard is a beautiful animal and I have several jewellery items with lizards. Tim says it also might symbolize him since I have called him the “lizard” since he could only crawl.


2008-05-18