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A sense of family history is important.  Some families have a great-grandmother’s engagement ring, a silver tea set a grandad’s brother found at an estate auction or a plastic chip and dip set in the shape of  platypus your mother received as a wedding gift.  Perhaps your family isn’t blessed with the cherished objects or those that might even become a running joke generation after generation You don’t have to fight through the spider webs in your dad’s cellar trying to find something worth eventually passing along to your children, grandchildren and so on through the future generations.  Instead, decide to start your own tradition beginning with the current generation.  Begin to collect Italian charms. 

Italian Charms bracelets are the perfect family tradition and treasure: they are not as fragile as that old vase, not so valuable that they can’t be worn on a day to day basis, and not so old that they fall out of style.  And, they can continue to add meaning as literally every member of the family can add meaningful charms that represent their own identity. 

  Discover the three easy steps to begin the process of inventing an heirloom:

1) Get started with an Italian charm starter bracelet.

Starter bracelets are an affordable way to get a charm bracelet started.  Starter bracelets are often simple, 14 link bracelets with links that are easy to link and unlink.  The importance of the starter bracelet is that it will allow you to add in personalized charms over time without running the risk of loosing loose charms; it also makes a bracelet-in-progress wearable long before you have collected all of your charms.  This is a valuable way of going about creating an Italian Charm collection because you want to be patient and collect your charms over many years, not all at once.

2) Buy charms over time that reflect meaningful events or stages in the lives of each family member. 

When there is a new addition to your family, choose a charm with the appropriate birthstone.  Perhaps add a charm that reflects, in some way, the community of the birth.  From then on, notice what the children enjoy, their favorite toys or, as they grow older, the sports or hobbies.  With this information, begin to collect Italian Charms that reflect their passions, hobbies, interests, and especially their achievements.  Is your daughter an honor’s student?  Is your son an expert pianist?  Find Italian Charms that reflect these accomplishments and add them to their bracelets.

3) Give the bracelets to your children or other family members. 

This may be the hardest step!  After years of collecting and caring for the Italian Charms, you might grown somewhat attached to them.  But for the tradition to continue and grow, you must pass the bracelets on.  Choose the occasion of your daughter’s sweet sixteen, or your son’s 18th birthday, or select your children’s high school or college graduations—or even their marriages—to bestow upon them their beautiful charm bracelets.  Explain to them the significance of each of the charms, and how and why you selected them as you did.  Demonstrate how and where they might add on to their charm bracelets to keep the tradition alive, and how, one day, you hope that they will pass their charm bracelets on to their children (after having added charms that reflect the important events in their own children’s lives, of course).

Leave that old vase in your father’s attic.  Start a dynamic new tradition for your children today.  Follow these simple steps to get started; you will find that the tradition takes on a life of its own after several years.  Perhaps you might even involve your children in the selection of new charms each year!  Just think, one day someone will add a charm that says: “I Love My Grandparents.”

A sense of family history is important.  Some families have a great-grandmother’s engagement ring, a silver tea set a grandad’s brother found at an estate auction or a plastic chip and dip set in the shape of  platypus your mother received as a wedding gift.  You don’t have to fight through the spider webs in your dad’s cellar trying to find something worth eventually passing along to your children, grandchildren and so on through the future generations.  Instead, decide to start your own tradition beginning with the current generation.  Begin to collect Italian charms. 

These charms, personally assembled by you into an Italian charm bracelet are much sturdier than fragile old china and can become a much more interesting conversation piece.  Rather, the great thing about Italian Charms is that they create a dynamic tradition:  literally every member of the family can add meaningful charms that represent their own identity. 

So how do you get started?  Discover the three easy steps to begin the process of creating an heirloom:

1) Get started with an Italian charm starter bracelet.

You can start your tradition inexpensively with starter bracelets.  Starter bracelets are often simple, 14 link bracelets with links that are easy to link and unlink.  Since the starter bracelets are made of a series of plain, individual charms, each carefully selected charm that you add will become a point of contrast and interest in the changing, overall design.  This is a valuable way of going about creating an Italian Charm collection because you want to be patient and collect your charms over many years, not all at once.

2) Purchase personal charms over time as they correspond to events in your children’s lives. 

On the occasion of your children’s births, purchase charms with their birthstones, their names, or the year or place of their birth.  From then on, notice what the children enjoy, their favorite toys or, as they grow older, the sports or hobbies.  With this information, begin to collect Italian Charms that reflect their passions, hobbies, interests, and especially their achievements.  Is your daughter an honor’s student?  Is your son an expert pianist?  Find Italian Charms that reflect these accomplishments and add them to their bracelets.

3) Give the bracelets to your children or other family members. 

This may be the hardest step!  After years of collecting and caring for the Italian Charms, you might grown somewhat attached to them.  But for the tradition to continue and grow, you must pass the bracelets on.  Choose the occasion of your daughter’s sweet sixteen, or your son’s 18th birthday, or select your children’s high school or college graduations—or even their marriages—to bestow upon them their beautiful charm bracelets.  Explain to them the significance of each of the charms, and how and why you selected them as you did.  Demonstrate how and where they might add on to their charm bracelets to keep the tradition alive, and how, one day, you hope that they will pass their charm bracelets on to their children (after having added charms that reflect the important events in their own children’s lives, of course).

Don’t search the attic or cellar for something that you hope might have some meaning to future generations.  Instead create something that will inherently serve that purpose of providing a continuing family tradition.