So What's a Pandora Bracelet?

After my Friday post, several of you asked what a "Pandora" bracelet was.  So I thought I'd do a blog post about my bracelet to show you.  It's so much easier to explain something with pictures.  Pandora is a company that makes jewelry.  I first heard about their bracelets from a knitter who raved about how nice they were for knitters because the beads didn't catch on your knitting as you worked on your handicrafts.

There are different styles of bracelets but the one I like is the one that has a braided thread on the ends.  The beads are also threaded on the inside and to get each one onto the bracelet, you have to twist them onto the threading until they slide over that part and onto the flexible chain.  That way, they don't fall off the end when it is unclasped.

There are many different "beads"  or "charms" that you can buy.  The idea is that you can gradually add to your collection, like you do with a charm bracelet and fill up the bracelet over time.  I like to choose beads that represent different things in my life.  The beads above represent my faith, my sister-in-law, Rose, and my love of knitting (a ball of yarn with needles in it).

The little girl bead represents my daughter, I think my hubby gave me the heart bead for one Valentine's Day, and the little bird represents my enjoyment of using Twitter.

The suitcase represents all the traveling we've done in the military and just in general, our love of traveling.  The cat reminds me of our four cats that graced our home until they crossed that "Rainbow Bridge."

The sweater stands for the sweaters and other garments that I like to knit and the ribbon stands for being a breast cancer survivor.  The bead to the left is a "spacer" bead.  These beads can be placed at different points in your bracelet and then keep your other beads in "sections" around your bracelet until you have enough beads that they don't slide around.

Besides silver beads, you can buy gold beads or a combination of silver beads with gold trim.  They also sell colorful blown glass beads that go on these bracelets.  At one point I had a bunch of the glass beads on my bracelet but they were just too bulky for me so I took them off.

Here's a link to a shop that sells Pandora beads and charms.  It will give you a good idea of the many different beads available and how you can use them to design unique bracelets.

There you have it!  That's what a Pandora bracelet is.