Perhaps you have come across breastmilk jewelry before? It's not a new concept nor is it for everyone. However, the designs by JewelryMemory are lovely and many are dainty. This is the work of Canadian friends, Linda and Marcia.
I particularly love the combination of breast milk and baby hair as you can see from the heart pendant design above and the tree of life one below. Clever use of the hair. Hair jewelry is not new either - the Victorians, including Queen Victoria herself, were very fond of gifting friends and family with hair jewelry.
But why this niche?
They said :
We both breastfed our children and thoroughly enjoyed the closeness and infinite love that we were allowed to give our kids. We know many mothers like us would like to hang on to these tangible mementos from their motherhood journey. We want to create the best, most beautiful and elegant breastmilk jewelry out there to help mothers remember your breastfeeding experience.
They offer a variety of metal finishes and some designs include birthstones. What you see on Etsy are milk simulations using resin and white colorant. Indeed, Linda says they are offering a 10% discount for any silver, white resin designs for readers - just use PEARL as the discount code.
That is because Etsy policies forbid them to accept real human samples in order to make custom jewelry for customers. Those interested in their custom service will have to contact them through their website, JewelryMemories.
However, readers can make their own breastmilk jewelry as they offer DIY kits for people to make their own breast milk jewelry. No need to ship samples to them in that case! These easy kits do not involve resin - which is an extra difficulty in itself to newbies - but uses glass half spheres. See the basic tutorial here :
Linda says :
The breast milk curing agent we use is our exclusive recipe, which is different from the resin commonly used at present. Milk pearls made with our curing agent contain more than 95 percent of your breast milk and it will not turn yellow.
Other designs apart from half spheres or spheres do need resin and molds. The alternative method is to denature the milk with heat and then combine it with a curing/fixative agent. The resulting dough-like mixture is then dried and later crushed into powder form. This is, in effect, making a white resin colorant from milk! Once mixed with resin, the mixture can be poured into resin molds.
Neat memento jewelry!
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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
NOW I've seen everything! I enjoyed nursing our sons too, but i think i'd use white colorant in resin.
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