Why I Stopped Making Breastmilk Jewellery

Why I Stopped Making Breastmilk Jewellery… then started again! I can honestly say that I missed talking to clients about their nursing journeys, I missed making the items of jewelry by hand and I missed the satisfaction of photographing finished pieces. I’ve been creating breastmilk jewellery again since 2019 after about a year away and this is my story.

Nikki Lovegrove

Update – you will all notice that we’re now taking orders for breastmilk jewellery again here! I’m planning a blog to explain how we’ve worked to reduce our lead times over the past few years and how I’m refreshed enough to offer it again, alongside the DIY kits we sell here over at my other business, Keepsaker Supplies.

As 2018 drew to an end I was thinking about how to make our jewellery even better. One of the biggest complaints we’ve ever had is our timescale for orders. Orders for breastmilk jewellery had been taking around six months because I haven’t been able to get help making them. There’s so much training involved with storing, preserving and drying milk that it’s seemed impossible to find local artists who can help. As much as people say they love the pieces and I harp on about the importance of our terms and conditions, making people promise they’ve read them on the checkout, I still think people underestimate how long these breastmilk items will take. By removing breastmilk jewellery, we were able to concentrate on the memorial orders and make the pieces in a matter of weeks sometimes.

Mental Health
It’s been a bit of a heartache for me 2015-2018 to try and make breastmilk jewellery. When I first started I struggled with my preservation method, and although I got this down to a fine art and even blogged about it and run the Breastmilk Jewellery Group on Facebook, I still find it a long process. It takes so much extra time to do the milk compared with cremation ashes and hair. It tends to sap all of my energy and has had me feeling uninspired for other kinds of work. I don’t get the same satisfaction from making breastmilk jewellery, it is nice to help someone remember their breastfeeding journey, but it’s not comparable to helping someone keep their loved one’s hair or ashes close. I don’t get the same enjoyment seeing the finished pieces either, because breastmilk jewellery doesn’t have the same variety as the others. I think I’ve grown tired of making them.

Help making
I now have several artists who help me make the memorial jewellery, ashes are sent directly to them or to me and I label them all up ready to give to them. Our artists are fully trained to use glass or UV resin to turn ashes, hair and cord into cabochons (stones), orbs and charms. There’s no complicated and timely process to prepare the elements to work with. These artists make the jewellery much sooner than I could on my own, they often check that the client likes their work before giving these blanks to me to finish. My ultimate aim is having help at every stage and being able to pass on some knowledge and enable people to start their own Tree of Opals franchise.

Making The Rest
We are still able to honour breastmilk jewellery orders that were placed but not sent in, however I’m happy to make pieces for legacy clients (customers whose milk I still have). If you think I might have your milk preserved, please log in and let me know your order number or give me the email address and rough date ordered. If I can find the vial of preserved milk, I’m happy to dry some out and make new jewellery for you.

Where To Buy Now
We are offering breastmilk jewellery again now here!