Hello! I’m so excited to tell you all about all the wonderful new things happening here at Tree of Opals in this keepsake jewellery newsletter. From our admin manager, Joanna expecting her first baby, to welcoming Gail our new lampwork glass artist, the purchase and our new freeze drying beast, and so many other lovely bits of equipment so things here are moving fast.
Tree of Opals VIP’s Facebook Group
We’ve set up a new group where you’ll see the competitions and offers first and be able to ask questions. Here’s a link to the group or you can click below. To say thank you to everyone for joining we’re going to be giving away a glass orb necklace when we reach 200 members.
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Glass Keepsake Jewellery
We’re so lucky to be working with a fantastic artist, Gail, who has been making lampwork glass jewellery for a decade and has spent the last three years (like me) working with cremation ashes. With a super quick turnaround time, we’re really lucky to be able to offer these glass cremation jewellery items at affordable prices with solid sterling silver and solid 9ct gold settings. The pieces we have at the moment are:
Solid Gold Glass Cremation Necklace (pics to follow)
You don’t have to have ashes in these pieces, we’re also happy to add any dry materials such as snips of hair, sand, umbilical cord, fabric. There may be a small extra charge for breastmilk as we’ll need to dry it first. You won’t be able to see these items in the glass because they’ll burst into beautiful flames in the torch, but you will see little flecks of multicoloured ashes and an interesting bubble pattern unique to the elements included.
Freeze Drying Machine
We have a huge industrial freeze drying machine now to really speed things up. We can dry hundreds of vials of preserved milk, quite literally, overnight. It’ll help us manage more orders.
Heart Necklace
Literally back by popular demand are those cute little 18mm heart necklaces. They’re a small exception to our “handmade” rule, although the resin and glass hearts will be handmade we have found a new supplier for the crown heart settings.
Funeral Home Packages
You can order directly through your funeral home and it won’t cost you any more. Your funeral director can order on your behalf and your jewellery will skip our usual queue. We can even send them some sample pieces made with faux ashes to show clients. You can ask them to get in touch or see our Funeral Home Packages page for some more info.
Some Sad News
I’m sure some of you are aware I’m a single parent now, meaning that I’m relying totally on this little company to succeed to feed my family and not rely on benefits. It makes me super grateful to everyone for your support and proud to be able to give work to other work at home parents. We’ll still offer our Irides pro bono slots for some simple cremation ash, cord and lock of hair pieces. We’ll still work with bloggers, vloggers and other social media influencers who have a great reach to an engaged audience, just see our media & influencer page if you’re interested. It also means we’ll be a little stricter with our terms and conditions and refund policy and I’d like to remind people that if you don’t agree with the T’s and C’s we ask you to please not order in the first place.
Cloth Nappies and Breastfeeding
And finally, some happy news as our admin manager, Joanna prepares to welcome their first baby. Joanna has been a client of ours since the very beginning and I can’t wait to make her some breastmilk jewellery when bubs arrives. It’s been lovely chatting about babywearing and cloth nappies (diapers) with a woman I know will be a fantastic mum. Biting my tongue to try and avoid giving the “helpful” advice has been fun but to everyone expecting their first squish or first older child to care for, is to ignore the advice, smile and nod, then parent the way that feels natural.
Thanks for reading and please comment below if you’re not a troll x
Nikki Lovegrove
Owner & Artist