EXCERP: No surprises here, milk turns yellow naturally. This is a challenge all breast milk jewelry artisans are faced with. If you’ve decided to get a jewelry piece done with your breast milk, you obviously want a tangible and timeless keepsake, one that will keep its colour for the rest of your life. One that will forever remind you of the precious moments with your baby.

No surprises here, milk turns yellow naturally. This is a challenge all breast milk jewelry artisans are faced with.

If you’ve decided to get a jewelry piece done with your breast milk, you obviously want a tangible and timeless keepsake, one that will keep its colour for the rest of your life. One that will forever remind you of the precious moments with your baby.

I’ve mentioned it before (DIY kits article), sadly many companies out there sooner or later are faced with the lack of rigour in their creation process and are forced to shut down operations a few months in because of increasing complaints from customers – whether it’s because the jewel’s colour has become yellow, the solvent has broken upon delivery, or the mount didn’t hold up… And there’s really nothing we can do about it; the company has gone belly up!

True creators know how to create a long-lasting product

If you want quality, long-lasting and guaranteed jewelry, you’ve come to the right place!

The process I use to create pearls is completely different from most other online stores who usually just transform milk into powder and insert it in a glass bubble (which tends to be brittle) or create a white pearl initially but are unable to guarantee it will stay white. The result is that the jewel turns yellow, brown, or even green. So much for a timeless and long-lasting keepsake!

At La Joie En Rose, I work in a completely different way. One of my tricks for pearls to stay white is a stable solidification process in addition to using resin. Instead of using glass, resin allows for a much wider variety of models and shapes – and even personalized pearls!

True creators are hard-working

There is no way around it, in order to offer a guaranteed, long-lasting quality product, an artisan must invest hours upon hours of time in research.

I have spent countless hours researching and experimenting with different chemical processes with cow’s milk at first, and then with kindly donated breast milk – shout-out to these generous Moms.

I quickly realized that creating a white pearl is quite easy, only to find out after a few weeks that bacteria would take over and make the colour turn. Then after more testing, eureka! I found the way to stabilize the whole process.

I won’t reveal all my secrets here, but one thing I can say is that I’ve come to a deep understanding of my jewelry and I am 100% confident with the quality of my creations for having worked hard on the process itself.

My advice therefore is to make sure to deal with artisans who understand the fabrication method and who will be in a position to address all of your questions BEFORE initiating the creation process and AFTER the jewel has been delivered. That should give a good indication of quality, in my opinion.

True creators know their product

Knowing full well my product and the process, I am also able to provide guidance on caring for the jewelry.

Resin is a raw material sensitive to UV rays and heat (except for resin with mercury, a highly toxic chemical). Therefore, if you wish to keep your pearl white and keep it for a long time, you need to avoid long exposure to direct sunlight, such as sun bathing or taking a long bath with the jewelry.

In any case, you will find all of my maintenance tips on my FAQ section and you are always welcome to contact me directly with specific questions or hesitations.

That being said, my promise to you is that if you follow my advice, your pearl will remain as beautiful and white as when you first got it.

True creators know how to repair

 If you are reading this and find yourself with a pearl made by someone else that has turned yellow, fear not: all is not lost.

Of course, if you are still breastfeeding, the easiest would be to contact me for a brand new, guaranteed pearl.

If, however, you no longer have breast milk to send, I am happy to announce a new service for your pearl named “Second Life”. Access it here by filling out the form and choosing your preferred jewelry from our selection or any other custom jewelry.

I will redo a white pearl with your yellow or deteriorated pearl. If my care instructions are followed, it will not change colour and will remain beautiful for years.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate just how important it is for me to maintain a relationship with my customers and to be available to answer all of your questions before, during, and after the designing process.

If your pearl has turned yellow or you’re having a hard time choosing a model of breast milk jewelry, contact me. It’s free! I will quickly get back to you and I promise that no matter your previous experience, my jewelry will live up to your most cherished memories!

EXCERP: Today, I would like to discuss a subject we seldom talk about in our culture. It hurts to talk about it and leaves most of us at a loss for words. What is it? Perinatal bereavement.If you are reading this article, you are no doubt aware that I create jewelry from breast milk. Each piece is a precious keepsake of an intimate time with our young one. Too often though, I create jewelry for women who have lost their baby.

Today, I would like to discuss a subject we seldom talk about in our culture. It hurts to talk about it and leaves most of us at a loss for words. What is it? Perinatal bereavement.

If you are reading this article, you are no doubt aware that I create jewelry from breast milk. Each piece is a precious keepsake of an intimate time with our young one. Too often though, I create jewelry for women who have lost their baby. In those cases, the memento is not only precious – it is priceless.

Orphaned parents

We call them ‘orphaned parents’, though there is no word in English for a parent who loses a child. I want to reveal to you a little bit about these moms and dads who go through the terrible trial of losing a child.

To begin with, if you are going through or have lived through such grief, you should know that there are a number of associations that exist for parents who just need to talk to people who will really understand them. One such association is Parents Orphelins. They define perinatal bereavement as ‘the death of a baby that occurs during the course of the pregnancy, in baby birth or during the first year of life.’

Regardless of the reason for the death of the baby – miscarriage, abortion for therapeutic reasons, sudden infant death, foetal death, or neonatal death – the psychological toll on parents is massive and the whole family is affected by the death of a child. Of course, we tend to think first of the mother who carried her baby and the physical and psychological loss of her child, but we oftentimes forget the father, as well as the siblings and grand-parents who will be forever affected by the loss. Orphaned parents, and families too.

The day everything changed

It’s impossible to measure the heartache and grief cannot be mapped on a timeline. Everyone is different, and everyone will grieve in their own way.

On the CHU de Sainte-Justine website, the section entitled The day everything changed is dedicated to perinatal bereavement. Clearly, this is the reality of many, though it is not well known and often difficult to understand. Of course, all can appreciate the gravity of this event, but clearly knowing how to react, what to say, and what to do for the grieving families is a challenge for many.

Whether you personally have lived through this trial or know someone going through it, I would urge you to consult the videos posted on the pages I just referred to above (link here). You will meet parents who tell their story and explain how they were able to overcome this ordeal. I am hopeful this will help eliminate certain taboos.

Supporting bereaved families 

In its section Supporting a bereaved parent, the association Parents Orphelins gives many tips to help us support relatives or friends living through this situation. Another association, Les Perséides, also offers suggestions worthy of careful consideration in the section entitled Aider un proche (in French only). Here are some of them:

• Don’t shy away just because you don’t know what to say; keep in close contact with the bereaved parents
• Listen; showing interest doesn’t mean you have to do all the talking
• Allow the bereaved to talk about the baby as much as they want and every time they need to, even if that makes you uneasy
• Use the baby’s name when you talk about him/her
• Respect the parents’ need for alone time at different stages of the grieving
• Show special consideration to the baby’s siblings
• Avoid hurtful clichés such as “at least you can have another one”, “at least you have other kids”, “at least he/she died before you really got to know them”, etc.
• Remember that the baby is unique and will always be a part of the family that was expecting him/her or in which he/she was briefly a part of, and no other child will ever replace it.

For you, mothers

Lastly, a thought for you, dear moms who have carried and interacted with your baby. Your body and hormones are also coming to terms with the loss and you may still experience your breast milk coming in. Some mothers choose to stop milk production through drug therapy, while others wish to donate their breast milk, and others still may seek psychological support with a lactation specialist. There are no right or wrong choices.

I am regularly in contact with mothers who wish to safeguard the memory of the short time spent with their child by creating jewelry with their breast milk, and all of their accounts are so touching. Sometimes, a close relative will contact me for the mother. Every time, I am moved. These children will always hold a special place in their mom’s heart and the little I can do helps to keep their memory alive.

Unfortunately, perinatal bereavement is a far too common affliction. There are so many orphaned parents and bereaved families. Break down taboos. Let’s openly share our precious memories about these tiny stars that will forever twinkle in our lives.

EXCERP: The main reason why we purchase breastmilk jewelry is to have a precious memory of our breastfeeding journey. We want to cherish those memories forever. Breastmilk jewelry can be a little something that reminds us of all those gentle breastfeeding moments we shared with our little ones. I bet you recently discovered that it’s now possible to transform your breast milk into a unique and tangible …

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I bet you recently discovered that it’s now possible to transform your breast milk into a unique and tangible piece of breastmilk jewelry at La Joie En Rose. When visiting La Joie En Rose’s online boutique you can find multiple styles of BreastMilk Jewelry to match your taste.

There are probably thousands of questions that come to your mind when thinking of breastmilk jewelry such as, “how is it made?” and those questions are totally normal. Let’s be honest, this is not the kind of jewelry you can buy at Walmart…!

Today, I felt like sharing with you my experience working with breastmilk jewelry while at the same time answering some of the questions you may have. I will share with you what has been for over a year now, my day-to-day life creating breastmilk jewelry.

MANY HOURS OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TO FIND THE PERFECT RECIPE

I have worked really hard developing the perfect “recipe” to create my breastmilk jewelry. I spent many hours researching and talking to my partner who has a lot of knowledge in chemistry and works in the mining industry. I have done thousands of tests to find the perfect recipe. At first, I was using cow milk and as I was getting closer to creating the optimal recipe I began using breast milk that moms would nicely lend out to me. I like to call them my “guinea pig moms”!

Do you want to know what I got out of the first couple tests? Well! I created a kind of cheese…!

At first, it had a beautiful white color, almost too pretty to be real. To be honest, a couple weeks later, the bacteria started to do their work and I am pretty sure that under a microscope you could find a whole village working at it. At that point, I knew I had a lot more work to do.

I went back to square one. I began reading about it and then began doing more tests. Finally, I found THE perfect formula to create a breastmilk jewelry pearl that will be forever white!

Do you want to know what my main ingredient is? It’s………….. Love!!! Oh yes! I told you I was going to answer some of your questions, but not his one! Haha!

ONE OF MY SECRETS, REVEALED…

Here is a very important secret! You won’t get to know them all, but you will get this one 😉 . To create non-tarnishing and impeccable breastmilk pearl, I mainly use resin.  This main ingredient is what makes my recipe successful, but… my breastmilk jewelry requires good care.

You must know that currently, none of the safe forms of resin on the market is 100% UV resistant or resistant to Mr. Sun.  There is one kind of resin that is UV rays resistant, but it’s made of mercury, a highly toxic ingredient for our health. For this reason, I don’t use this type of resin in my jewelry. The day you’re planning on sun tanning, spending hours under the hot sun, or during that precious week of vacation (you know the one where you will be laying on the beach all day long in Cuba) with your breastmilk jewelry around your neck? On those days simply take off your jewelry and leave it somewhere safe!

My breastmilk jewelry is water resistant, but know that heat is not its friend. You shouldn’t be wearing your breastmilk jewelry when taking a super-hot bath for hours on end (I know it can be tempting to admire your breast milk ring while in the bath 😉 )…  If you want long-lasting breastmilk jewelry you should avoid wearing it under those conditions. That being said, taking a 5 to 10 minute shower in between breastfeeding your little one, or doing a load of laundry and preparing a snack for your oldest, is totally fine for your breastmilk jewelry. Lol!

As you have decided to purchase your own breastmilk jewelry from La Joie En Rose, I know that you want to preserve the good quality of this precious souvenir of your breastfeeding journey. In fact, I know you will make sure to take good care of it, as suggested. 😉

If you follow the caring instruction I forwarded to you when receiving your breastmilk jewelry, it will definitely last for a long time, unlike the breastmilk jewelry you could have created using a DIY kit. Those DIY kits don’t offer that type of warranty! I have actually written a post on that subject, it’s right here.

One day, you could tell your grandchild: “This pearl is a symbol of my perseverance and of my love for your dad/ your mom when I was breastfeeding them. It’s the joy I shared with my baby that kept me going and it’s with this breastmilk jewelry that I will forever keep this memory alive.”

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions! I will be more than happy to answer them and maybe it will inspire me to write many other blog posts.

Cheers!

Karine xx

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EXCERP: The main reason why we purchase breast milk jewelry is to have a precious memory of our breastfeeding journey. We want to cherish those memories forever. Breast milk jewelry can be a little something that reminds us of all those gentle breastfeeding moments we shared with our little ones.

A few thoughts on breast milk jewelry DIY kits

The main reason why we purchase breast milk jewelry is to have a precious memory of our breastfeeding journey. We want to cherish those memories forever. Breast milk jewelry can be a little something that reminds us of all those gentle breastfeeding moments we shared with our little ones.

Purchasing breast milk jewelry is very similar to purchasing a newborn photo shoot or even a wedding ring. It represents a very special, once in a lifetime event.

Our main priority is to make sure that your keepsake will stay beautiful through the years; that it will represent all the self-sacrifices you made whilst breastfeeding. You want to make sure that it will be solid, strong and that it won’t tarnish quickly. Most of all, you want to make sure that you have a high-quality keepsake.

WARRANTIED BREAST MILK JEWELRY

By purchasing La Joie En Rose’s breast milk jewelry we guarantee that you will be receiving a gorgeous looking breast milk piece of jewelry. Each breast milk pearl will remain beautiful through the years and we guarantee it will not change colour. Additionally, your breast milk pearl is placed in a unique high-quality jewelry piece picked by you. Each piece of breast milk jewelry represents the emotion, difficulty, and beauty of your breastfeeding journey.

When you purchase a DIY kit (usually sold by overseas companies) you should note that in the small print at the bottom of your package you can often read, “warranty that your jewel won’t turn yellow in 6 months.” Also, many companies that offer this kind of product (mostly the ones on Etsy) often close after a couple months. It’s because those companies get a lot of bad comments about their jewels turning yellow. Sometimes they get negative comments about the solvent that leaked in the package or even that the breast milk jewel or jewelry broke after a couple days. It could even be that the customer simply never received their DIY kit. Anyways, lots of people are wasting their precious time and money on a cheap DIY kit. We should also mention that most of the people never got their money back because many of the companies often go out of business.

With La Joie En Rose it’s quite the opposite. We make sure that you are fully satisfied and that is our number one priority.

HIGH-QUALITY BREAST MILK JEWELRY

At La Joie En Rose our procedure is to create a high-quality breast milk jewel that is very different from the DIY kit. When you buy a DIY kit your milk is transformed into dust to then be inserted into a glass bubble. In addition to not being aesthetically beautiful the breast milk jewel is also very fragile because it is made up of cheap glass. Most of the moms are reporting that their jewel turned yellow or even brown after a couple months when using a DIY kit. La Joie En Rose’s has a different process that doesn’t use powder or glass and your jewel won’t turn brown as our solidification compound made of resin has proved itself to maintain that long lasting appearance that you want. Our techniques, combined with high-materials will give you a breast milk jewel that will look new and last a lifetime!

A WIDE CHOICE OF FRAMES AND JEWELRY TO FIT YOUR TASTES

It’s also important to know that the DIY kits are very limited in frame choices. Most of them only offer sterling silver or other cheap metals.

At La Joie En Rose we offer a wide range of metal frames from silver to rose gold; our choices are infinite. Depending on your preference, your breast milk jewel can be mounted onto a pendant, ring or even earrings.

We also offer you the possibility to customize your breast milk jewel. As we work with resin instead of glass we can create as many shapes as possible to fit your needs.

Choosing breast milk jewelry from La Joie En Rose is knowing that your breast milk jewelry will maintain its high-quality standard and that it will be durable and forever lasting. Last but not least, it’s made by a Canadian professional that really knows her art.

Everything can be customized, from your piece of jewelry, all the way to your frame and to your breast milk pearl itself. We make sure all the details are thought of to ensure you get a unique piece of breast milk jewelry.

At La Joie En Rose, we create breast milk jewelry to match the emotion of your breastfeeding journey.

For us, what matters the most is our customer needs are met before, during and after your breast milk jewelry is created. We guarantee your full satisfaction.

Excerp: When Valentina López Brito gave birth to her son five months ago, she wanted something special to commemorate the life she created. “I really wanted to have something unique and just mine,” she told Global News. The mother of four breastfed all her children, describing the experience as “beautiful.”

Source: http://globalnews.ca/news/3657258/quebec-jeweller-makes-unique-rings-out-of-breast-milk/?utm_source=GlobalMontreal&utm_medium=Facebook

When Valentina López Brito gave birth to her son five months ago, she wanted something special to commemorate the life she created.

“I really wanted to have something unique and just mine,” she told Global News.

The mother of four breastfed all her children, describing the experience as “beautiful.”

“It’s something of us, of him and me, only ours. My body produces it by him and for him. It’s like our secret,” she said.RELATED

“It is our instinct, his instinct for hunger or comfort, I suppose.”

She turned to Karine Lajoie, a Quebec jeweller currently living in B.C., who turns breast milk into unique pieces of jewelry.

“With four kids, they are always playing with whatever that hangs on me — earrings, necklace — so, a ring is perfect,” López Brito said.

“[It] is on the same finger with my wedding ring, so altogether.”

Lajoie told Global News she discovered breast milk jewelry about a year ago via designers in Australia and the United States.

“I was immediately challenged by this unique and meaningful creative material. The challenge is to work with a lively material loaded with stories,” she said.

She explained she puts the breast milk through a process of solidification and preservation to be then worked with resin.

The process takes about a week before the jewel is set aside to dry before being molded into something wearable.

“Making it a tangible, durable and beautiful jewel,” she explained.

“It is a very long process, but allows to create milk beads totally different from each other.”

She communicates with her customers through her online shop, La Joie en Rose, and says she has a waiting list of about four to six weeks.

“My work is to allow breastfeeding women to keep a tangible keepsake of the bond created during breastfeeding,” Lajoie told Global News.

“Every story is unique as my jewelry and women thank me because often the end of breastfeeding represents a mourning to make and this jewel allows them to complete the loop.”

Source: http://globalnews.ca/news/3657258/quebec-jeweller-makes-unique-rings-out-of-breast-milk/?utm_source=GlobalMontreal&utm_medium=Facebook

Source: http://www.momzelle.com/fr/blog/2017/02/bijoux-et-souvenirs-fabriques-partir-de-votre-precieux-lait-maternel/

A natural gold, a source of authentic life, a precious liquid, this is what your breast milk represents. This special link between mother and child is engraved forever in your heart and it’s now possible to keep a tangible memory of this unique journey. Karine Lajoie, owner and creator of the company La Joie En Rose proposes to transform your liquid gold into a pearl of milk and then inserts it in a jewel or mold of the desired shape!

My atypical way to offer you an extraordinary product

Quebec’s native and now living in Western Canada for 3 years, I was a functionary who died slowly behind her computer. The decision to quit everything (work, home, friends and family) for the unknown accompanied by my husband was the beginning of a new life but also a kind of rebirth. La Joie En Rose was born out of the desire to take my professional life in my hands and to offer women products that resemble me: unique and out of the ordinary.

The act of breastfeeding exceeds nutrition. It’s a way of communicating with the child. Breast milk is complex and inimitable. This makes it a material of unsuspected value.

Using my professional process of solidification and preservation of breast milk, the affordable and personalized service is now available to you in a single click! Odorless and absolutely gorgeous, each pearl of milk is unique in its color from a creamy yellow to a more pearly white, and even the translucency can vary. Your jewel or keepsake also made with resin and accompanied by high quality frames will be the color of your breast milk. You’ll even have the option of including the first curl of baby hair!

La Joie En Rose proposes to immortalize your journey of breastfeeding by a human service, effective and guaranteed. You will receive detailed and safe instructions for sending your precious breast milk as well as for the maintenance of your jewel or keepsake. An irreplaceable experience as well as the link that unites your child and you!