How to Make Your Own Affordable Quality Breast Milk Jewelry
When I first heard about breast milk jewelry, I scoffed at the idea. Why would anyone care about preserving their breastmilk in a weird piece of jewelry?
Fast forward a few months to when I started making plans to wean my baby, and I found myself thinking about breastmilk jewelry and how I wanted some.
In fact, I felt like I needed it. I felt that I could not wean my daughter without preserving some of my breastmilk into a keepsake. My breastfeeding journey had been full of so many ups and downs. I needed some way to honor all the trials and tribulations as well as the breastfeeding bond I shared with my daughter.
Breastmilk jewelry seemed like the perfect way to memorialize the special time in my life as a nursing mother. It also seemed like a meaningful keepsake to pass on to my daughter one day, so that she could always have a small part of me and our special bond.
I started researching ways to make my own breast milk jewelry or have a piece made for me. I’ll be sharing here what I found to be the best way to make breast milk jewelry, including the products I used and the process.
Breast Milk Jewelry Options
There are 3 options when it comes to acquiring a piece of your own breast milk jewelry;
1. Buy a DIY Kit: Breastmilk jewelry kits will have everything you need (jewelry blank, resin, breastmilk preservation powder).
2. Have someone else make your jewelry: Send a small amount of breastmilk to a jewelry maker who will craft your piece for you.
3. Follow a DIY method using your own materials: For example, some online tutorials recommend using ingredients like cornstarch, Mod Podge, and resin).
4. Make your own DIY kit: Buy breastmilk preservation powder, resin, jewelry blanks, and a silicone mold).
I wanted to find the most affordable and highest quality option for my breast milk jewelry. I also had specific types of jewelry pieces in mind.
After considering each of the above options, I found that number 4 was my best bet; making my own DIY breast milk jewelry kit. I could make multiple pieces of customized jewelry that I knew would be great quality for half the cost of a good DIY kit sold online.
I liked the idea of making multiple jewelry pieces because I wanted to have one that I could always keep as a tangible memory, as well as one to pass on to my daughter.
So I needed to find a great breastmilk preservation powder, some nice jewelry blanks, molds to match the blanks, and some resin.
Supplies to Make Your Own Breast Milk Jewelry Kit
1. Breastmilk Preservation Powder
After shopping around online, I decided that the best option for ready-mixed breastmilk preservation powder was from Precious Relics Jewels.
I like that this seller shares a little bit about her product and story. Additionally, her breastmilk preservation process requires heating the breastmilk to kill bacteria and stabilize it. This is not called for with all breastmilk preservation powders.
I did not want any mold or weird bacteria growing in my jewelry pieces down the road, so the heating process seemed like an important one in the jewelry making process.
Oddly, the recipe for breastmilk preservation powder seems to be top secret, because I could not find any sellers who list the ingredients in their powder blends. While the Precious Relics seller also does not share the ingredients, she at least explains that the ingredients are non-toxic.
She also uses eco-friendly packaging as much as possible. Bonus is that she also sells small bottles of Ecopoxy resin. So I bought a packet of her Everlast Dust and her resin refills.
These two items cost me $35.34 including tax and shipping.
2. Epoxy Resin to Mix with Breastmilk Powder
You mix your preserved breastmilk powder with resin to form your breastmilk stone. You can also use resin to adhere your stone to a jewelry blank, if you’re not using a pronged jewelry blank.
As mentioned above, I bought a two-part resin mixture from Precious Relics Jewels along with the preservation powder.
3. Jewelry Blanks to Hold Your Breastmilk Stone
You will need some jewelry blanks to hold your breast milk gems.
I love rose gold jewelry, so bought 2 rose gold plated 925 sterling silver pendant blanks (a blank is the frame of a pendant with an open spot for a stone to be inserted) from Gem Beads 2012. This Etsy shop has tons of different jewelry blank options. I also bought a rose gold plated sterling silver ring.
I like 925 sterling silver for jewelry because it is nickel-free (hypoallergenic), durable, and affordable.
I also considered stainless steel jewelry blanks, since stainless steel is also durable and even more affordable than 925 sterling silver. Some people, however, may have reactions to stainless steel jewelry.
Since my daughter has very sensitive skin and I plan on giving her the breast milk pendant piece one day, I wanted to go with the best hypoallergenic option.
I spent $21.72 on my 3 sterling silver 925 jewelry blanks.
4. Silicone Mold for Breast Milk Stone
There are lots of options when it comes to buying a silicone mold. You just need to make sure the size mold you are buying matches the size of your jewelry blank.
I kept it simple and bought a mold for 3, 6x8mm ovals to match my three 6x8mm oval jewelry blanks.
The Etsy shop SOS Molds has so many different molds and the ones I got from this shop worked great. I spent about $5 excluding tax and shipping for a 3 piece mold.
5. Additional Materials
- Toothpicks
- Gloves (to use while mixing resin)
- Small flat tray
- Parchment paper
- Something to grind your breastmilk powder
- 5 ml measuring cup or syringe
- small measuring cups or spoon to mix equal parts of resin part a and resin part b together
- small disposable cup to mix resin and powder in
- popsicle stick or other small tool to mix resin
Making Your DIY Breast Milk Jewelry
Looking at all the steps may feel like a lot of hard work, especially when you are already a busy mom. In reality though, it’s a pretty straightforward process. As long as you have all of your materials, you shouldn’t have any problems making your own beautiful breastmilk jewelry!
I followed Precious Relic’s step-by-step instructions to make my breast milk stones. Below is a little insight into the process, but if you end up purchasing Everlast Dust I recommend following the instructions from the source!
1. Gather Your Supplies
The first step is making sure you have ordered and gathered all of your supplies. This was the most time-consuming part of the whole process.
2. Collect Your Breast Milk
The next step is collecting a small amount of your own milk. You do not need much! I was dreading having to bring out my pump and fill a breastmilk storage bag, but as it turns out, I just hand-expressed the tiniest bit of milk which was enough to mix with the preservation powder. You only need 5 mLs if you are using Everlast Dust preservation powder.
3. Heat Your Breast Milk
Precious Relics recommends a double broiler method to heat your breastmilk so that you do not overheat it.
I put a little bit boiling water in a small pot and set a small fry pan on top. Then I added the milk to the fry pan and let it heat up until the edges were lightly bubbling.
3. Combine Your Breast Milk with Your Preservation Powder
Then I added the preservation powder to the heated breastmilk in the fry pan and mixed them well.
4. Spread Your Mixture Out to Dry
Spread your preserved breastmilk mixture into a thin layer on a piece of parchment paper. This helps it dry out and release moisture.
4. Wait While Your Breastmilk Powder Dries
Precious Relics explains that this is a critical step in the preservation process. Luckily you do not have to do anything, but let your powder sit in a protected area out of direct sunlight.
The drying process takes at least 24-48 hours, according to the Everlast Dust Instructions. I let my powder sit for 48 hours, and then for another 48 hours after grinding it.
5. Crush Your Preserved Breast Milk Into a Fine Powder
I did not have a mortar and pestle, so just used my espresso tamper. I ground it right on the piece of parchment paper it had been drying on.
6. Mix Your Breastmilk Powder with Resin
After waiting for another couple of days for the powder to dry out even more, I did another quick grind session to turn it into an even finer powder and then got everything ready to start mixing the resin.
I mixed the resin and then added in a little bit of preserved breastmilk powder. I kept adding small amounts until it was a nice opaque color.
7. Fill Your Molds
I ended up having more breastmilk powder than I could use for my 3 jewelry pieces, so I made a couple “gemstones” for my 4 year old. I still had a bunch of powder left over even after this, so I may make more stones in the future.
8. Wait for Your Breast Milk Stones to Cure
After letting your filled molds sit for at least 24 hours, you will have your beautiful keepsakes!
The breast milk ring and pendants I made turned out great. And making the jewelry was a satisfying process and surprisingly relaxing.
And now that I have my keepsakes to memorialize my breastfeeding journey and nursing bond with my daughter, I feel ready to complete the weaning process and step into the next phase of motherhood!
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