What you will need in addition to this kit can most likely be found at home in your kitchen right now.
You will need the following:
INSTRUCTIONS
Set up your two pots as a double boiler, adding water to only the bottom pot, let the water come to a simmer and heat the top pot up.
Add 5ml of breastmilk to the top pot and warm the milk
Once the milk is warm, add the entire packet of Milkies Preserving Powder to the milk
Stir the powder through the breastmilk thoroughly until the milk becomes a thick paste, like toothpaste.
Spread the milk onto the baking paper and let dry for 24 -48 hrs ( if the milk is cold to the touch it is most likely still not dry enough )
Once the milk is dry, place the milk onto a mortar and pestle or your bowl fro grinding and grind the milk into the finest powder you can (if the milk sticks to the side of the bowl in a paste consistency then the milk needs more drying, repeat the above step)
your milk is now ready to be used in crafting your keepsake or sending to a DNA artist for crafting with.
DISTCLAIMER
DIY powders are a fantastic for some sentimental, in your own home craft, preserving tour memories, but nothing compares to a professional preservation of such a sentimental inclusion such as breastmilk.
DIY powders of any kind contain colour stabilisers to account for user error as preservation of Breastmilk professionally requires many years of experience and skill.
Please keep this powder safe from little hands and do not attempt to consume your powder.
Remove any resin contact with skin immediately with rubbing alcohol based product or suitable diluted essential oil.
If irritation occurs consult your medical practitioner immediately.
Many thanks for being such a wonderful community here at Breastmilk Jewellery.
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CVD, or Chemicall Vapor Deposition, diamonds. To the uninitiated, the name is often met with blank stares and raised eyebrows; most people have no idea (or an erroneous idea) of what CVD diamonds even are. And that’s unfortunate, because for anyone interested in diamonds, their environmental and social impact, and their cost, CVD diamonds are definitely worth looking into.
Simply put, some diamonds come from below ground and some come from above ground CVD diamonds are man-made diamonds. Unlike natural diamonds which take billions of years to form deep beneath the Earth’s surface, CVD diamonds are grown in labs. Specifically, CVD diamonds rely on a special process called Chemical Vapor Deposition (or CVD).
They may be called “synthetic,” but don’t let the term fool you. Everything, from their internal atomic structure to the way they glitter on your finger, CVD diamonds are identical to the mined diamonds that have to be excavated from the ground. CVD diamonds look exactly like so-called “natural” diamonds. In fact, even a trained jeweler cannot identify the difference. And this isn’t just the opinion of diamond manufacturers, either; in 2018, the FTC ruled that, for all intents and purposes, synthetic diamonds and natural diamonds are the same thing: 100% a diamond!
So, if you've made it this far into the post, you'd be wondering, how much are they?
In the market, these stones can be sold for anywhere from $1000 to $4000 a carat in a shop, however if you really want to know about the trade secret, is that these stones only costs around $500-600 a carat for something semi decent. Not the top of the line, but good enough for a nice fat bling on your finger.
We get asked a lot in regards to how to achieve a quality ring with the all the bells and whistles at the lowest cost, and to be honest, investing in a piece of jewellery can, for some, be a big investment.
Your new bling is something that you are going to staring at and admiring quite a lot during the day, and others will be having a sly glance also, so it is important that you not only get the best advice you can on choosing the best materials, but you actually LIKE the item you have purchased.
One of the biggest questions that we get asked is if we can set diamonds in sterling silver, and to honest, yes, we can, but we don’t at all recommend it for either lab made or natural diamonds.
Sterling silver is a soft metal, and setting diamonds into a sterling silver setting run the risk of the diamond falling out.
If it is the look of sterling silver and the luxury of diamonds that appeals to you then we highly recommend upgrading to white gold, white gold is a very strong metal, white gold is made from pure gold and a mixture of white metals, generally nickel and palladium, making it scratch resistant and very strong, stronger than yellow or rose gold.
Some choose to rhodium plate their gold, however it is a big misconception that this is a must.
So now you are probably wondering if you are stuck with a sterling silver setting with a cheap CZ stone?, the answer is no, just like diamonds, CZ also have different grades, the lowest grade being an A and the highest being a AAAAA, CZ definitely lack some of the qualities a diamonds has, for one they do not have the depth and brilliance of a natural diamonds and do not hold light the same way, but they do both have a beautiful sparkle especially when you have an amazing cut and high grade, in fact, some can’t even tell the difference between the two unless they know what they are looking for.
Let's start with Casting:
Major jewellery stores mainly sell mass-produced cast products, largely from India and China. Cast production includes:
1.hand carving a design in wax, casting it and polishing. It is obviously not handmade.
2. Buying cast components and soldering them together.
3. Designing a ring using CAD (Computer-Aided Design program), printing a wax ring from that design, and casting it.
A model is made in wax, a mould is then made and molten gold is poured into the mould. Upon cooling, the mould is broken open and you have gold in the shape of a ring. It is then sanded back and polished. However, since it is all in one finished piece, areas that are indented prove difficult to reach, leading to a poor quality final polish in those parts.
The downside to casting is the gold is softer and lighter because it has been heated to a liquid state, cooled quickly and not hammered. Also, it may have bubbles – tiny holes in the surface or just under the surface – known as porosity. This softer gold does not hold a good polish and scratches far more easily than a quality handmade product. With time, cast rings start to lose their crisp shape and wear badly, thinning on the underside of the ring.
Hand made jewellery is made by jewellers using rolling mills, hammers, files and heat – all traditional craftsman’s techniques. The rolling and hammering cause the gold to become denser, stronger and therefore more durable. It holds a better polish, lasts longer and resists bending or losing shape.
As with everything that is hand made, there may be evidence of its handmade crafting, solder joins, tiny burrs, these are just a few, they were made with human hands and eyes after all.
The last stage of creating handmade jewellery is the final polishing. Though all pieces of the ring are given a perfect finish and are highly polished before being soldered together, the complete ring gets a final high-quality polish once all pieces of the ring are together.
If you desire the highest quality ring, a handmade, high-quality Palladium-rich, nickel-free gold ring is the only way to go. Palladium rich 18ct white gold is purer, whiter and causes no allergic reactions. Nickel is often included in cast items and may cause skin irritations.
So what are the Pros and Con's to mass-produced cast products?
Hand made
When a jeweller produces a cast piece of jewellery, they start by a model of it in another material. When making a piece from scratch by hand, they will work in metal from the very beginning.
The same goes for your resin stones, they are also handmade and will at times show evidence of this, like most DNA companies, an imperfection under 2mm of size is considered acceptable and is classed as evidence of handmade, this includes air bubbles which resin is prone to and sometimes even with years of experience just can't be helped.
Citation:
Handmade vs Cast Jewellery, https://www.jodiegearing.com/handmade-vs-cast-jewellery/.
]]>I am your jeweller, Jenny, when you order a custom made ring or design a keepsake, it is me who lovingly hand creates this piece for you.
how did my passion start?....
Have you ever walked down the street and passed one of those big bling-bling jewellery store with the ridiculous sales tags? I see them often. Especially on holiday seasons. Personally I don't like them much. Not because they don't have pretty things but because of the lack of transparency.
Jewellery to me is suppose to be something special, something made with a thought in mind, something that is made to withstand time and can carry throughout generations. And this little store's philosophy is just that.
Quite a while back I had the good fortune to cross paths with some great talents. People with good hands, good eyes and great skills. They taught me things, they shared their passion and today as a team we are able to bring you this store.
We are creators, makers, drawers and photographers, we are tinkers, doers and we love to play. This is a place where we will share with you our skills, our knowledge and make pieces that will carry throughout the years to come.
I really look forward to working with you in the future
]]>Let me tell you a little about how this Journey of this amazing business started for me.
Like a lot of families who have been through, going through, or may go through in the future devastating loss of a child, I was determined to hold onto any memory of our little boy, I felt the need to keep everything physical I had of him, right down to the wrist band from the hospital that was on my arm, these thing, in a way, proved his existence to me, and everyone else, and in a way I felt as though by keeping these things with me, he was still earth side with me in some way.
I cam across keepsake Jewellery for loss, it intrigued me straight away, I really wanted to have something that I could hold close to me and take with me everywhere, but the though of sending my precious inclusions abroad scared the hell out of me, so, I decided, I would make my own keepsake.
I proudly shared my craft with my friends online, they saw magic and meaning in the piece and shared it with their own friends, pretty soon, I had orders coming in that were referred to me by word of mouth, then I realised, wow!, I think this is what my calling is, I felt as though my son, in some way of fate, had given me something to comfort me.
Although making these pieces for other mothers who were celebrating the life of their child the majority of the time was a little tough on my heart strings at the start, it soon turned into a comfort, and pretty soon I was so engrossed with the want to heal, connect and celebrate every family successes and feel like I had made a difference in their lives.
And so Breastmilk Jewellery was born.
Established in 2014, we are still going strong and have become one of the worlds leading Keepsake jewellers, we are proud to have come so far and have so much planned for the future for this amazing business.
As a Mother of two earthside children, it can get very hectic, but I love the support and constant encouragement that my followers, friends and family give me on a daily basis, I really do feel I am living the dream.
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