Mother of 3 makes jewelry out of breast milk

Ann Marie Sharoupim has created over 15,000 jewelry parts with her enterprise “Mamma’s Liquid Enjoy” by encapsulating just one of the most priceless gifts a mom can give to her toddler: breast milk.

“Breastfeeding is bodily and mentally draining,” Sharoupim, a 35-calendar year-old mother of three from Rutherford, shared with NJ Advance Media. “When mothers get their piece, I’m normally explained to, it is their most prized possession. I’m so blessed to operate a organization that tends to make this sort of specific keepsakes.”

Sharoupim commenced her on the internet jewelry small business in 2016 and produces her one of a kind keepsakes from her household. In 2015, Sharoupim experienced her 2nd daughter, Gabriella, and was struggling to make more than enough breast milk whilst also dealing with postpartum depression and anxiousness.

“I had my initial daughter, Rebecca, in 2013,” she reported. “Motherhood modified my earth. What I when assumed was challenging, paled in comparison to nursing a little one 8 occasions a working day and pumping for her 10 times a working day to retain her alive.”

Asking for aid, Sharoupim’s near close friend gave her a two-7 days offer of breast milk, which not only presented her with some relief but influenced her to create a priceless gift.

“I regularly considered of how to repay her and by Xmas time of that yr, I perfected a chemical components that would be capable to maintain breast milk,” Sharoupim claimed. “I gave her a necklace designed from her son’s milk and she broke down and cried. She pushed me to start Mamma’s Liquid Enjoy. I truly feel so fortuitous to be equipped to change my enthusiasm into a small business.”

Sharoupim graduated from Rutgers University’s Ernest Mario University of Pharmacy in 2011 and worked as a full-time pharmacist for approximately 10 many years prior to she focusing on her business enterprise fulltime. Using her background in chemistry, Sharoupim reported she was able to carry out several trials to efficiently produce a chemical and mechanical system that solidifies breast milk.

Rising up, Sharoupim would make bead jewelry and loved gifting her pieces to her pals and observing their reactions. “There’s anything so satisfying about creating a thing that men and women discover to be wonderful. That emotion I experienced as a little one was reignited when I started Mamma’s Liquid Appreciate,” Sharoupim claimed.

Sharoupim stated currently being a working mother and commencing a new company was no straightforward feat.

“I did not go whole time with my business enterprise until 2020, so I was doing the job my pharmacy position, getting treatment of two youthful kids, and hoping to operate a business enterprise,” she stated. “I was surviving on two-3 hrs of snooze a evening. My family basically held an intervention to attempt to get me to shut my enterprise.”

By 2019, Sharoupim considered she may have to close down her organization, but identified anyone to aid her run it. “It was as if God was telling me, ‘You’re not accomplished. You’re meant to do this,’” she said.

Sharoupim has sold in excess of 15,000 jewellery items and has expanded her enterprise to contain producing unique pendants and gems out of clients’ breast milk, hair, placenta, ashes, umbilical cords, and even infant tooth.

“After creating breast milk pendants, I began experimenting with my placenta capsules,” she reported. “Placenta capsules developed a attractive amber colour. I started out obtaining much more requests such as umbilical cords and hair. Gals intend on obtaining just a single piece, but it gets their most prized possession. It symbolizes their difficult work and their sacrifice.

“Over the decades we’ve had much more gentlemen purchase for their associates. It is not only a lovely present but is also a image of appreciation. They get a good deal of brownie points.”

Sharoupim obtained her 1st ashes ask for from a consumer who had requested a breast milk piece earlier.

“She tragically misplaced her husband and questioned if we could make her a memento with his ashes,” Sharoupim claimed. “She liked the piece we manufactured several years earlier and told me we were the only business she reliable with her husband’s ashes.”

Orders declined in the course of the top of the coronavirus pandemic, Sharoupim described. “I took that time to remake my web-site, swap platforms, structure and launch 50 new goods, and redesign my packaging,” she reported. “Making those people alterations were being video game changers for my company. The 2nd 50 percent of 2020 resulted in two times the revenue of 2019. You have to learn to change your attitude and not take failure.”

Sharoupim donates a part of her gross sales to the Littlest Lamb, a non-revenue that can help present foods, shelter and education and learning to hundreds of orphaned kids in Egypt.

“Growing up, my mother and father constantly mentioned ‘Money is significant, but not for what it can buy, but for what it can do’,” she explained, “I carried that with me through my lifetime and charity is an integral part of my small business. My mom was orphaned at the age of 5, so Littlest Lamb is dear to my heart.”

In Egypt, adoption is illegal, leaving many little ones in perilous cases, she explained. Many orphans are bodily and sexually abused, she described. “We partnered with littlest lamb in 2021 and have elevated (and) donated over $120,000 due to the fact,” she Sharoupim mentioned. “Littlest lamb is growing their residence and are awaiting permits to construct. My hope is for Mamma’s Liquid Enjoy to fund their challenge and rescue about 100 orphans.

“We’ve also donated to quite a few organizations encompassing infant reduction. We create keepsakes for moms and dads that have gone via the unimaginable reduction of a youngster. I hope to do a great deal more in the future.”

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Vashti Harris may well be achieved at [email protected].