A mum of four started making jewellery out of breast milk after celebrating the end of a "hellish" year.
Ali Hawthorn's life changed after giving birth to twins Joseph and Jensen two years ago, just before the covid pandemic started. The former nursery nurse then left her job at the RSPCA while pregnant, and then the family upsized from their Wallasey home to a bigger house in "much quieter" Moreton.
The 32-year-old told the ECHO: "I had the boys at the end of February 2020 and then we went into lockdown in mid-March, and that whole year was hellish for me. It was really, really bad. My partner didn't get any furlough, so I was just at home.
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"The girls were one and three when the boys were born, still preschool age, so none of them were in school yet. So I was just at home all day every day with them, breastfeeding the boys. Obviously that was a challenge in itself having two toddlers running around as well. We lived like that for a year. It was awful.
"I was just fed up and I felt like I was nothing but a mum because I was just living and breathing kids. That was all I did every single day, and then it got to a point where my partner was coming home from work and I was in tears half the time because I was that stressed, and I said to him, 'At some point I need to do something that doesn't involve the kids, doesn't involve changing dirty nappies, doesn't involve breastfeeding'. Actually, it did end up involving breastfeeding, but at that point it wasn't going to."
In need of a new hobby, Ali embraced her "arty side" in December 2020 by making keyrings out of resin after seeing people do so on social media. As the twins' first birthday approached, Ali wanted to make something to mark the milestone.
She found inspiration in "breast milk jewellery" she'd seen online and decided it was the perfect way to celebrate a year of breastfeeding, which is "something that so many women struggle with, because it is hard, it's really challenging and it's absolutely exhausting".
Ali said: "I'd made it to a year of breastfeeding twins. I was super proud of myself and I really wanted something for their little memory boxes to have something I can look back on and say that I've done it. There are these things called 'booby milestones', so when you've done six months of breastfeeding, it's 'silver boobies', 12 months is 'golden boobies' and so on, but it starts right at the beginning, like a week, two weeks, three weeks, and then it moves on to months. Because I'd done the 12 months, I made this little bear with gold foils because I thought that was a nice way to represent a year. And it caught on pretty well."
She watched YouTube videos on preserving milk, learning how to mix the liquid with a preserving powder with a "secret recipe" before combining it with resin, shaping and setting it in moulds to make keepsakes like bears and jewellery like earrings.
Ali shared her creations in Facebook groups for mums, with Ali saying "a lot of the mums were really interested and loved how it looked". Some asked if they could buy them, and from there her craft business took off. Now she sells 15 to 20 bears a week for £28 each.
She's expanded her range to include, necklaces, rings and bracelets, and even bears made with baby teeth, hair or cremation ashes. Ali said: "The bears are probably the most popular. I often have, usually ladies message me and say they've just lost somebody and they would like something made for their child."
Ali balances her business with raising four kids, starting work on designs when they've gone to bed at 7pm, and working until 10pm for three or four nights a week, plus a chunk of the weekend. Ali said: "I'm usually half asleep making them with a cup of coffee in the evening.
"That's honestly what it's like. I'm exhausted by the end of the day, and I didn't ever anticipate that it would go the way it has. I mean, it started off as a hobby, and then before I knew it, I was a few months in and I was invited to go on [ITV's] This Morning with Eamonn and Ruth. That was absolutely terrifying, it's like a surreal memory now.
"I was so nervous about going on the telly. It's the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. I can remember them saying to me, 'We're going to count down from three and then you just need to smile into the camera', and honestly, my whole face was just shaking. It was the scariest thing, but somehow I managed to make it through a whole interview."
Her business boomed after appearing on the ITV show in August last year, with Ali saying: "I was only a few months in and I was just finding my feet, and then suddenly it just took off before I was even ready for it to and it hasn't gone down since."
Ali's businesses divided viewers, with some finding the concept of jewellery made with breast milk "gross" while others thought it was "amazing. Ali, whose business has more than 9k likes on Facebook, said: "Some people can be can be really funny about it, but to be honest, the majority of my sales come through social media, and it's obviously people who are actively searching for it.
"The people who I have following my pages, they're obviously interested in the idea of it, so every now and then I'll get somebody who says it gives them the ick, but before I even need to jump in, everyone else has done it for me. I understand, absolutely it's not for everybody, but for the people who like it, it means so much."
You can find Ali's creations on her Facebook page, Make it mine - keepsakes by Ali
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