Meet the Maker

Welcome! My name is Erika, and I am the sole owner and artist behind The Ruby Hawthorn Keepsake Co. (formerly Ten Tiny Toes Jewelry Co.).  I am a proud mama of three beautiful humans (and a handful of fur babies), a wife, a breastfeeding advocate, and a lover of art. 

I gave birth to my first child in 2015, and I wasn't able to breastfeed her for more than a couple of days, which was rather disheartening to me. This led me to feel a lot of guilt and secretly mourn the breastfeeding journey that I felt I had missed out on. By the time I had given birth to my second child, almost exactly four years later in 2019, I was wholeheartedly determined to provide him with as much breast milk as I possibly could.

Although I had hoped to be able to exclusively breastfeed him, I was once again met with low supply and disappointment in my body. Still, I fought extremely hard to provide him with as much of my breast milk as I humanly could and we made it to a long 22 months, when he decided that it was time to wean. He ended up getting a little bit of it all -feeding directly from the breast, feeding from the bottle with my own expressed milk, donor milk, and even formula! 

Around the time that he turned 8 months old, I discovered the art of breast milk jewelry and fell in love with the idea. It seemed like the perfect way to commemorate all of my own trials, tribulations, and celebrations with breastfeeding. I am artistic and eager to learn by nature, so I quickly dove into researching and decided to attempt making myself a breast milk ring first.  The excitement of teaching myself so many new things made me feel so alive!

It was easy to lose myself in the everyday hustle and bustle of motherhood, and I found that making art made me finally feel more like myself again. Now don't get me wrong -I love being a mom, but crafting keepsakes made me feel like I had something truly special of my own. After lots of research, and trial and error, with breast milk preservation methods, I found something that worked well for me and decided to take a chance on opening up my own keepsake business -and thus, The Ruby Hawthorn Keepsake Co. was born!

 

The name of my company is inspired by my late grandparents Don & Helen Moore, and my 3 children -Lenyx, Atticus, and Halen. These five special people in my life all have birthdays in the months of May and July -represented by the Ruby (July's birthstone) and the Hawthorn (May's birth flower).