Organ donation awareness is extremely important to me and my family. If you've read my blog before you're well aware of our hero, our beautiful T.J. If you're not, I have a page about him, take a look if you have a few minutes. We lost our beautiful boy eleven years ago last Saturday, only that day it was Mother's Day. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury a few days before; he was 19. There was no hope of recovery for him - not one that was any kind of life. T had registered to be an organ donor when he earned his drivers' license the fall prior to his death. Through T.J.'s heroic gift of life 5 people who were dying because they were in need of major organs are alive; 2 people who were going blind can see; countless others have benefited from his bone and tissue donations. There are so many people on waiting lists for organ donation. Please, if you haven't considered becoming a donor previously become one now. We are devastated by the loss of our beautiful boy, but we are profoundly proud of the fact that in his death he was able to help so many people - to give them a second chance. How many happy families are there out there that he has impacted? We'll probably never know, but it does our hearts and souls good to know that he lives on, not only in our hearts and minds, in such a profound way.
Above are some components in progress. I can't even look at that beautiful piece of amethyst sea glass - I broke it trying to put jam a too thick, curved piece of wire through it.....
Well, if you're still with me (thank you for indulging me) let's get on with the hop! I asked Heather to create a "donate life" stick for me in green for organ donation. The current colors for donate life awareness are a very bright green and blue. The bright green isn't my thing. When T passed, it was a dark green (I've actually worn a dark green awareness bracelet, every day, for the past eleven years), so I opted for a color in-between that I'd like to wear often. I love the stick, it's perfect!
Attached to it is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority token that I've had forever and ever. I think that big, prominent T is just perfect attached to the donate life stick.
The 3 sweet flower bezels are from Tracy Bell of Copper, Glass and Recycled Trash. Tracy makes the best stuff! I've had these bezels for the longest time, waiting for just the right project. I filled them with green and brown sea glass tinies and I crushed a piece of mussel shell for the third. I love the colors. However, when the resin was added a bit of the detail was lost and it makes the green and brown glass look like a solid transparent lump and the mussel shells darken (which I knew they would, but I didn't think they would so much - I took this pic in sunlight so you could see the colors). Bummer...
I've also used vintage lucite cubes from The Beadin' Path (boy do I miss that shop...), vintage mother of pearl buttons I picked up at Tinsel Trading in NYC (oy, what an amazing place!), Swarovski crystal bicones, and silver filled wire (bonded to white brass, not copper so it looks like sterling silver) from Unkamen Supplies on Etsy (he's great, I bought supplies from him for the bridesmaid jewelry for my son and daughter-in-law's wedding).
This is a tiny glass vial that I filled with tiny sea glass pieces, then foiled and soldered, below that that is a soldered piece of brown sea glass.
The clasp is also a piece of sea glass, green, that I foiled, soldered and added a hook to the back. I rubbed a tiny bit of coconut oil onto both the green and brown pieces of sea glass. It gives it a nice glow and brings the color out (it does not go rancid, so it's a good choice). The little silver toned spacers are from Michael's. I think they're little daisies, but I'm preferring to think of them as sunflowers, which is a symbol for us of T.J. As I was pulling items out (you should see my studio presently), I pulled out a couple of vials of sterling silver coated and copper seed beads that I've had forever. Oh my gosh, I can't believe what I paid for these years ago (I'm sure they'd be a lot more today)! Thankfully I had the discount at The Beadin' Path!
Sorry, Blogger is rotating some of my photos and I can't figure out how to rotate them back.....
The heart pendant started out as a pottery shard that I picked up on one of my many beach walks. The heart is a reminder of T.J.'s huge, beautiful, loving heart and the life that he was able to give another.
Overall, I'm very happy with this necklace; it needs a little bit of tweaking and I'll work on that. It does flip a bit though, so I need to figure out a way to keep the bezel/button sections facing front (I think it's a weight thing). If you have a suggestion, suggest away!
So grab a cuppa' and hop along with these creative souls to see what's close to their hearts that they'd like you to know more about:
