Wishing you and your family a a wonderful Thanksgiving and holiday season.
I am grateful for your business and wish you all the best of health
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November 22, 2017 Thinking of gifts for kidney recipients, donors, family, friends or special medical staff? With prices ranging from $12-$200, there is a kidney themed gift to fit every budget at transplantGifts.com. Here is a sampling of item images from the website that are all $50 and under.
November 21, 2017 I get many requests for appropriate kidney related gifts for men, be they recipient, donor, supporter or medical professional. I’ve put together a collection of these gifts for you to see. See the page titled “Gifts for Guys” in the drop down on Kidney & Organ Transplant jewelry. My website is www.transplantgifts.com in case you aren’t already there at this moment. Here are a few choices…
Tree of Life jewelry makes a wonderful gift to celebrate and symbolize a kidney (or liver!) transplant with a known or altruistic living donor. However, should you one day meet the family who made a decision to donate organs of their loved one, Tree of Life jewelry is a touching and poignant connection between you and their family member who was an organ donor after death. These designs tell life affirming stories about who is important in our life. Family does not mean just blood relatives, but also friends and the Heroes we take forever into our hearts. The pendants below are also great conversation starters about the importance of organ donation. Tree Designs are metaphors for limbs that reach both upwards and around us, providing love, an umbrella of protection, plus the opportunity to grown into something healthy and beautiful. Just as a tree’s root structure brings nutrients up throughout its branches, the branches of significant people in our lives form a network of support and love which bring continuity into our lives. Tree pendants represent a powerful bond often made between organ donor and recipient Below are a few of the many designs I offer in my Tree of Life Transplant Jewelry. I have styles with or without a kidney drop. Pendants pictured below are sterling silver or gold plated sterling called Vermeil. See the entire collection at transplantgifts.com. There is a link on this page, lower right column. More gift guide ideas coming soon….
Kidney Transplant Gratitude Gift
November 17, 2017
Have you noticed how the best ideas often begin with need? When a creative solution to a particular need doesn’t yet exist in the world, that’s when ideas become exciting. I love when that “creativity light” wakes my brain. That’s when I know it’s time to mine for workable ideas and solutions. I excitedly began a series of sketches and measurements to hand over to the metals studio that produces my sterling jewelry designs. Their workmanship is beautiful and the studio owner understands my mission and its needs, enabling me to create pieces that I could not otherwise produce in my own jewelry studio. I used to love working with metals, but there are too many chemical hazards for my own transplanted kidney. Creating this pendant set was a 5 month project with dozens of emails and phone calls, but the end result was exactly what I envisioned and I was thrilled with the pendants and what they symbolized for kidney recipients and living donors. From the first week the set was available, it resonated with buyers and I knew I had a winning design that brought meaning and gratitude to the transplant experience. I added the Golden Kidney set in 2018, with a small gold plated kidney within the larger “wing” body. See them both close up on the Special Gifts page at Transplantgifts.com or Kidneyjewelry.com. They are also for sale at Etsy.com/shop/kidneyjewelry. I‘ll be back soon with more ideas to help express gratitude for the Gift of Life. Hopefully, with any luck, the Monarchs will be back to feast in my tasty yard next October, bringing beauty into the world around us and perhaps, a dose of creative inspiration.
You can help save Monarchs, whose numbers have dramatically dwindled over the last decades due to loss of their prime source of food, Milkweed. Plant Milkweed or wild Asters in your yard and you will be rewarded with the thrill of watching them feed and play. Milkweed is their most important food source plus the plants are pretty. If you’re interested in knowing more about their Migration, there are many watch groups online. Some have interactive newsletters that ask for your assistance in spotting Monarch whereabouts during the summer/autumn seasons.
“The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is giving your gift away” -David Viscott October 6, 2017 The story of my 2002 kidney transplant is really more about my cousin and living donor, Fran, than me. She is the Hero of my story. With the purest heart I could ever imagine, she offered me a life altering gift of one of her kidneys. Her extraordinary donation was a profoundly selfless sacrifice that did not just change my health, but changed my spirit, as well as my dreams for a future. After a decade of hemodialysis, Fran gave my life back to me and ignited those dreams. At the time, I didn’t realize her gift was going to connect my medical life with my creative life. Fran’s kidney provided me with a new path and a mission, which was to use my own gifts in life to help honor and celebrate the people who make life saving transplants possible. Her initial offer of a kidney left me in awe and I took a full year to think about it, giving her the opportunity to change her mind or back out gracefully. Her determination never wavered. She is the one who gave me the strength and courage to accept a gift that, to me, was bigger than the universe. Receiving a kidney transplant is a life experience full of wonder and grace and there is little in life that can compare to it. How can anyone thank another for such an overwhelming gift? I think of what Fran did for me every single day. I take every opportunity to let her know what a treasure she is in my life. She inspires me with her generosity, goodness and love. Fran discovered the true meaning of life early on and now shares her special gifts with both people and many animals in need. Inspired by Fran, I now create jewelry that expresses my gratitude for her Gift of Life and share that feeling with others around the world who are searching for ways to express their own gratitude. Fran’s gift of a kidney moved me towards the work I was meant to be doing, which in turn, helped me find a special purpose in my life. It was a gift of many layers. So thank you, dear Fran. You are my angel and my Hero. You are also the inspiration for countless Gifts of Gratitude that travel to kidney recipients and donors around the globe. That gratitude is growing roots everywhere it goes. I hope the gifts I create bring contemplation and meaning to those who receive the Gift of Life. Your gift has meant the world to my life and while your kidney has been a big part of me, the place you forever hold in my heart is so much bigger!
muse: a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist; inspiration, creative influence October 4, 2017 Welcome to my website and my first blogging effort! This long awaited website project has been bubbling up after 5 years of procrastination, so I’m thrilled that it’s finally here. So who am I and why am I selling kidney shaped items? Here is the short story of my business… I’m Myra Schwartz, a longtime US kidney patient, current transplant recipient and full time jewelry designer since 1991. In 2002, before receiving my transplant from a Heroic cousin-in-law, I began searching for a special gift of gratitude to present to her. I knew that it had to be meaningful and symbolic of our journey together….but what is an appropriate gift for someone who gives you the Gift of Life? I wanted something both tangible and symbolic to remind my donor of her noble sacrifice and how much it was appreciated. Unable to locate anything worthy of this extraordinary gift, I took a class in lost wax casting and made her a necklace with a one-of-a-kind sterling kidney pendant. I then wondered if other recipients were also looking for ways to show their appreciation to their living donors, doctors, family members and supporters. Beginning a small website using a collection of kidney shaped beads to test the waters, it quickly became apparent that recipients around the world were also searching for meaningful gifts to present to the special Heroes in their lives. I seem to have a radar for kidney shaped beads and objects. I searched for and found kidney beads at bead and gem shows, but I also found other artists to make kidney beads for me out of glass, metals, wood and a variety of other materials. I’ve even had gemstone kidney beads made overseas to my exact specifications. One of the tradeoffs of having my transplant was that working with chemicals, acids and fumes in a silversmith studio was not safe for my priceless kidney, so the choice to give up that work was not difficult. I still love designing however, so even though I can no longer safely work in a metals shop, I can still sketch the details of how I want a new piece to look with strong meaning behind it. After all these years, I still love working with the beautifully organic form of a kidney. Each design is infused with the feelings I had for my own donor’s gift of life and our transplant experience. I serendipitously found an excellent studio in Bali that transforms my sketches and measurements into finished products. We’ve worked together since 2012 and the silversmiths meticulously produce pieces for both my kidney collection as well as my (non kidney) art jewelry line. I hope to continue bringing new designs to fruition that will help tell YOUR story as well as my own. Here I am below with my Hero/Donor/Cousin/MUSE Fran, over the last 15 years. We live 700 miles apart, but bonded as young women when my first cousin Richard brought her to Chicago to introduce family to the woman he was going to marry. I never expected such a miracle from this wonderfully generous and beautiful muse who first entered my life over 40 years ago.
 This was taken just before Fran’s donor surgery began in July, 2002. She is the happy, calm one on the left. I’m the emotional one on the right.  Here we are celebrating our 10th kidney anniversary in 2012.  2014  2016
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 Having worked in photography, printmaking, painting, dollmaking, quilting, ceramics and lampworking glass beads, I finally found my creative home in jewelry making. While working with beads and jewelry design full time since 1991, I’ve managed to combine that passion with my experience as a kidney patient.
Since losing my own kidney function, my heroic living donor gave me not only the Gift of Life but also the true meaning of giving. The words Precious Kidney ring in my heart daily. She inspired me to create this line of special jewelry.
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