Wearable Hug Jewelry — The Story of our Hug Cuff and Hug Ring

Shop the MIMOSA Handcrafted Hug Collection.

The MIMOSA Handcrafted Hug Ring and Cuff Collection

Meet some of the most impactful pieces we've ever made — the MIMOSA Handcrafted Hug Ring and Cuff Collection. It's one of our more popular collections.

And because of you (any of our customers who own or have gifted hug jewelry) it's also a collection that has allowed us to give back to our Baton Rouge community in more ways than we could have imagined.

The Story of the Hug Cuff

From Madeline: Several years ago, I was approached by the Mental Health Association for Greater Baton Rouge (now the Louisiana Mental Health Association) to create a custom piece.

They envisioned a piece “that could be used to raise awareness about [mental health] in our community” and function as a fundraising tool for the association.

I met with them and learned they not only do the good, hard work of taking care of mental health patients but the equally necessary work of providing relief to patients’ caretakers.

Mental health is a topic deeply personal to me, so my response was an emphatic “YES!” I got to work sketching ideas, researching mental healthcare, how and why we find ourselves needing it, and the types of care available. I dug into scientific journals to help me understand the neurobiology behind it. I read books hoping to find some image that would capture and help tell the story but kept falling short.

For a year, I tried to nail it down but couldn’t. So I shelved it.

 

I went through a rough patch one summer and mental healthcare was at the top of my get-well checklist. I’m one of those people who does a lot of the “taking care of” but isn’t so good at the “being taken care of” side. But I was humbled, and it was time for me to reach out. I opened my clinched “I don’t need help” hand to friends, family, doctors, and God in a way I hadn’t before. In a way that I needed to — mind, body, and spirit.

I found my hand being held somewhere in the midst of that reaching out, and I was reminded that this is what mental healthcare and love look like.

Sometimes we are the hand reaching out, other times, we’re the hand needing to be held. That has everything to do with how mentally healthy we are, and it’s a good foundation for healing.

It hit me. The piece I needed to make was a reminder of exactly that.

So, these hands represent the one needing healing and the one who can help. On this journey, we‘re all one or the other along the way.

I hope these hands are icebreakers to good, honest conversations about mental health healing, caretaking, and being taken care of.

 

The Story of the Hug Ring

The idea around the launch of the Hug Ring was born in the spirit of connection and doing what we can, with what we have, from where we are.

Not long after 2020's stay-at-home order went into effect here in Louisiana, we wanted a way to offer help at a time when we were all feeling pretty helpless. We all kind of know what to do during a hurricane or flood, but a pandemic was new territory.

I reached out to my friend Dr. Ashley Saucier, Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician, about what on-the-ground help could look like for our community. Her immediate response was — "Scrub Grub." The Baton Rouge Emergency Aid Coalition (BREAC) was one organization raising funds to send meals to our hardworking healthcare providers through its "Scrub Grub" efforts. 

And with its launch, a portion of each Hug Ring purchase gave back. Throughout the year, the organizations changed as the needs in our community shifted, but in 2020, your purchases of this little ring: 

• kept our small business going during a pandemic
• gave back over $20k in meals to BREAC (#ScrubGrub) and Shift Support for our hardworking healthcare providers
• funded 100 summer bike kits for Front Yard Bikes to give to kids who needed them the most
• and proceeds from Hug Ring sales were donated to the Mental Health Association for Greater Baton Rouge (now the Louisiana Mental Health Association)

The Hug Ring was our best seller of 2020 and a huge portion of the rings purchased were gifts. It’s clear — people needed to get and give hugs, and we’re thankful you chose our wearable rings in place of the embraces you were used to.

If you’re wearing one of the thousands of Hug Rings that we made in 2020, thank you. If you gifted one, thank you.

We know you have almost endless options for ways to spend your money. We appreciate it more than you know when you choose to spend it with us. 

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Now, there are even more ways to support the Louisiana Mental Health Association (formerly the Mental Health Association for Greater Baton Rouge) with your purchase. Instead of a portion of proceeds donated exclusively from Hug Jewelry purchases, you can donate 1% of your purchase of any MIMOSA pieces to their organization. 

If you'd like to donate a portion of your purchase to the Louisiana Mental Health Association, be sure to choose that organization from the pull-down menu during checkout!
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Shop the MIMOSA Handcrafted Hug Collection

• Shop the Hug Cuff
• Shop the Hug Ring
• Shop the Child's Hug Cuff
• Shop the Hug Sticker
• Shop the Hug Cuff in 14K Gold
• Shop the Hug Ring in 14K Gold

Published 4/14/21; Last Updated 3/14/23