Hugs & Kisses!

Hi there! Melissa here, filling in for Keirsten today.  When she asked me to post today, I was a bit worried I wouldn't have anything, but after I got home from work yesterday, I took a look at what was already in my work area and found some sweet red lampwork from Sue Kennedy.  Hmmm, Valentine's Day is just a couple days away and these would be perfect!

Sue trailed fine silver over the beads, "hugging" them with brilliance.  I chose some of my new little metal clay morsels...white copper hearts to dangle beneath.  I was going to let it go at that, but decided they needed a bit more "oomph", so went back through my stash and found these white pearl sticks.  After seeing the little x's the wire-wrapping left, I thought of how we sometimes use x's and o's to symbolize hugs and kisses.

Too late to purchase in time for Saturday, but they will be up in my shop a bit later.  I also have a few more tiny heart charms there as well ;)

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy Valentine's Day! XOXOXO!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry

Throwback Thursday - Winged!

Hi all...today's post is an homage to Facebook's Throwback Thursday!  I got a little behind and forgot that I agreed to fill in today, but thought this would be a fun thing to do.

These are earrings I made back in 2011...I had taken an online class with Stephanie Lee who taught me how to cover a copper base with molten solder, then embed brass filigree into it.   This technique really opened up a world of design possibilities to me and I use it a lot in my work today.

These are embellished with pretty faceted peach moonstone briolettes and my hand wrought sterling earwires to complete the airy, fairy look!

Like most of my work, I tend to make things that can be worn with my staple day to day outfit...jeans & boots.  I envision these with a flowy white shirt as well!

They are available in my shop...

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry

Purple Haze

My hammered copper & torch-fire enameled morsels, embellished with Jen Cameron's fabulous lampwork headpins which have been wrapped into a bail, finished with  my hand-wrought sterling and copper earwires.

"'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky"...(thanks, Jimi!<3)

"is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?"

Have a "purple haze" kind of day!

Disclaimer...after writing this post and looking at the photos, I realized that these aren't truly purple, but more raspberry-ish?  But, I have been singing "purple haze" now for at least a day, and can't really get it out of my head, but if you like, you can substitute "Raspberry Beret" by Prince :)

Melissa

Autumn Flower Garden

Inspired by all the pretty, colorful autumn flowers I've been seeing in the garden shops and a few in my own garden, I created this pair of copper, lampwork, and Czech glass earrings.

They feature my own new copper metal clay discs, gorgeous orange lampwork beads from Sue Kennedy of SueBeads, pretty teal Czech glass beads, and my hand-wrought sterling and copper earwires.

Sue's beads are perfect for autumn...the orange glass is embellished with all that gorgeous raku frit that look like tiny impressionistic flowers on their own!  The bits of teal really pop with the addition of the teal Czech glass, I think.

It was really hard to photograph these, since the lampwork is round and my metal clay discs are so flat...they kept rolling around!  I don't usually like to include my hands in photos, but sometimes this is a good way to get a good shot.

My favorite late summer, early fall flower...zinnias!  My past blog name was PinkZinnias! via Pinterest

These will be up in my Melismatic Art Jewelry shop later today or tomorrow!

Pinwheels

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've had the privilege of posting on EE, but am happy to say I will be showing up with a post here and there!

These fun earrings were created from lampwork headpins by the talented and lovely Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions.  I layered them onto brass flowers that I torch-fire enameled with bright colors and then wired them onto textured copper ovals.

Even though they are securely attached, they have just enough slack so that the flowers twirl around...sort of like a pinwheel or a whirligig!  Remember these cute little toys?  As a kid, I used to get plastic ones that had little candies in the stem.   I would stick them out the window of the car to let them twirl in the wind as we drove home from the store...much to my mother's disapproval!

From livingtheswelllife.com via Pinterest!

They are so fun....I will be putting them in my shop later today, and will be creating more, since I had the opportunity to snag more of of Jen's gorgeous headpins at BeadFest last weekend!

A sweet bouquet of lampwork headpins by Jen Cameron and Sue Kennedy!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

More Leaves!

I was cleaning out a closet the other day and found an old box of jewelry...some silly costume stuff from pre-jewelry making days and some early pieces I attempted.  The leaves in today's earrings were favorites that I used to wear before I discovered artisan/handcrafted.  They were a brass finish, without any real patina, and immediately, my wheels started to turn.  I took the old earwires off and went down to my work station and stuck them in the torch!  Yay, they didn't melt!  I had been working with seafoam and nile green enamel, on a previous piece, so that is what I used.  I love how they turned out.

Old bits and bobs...going to see what else I can salvage!

I had been working on completing my necklace I started for Art Jewelry Elements' Component of the Month for August, which was my month.  The combination of juicy orange with the seafoam blue really hits home for me, so I decided to keep the earrings in that color scheme!  I added Czech glass leaves and flowers dangled from a bit of chain.

My Melismatic Morsels with enameled copper and Czech glass..finally finished!

It is fun to breathe new life into something that was probably going to be tossed...I am going to see what else I can find to repurpose.

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Red, White and Blue

Happy Independence Day!

Perfect for today's barbecue, or any other summer day for a patriotic girl!  

Carved red coral flowers, my torch-fired brass stars, and little, faceted lapis briolettes, all wired together with copper wire and finished with sterling earwires that have been embellished with just another little pop of blue glass!

Flag on my back deck a couple years back!

Star on my backyard fence!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Red Garden Party

I covered copper washers with molten metal and embossed them, then soldered filigree flowers.  Tiny carnelians are set in bezel cups for the finishing touch.

 I would love to wear them to a garden party with this fabulous dress! Granted, the shoes would probably only last about 10 minutes!

garden party by melismatic featuring nine west

Melissa Meman

Melismatic Art Jewelry

Art. Life. Love.

Serendipitous..

I love that word!  It describes how I feel about the creation/evolution of these earrings!

I had etched a big copper disk a couple of weeks ago when I was writing this post over at Art Jewelry Elements.  This past weekend, it was on my beading table at exactly the right moment when I needed something pretty to fasten a length of leather cord to a chain necklace for my Bead Soup piece.  I cut the center strip out of the disk and rolled it up into a tube!

Fast forward to last night, as I suddenly remembered that today was indeed my day to post here.  I saw the curled up scraps from cutting the center strip out of the disk and was like,"hmm, these are to pretty to ditch...I wonder if I can use them for earrings?"

So I did!  At first that were going to hang horizontally, with chain connecting them to the earwires, but after turning them around a bit, I liked the mirror image vertical look much better.  To bring the bling, I added some faceted chalcedony briolettes in a finish called "Mystic Mango" by the seller!

Add a fun, flowy spring blouse and your favorite jeans, and you are ready to go!

These will be up in my shops later today!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Flower Child

I have etched brass disks and embellished them with pretty Czech glass in shades of spring!  In keeping with what seems to be my "go-to" design sensibility, I have "put a flower on it"

I would love to wear this with a long, flowy, romantic skirt and sandals if it would ever get warm enough to do so!  I saw this on Pinterest the other day, and may actually give it a go!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Dots and Flowers

Wow, Easter is just around the corner!  I have pastel, springy, Easter Egg-y colors on the brain lately.

With that in mind, I created these pretty earrings with copper flower components I embossed in my Big Shot, then enameled in Springy Robin's Egg blue. The sweet dots in Jelveh Jaferian's lampwork beads matches exactly! Not to mention the gorgeous shades of purple that surround them!

I used sterling silver to keep them soft to the eye, adding hand cut caps, little molten drops, and of course, hand wrought earwires.

And, since we all know how crazy the weather is in March, it always pays to have rain gear ready!  I chose some sweet, colorful, fun items to wear when the Spring rain comes!

Easter Rain by melismatic featuring uniqlo coats

These and more can be found in my shops...Hope your Spring is just around the corner!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry

Art. Life. Love.

Kleenex Box...

You've gotta take inspiration wherever you can get it!

I have been staring at this box of Kleenex for the last week at my office...

Torch-fired enamel, copper and carved stone flowers (serpentine?)...the colors of the 2 filigree are not really as different as the photo shows, but the lighting brought out more purple in the one on the left.  They are actually sort of a dark periwinkle that I came up with...I'd tell you my recipe, but can't give away all my secrets ;)

These will be up in my shop later today!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Sand and Surf

When I remembered today was my day to post here at EE, I thought I was going to create some festive holiday-themed earrings using these new embossed morsels I made (more on my blog later), embellishing them with the traditional red, green and gold. 

After sorting through my artisan glass box, however,  I spied these beauties by KreationsbyKaren that were sitting there, waiting to be loved, and all of a sudden, those baroque-looking swirls embossed in my components were huge waves, curling and crashing onto a sandy beach, spewing seafoam and leaving lots of little colorful shells and ocean "stuff" in their wake.

I used silver and copper with these and left the copper bright and shiny! Sorry for my ugly claw in the photo..sometimes holding them is the only way to get them to hang straight!

via Pinterest.com

Find these and more of my eclectic handcrafted jewelry at my shops...Melismatic Art Jewelry and Etsy.  Psst...Everything in my etsy shop is 20% off for entire month of December...coupon code HOLIDAY :)

Purple and Yellow....

or what I was working on before my power went out and my basement flooded!

I have just changed my enameling torch and am finally getting some gorgeous colors.  Have been creating some pretty layered flowers, and these colors really jumped out at me!  Embossed and enameled copper, these remind me of purple and yellow dahlias that my Momma used to grow.  Perfect for autumn!!

I'll have them in my shops later on...if you can't wait, email me!!  Hope all my East Coast friends are safe!!

Copper Leaves

Sorry, folks, I can't help it!  I have autumn on the brain and all I want to make are leaves!  I have been playing with my fold-forming skills and did some of these cute little leaves and decided to create these earrings. Artisan glass by Reghina of Birchtree Jewelry is flecked with sparkly golds, green & russet.

I'd like to wear them with this jacket...I mean, why not?  It's only $3,700!

copper leaves by melismatic featuring maya

Find these earrings and more at Melismatic Art Jewelry, or in my Etsy shop!!