Pink Tourmaline Angel Necklace

For the final day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I am sharing this angel necklace, featuring Pink Tourmaline and Diamonds. What a beautiful gift for the breast cancer survivor in your life.

Pink Jacket

Pink Topaz Heart Necklace and Earrings

Continuing with the pink theme for, Breast Cancer Awareness, this cute heart necklace with Pink Topaz and matching earrings. Love it!

Neon Pink Infant Baby Sleeping Bag Bunting

I have officially renamed my Etsy store to, Melissa's Menagerie of Stuff. Now I need to make a new banner, and I love the one I have, LOL! I think I can use the same image and just change the wording. I changed it to match my FB fan page, for two reasons. One to increase visibility in search engines, with both having the same name. Two, I don't just do jewelry and gemstones anymore. I am now painting, crocheting, counted cross stitch, and I am always looking for new things to learn. Photography is one I would love to pursue more. I have a lot to learn about editing and printing though. Just because it looks awesome on my computer doesn't mean it would look awesome elsewhere. Anyway back to this adorable neon pink baby girl tulip baby sleeping bag. I am calling them sleeping bags because that is what they remind me of. Baby can comfortably placed in the sleeper without zippers or buttons, and baby will be snuggly warm. This is a nice, heavy yarn and done in a pretty pattern. It looks like a tulip to me, with the scalloped edging, so that is what I am calling it. It comes with a matching hat. I am working on a baby boy one, and will take orders for colors in both designs, so let me know if you are interested. I have figured out how to make a leopard print dress for my daughter, for her fashion show in January, and I can't wait to start on that, and my hubby wants a Steelers blanket. I guess I will be busy, LOL! To purchase this or place a custom order, click on my Etsy store widget at the top of this blog.

Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Watch

Continuing with pink items, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is this lovely and feminine pink watch. I love it!

Think Pink!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and pink is all the rave. This ring is a beautiful pink tone Rhodolite Garnet cocktail style ring. This is a petite cocktail ring, for the more petite hand. Rhodolite Garnet in its finest form has a lovely pink raspberry hue to it. Rhodolite Garnet can be substituted for Pink Tourmaline as the birthstone for October. Hop on over to my Etsy store to purchase this beauty of a ring. Maybe you know a breast cancer survivor and this would make an awesome special gift for her. I offer a free layaway service too.

Precious Opal

For the month of October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I will be trying to post about all things pink and Opals. Opals because I love them, and they are the birthstone for babies born in October, but Pink Tourmaline can also be used as an alternate. Opal is not necessarily rare. There is Common Opal which is basically just white, with very little or no play of color to it. Precious Opal is a fine Opal with beautiful play of color. There are synthetic Opals, doublets and triplets, plus Mexican Fire Opal and Brazilian Fire Opal. Jelly Opals are some of my favorites. I hope to cover all of these in the month of October. I had one Opal doublet ring, that had the most brilliant colors. I sold it, and I hope the owner is wearing it with great pride. The video below will tell you about Opals in general. Check it out.

Painted Pilgrims on Glass

This is my first attempt at painting people. I have done animals, on ornaments, which I really enjoy, but no people. These are cute little pilgrims, and is a gift for a dear friend of mine. The man's arms are too long, as he is supposed to be carrying a basket of food next to his body, not a pot of food, away from his body, LOL! As I continue to learn I think of new ways to simplify the process of some of these harder items. For example, the next one I try, I am going to try and draw the outline with a black permanent marker, then I can paint over the outline when completed. I have used paint to do this, but you don't have as much control. So, I will try it. This took a very long time to complete, as you have to wait for the paint to dry to add the next layers. I always try to do at least three layers of paint, sometimes more, on glass to make it as bright as possible, and durable. I don't like to see the glass through the paint. What do you think of my pilgrims?

Featured Artist: Shanghai Tai

This is a Share the Love Bloggers Unite post. Each week the On Fire For Handmade team picks an artisan to feature. I try to remember to do these each week, but unfortunately life gets to busy and I miss some. Lucky for you, I remembered this week. Here is a small bio on Shanghai Tai:

Shanghai Tai is this weeks Featured Artist on Share the Love, Blogger’s Unite. My journey in jewelry-making began in Shanghai, China. While living there I learned about pearls; first buying pearl jewelry while shopping with the other tai tais (wives), then designing my own personal jewelry and having it made by the shops there, and buying a variety of pearls. With my family I also traveled extensively in China in addition to other parts of Asia. After returning to the U.S., I began taking jewelry classes in order to use the large supply of pearls I had accumulated. My shop is named “Shanghai Tai” because one tai character means “too”, as in “too much”, “too expensive”, like “extreme”. Two of the same character together though, is tai tai, which means “wife” or “Mrs.” To me, Shanghai Tai represents the lifestyle that western expat women live in Asia. My designs often have an Asian influence as a result of my many travels and exposure to Eastern cultures.


 She is very well versed in the many types of jewelry making. From glass to wire, even metal and clay. She can make pretty much anything you might want. She can be found on many venues where handmade items are sold including, Blog, Artfire, Pinterest, her own website and Facebook.

So you can see there are a variety of ways for you to see and love her work.  I love the pearls, they are my absolute favorite.  So special and precious, soft and beautiful. 

Halloween Delight!

Halloween Delight is the name of my newest painting, just completed last night. I wouldn't say I love Halloween, but I do love the colors of Fall and the creepiness of Halloween. We very much enjoy decorating for the Fall Harvest, Halloween, or whatever you choose to call it. My kids go Trick or Treating, though DJ is too old now, but I am letting him dye his hair bright blue for Halloween this year. He is growing his hair out so it looks even creepier. I thought I had a frame for this painting, but it didn't fit quite the way I wanted with the matting. So, I am going to look for another, or just remove the matting, not sure yet. This will be listed in my Etsy store by tonight, so be sure to watch for it if you want it. It is a one of a kind, as are all my pieces of art, to this point.