Create Wearable Works of Art with Beading Artist Melissa Grakowsky Shippee

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Melissa Grakowsky Shippee is a beaded jewelry designer who creates wearable art with seed beads. As a designer, instructor, and author, she’s inspired by mathematics and nature. She has won numerous awards for her elaborate beaded jewelry and masks. She has been a Starman TrendSetter, Beadwork Designer of the Year, and her beading projects have been featured on the cover of Beadwork magazine several times. We love her work and we want to share it with you!

Join Melissa on Jewelry Artist Podcast Live

Jewelry Artist podcast goes live via Zoom! Join host Katie Hacker for an inspiring conversation with Beadwork‘s featured bead artist Melissa Grakowsky-Shippee.

Unmasked with Bead Artist Melissa Grakowsky-Shippee
Sunday, June 6,at 4pm EST

Melissa is known for her elaborate masks and intricate yet ethereal beadwork. An award-winning designer, Melissa has written books, taught internationally, and was a 2017 Beadwork Designer of the Year. Melissa draws in beaders with her methodical approach to artistic designs. We’ll talk about Melissa’s art, business, and creative life in the live event.

Moroccan Lantern Pendant

This spiky pendant incorporates a unique mix of beads, tubular peyote stitch, and netting to form a beaded architectural masterpiece that resembles a lantern. This pendant is cleverly built around a Czech spike bead for support using a combination of netting and peyote stitch and features a smaller Czech spike bead at the bottom. The beautiful bronze and amethyst main colorway has a romantic vibe to it that evokes red wine and colorful sunsets for me. Rated advanced because of the level of detail, but I would not discourage a confident beginner or intermediate beader from trying this pattern!

Czech Me Out Necklace

Use right-angle weave and peyote stitch to bead this necklace made predominantly of Czech-glass beads and finished with seed beads. The soft finishes and muted color palette make this necklace wearable for every day, but be prepared because all eyes will be on you as your necklace is getting “Czeched out!” Cushion beads form the focals, and I love the seed bead accents that surround the tops in a crescent shape. I want to make one in all black with moon phases painted on the cushion beads. This pattern is rated Intermediate.

Silver Twilight Necklace

Challenge your beading skills by encasing a gorgeous oval crystal fancy stone in a coiled cubic-right-angle-weave frame with embellished peyote-stitch edges. Then suspend the focal from straps of cubic right-angle weave finished with crystal pearls and a sparkly clasp. If you’ve done CRAW before, this pattern will be a breeze, even though it’s rated Advanced.

Former managing editor of Beadwork, Lavon Peters, says, “The size 11 cylinder beads and 2mm fire-polished rounds that Melissa chose for this design are literally perfect. You can actually feel them click into place as you stitch the pendant embellishments.”

Brilliant Bangle

In this intermediate-level project, you’ll connect rounds of right-angle weave to form a tubular base for a bangle. Then you’ll embellish the edges with SuperDuos and pressed-glass rounds and add a sparkly center with crystal rose montées.  This project will teach you to LOVE right-angle weave. Architectural style and peaceful colors give this bracelet lots of style that will not go out of fashion.

Queen of Atlantica Necklace

A necklace fit for the mermaid monarch of an underwater kingdom, be she a tyrant or a benign ruler. This sparkling treasure is made with embellished peyote stitch and unique components. In the calming and beautiful colors we have learned are Melissa’s mainstay, the heavily embellished detail of this necklace is made elegant and feminine. This one is rated Advanced because of how many elements there are. But none of the techniques should be too challenging for a beginner beader.

Melissa Grakowsky Shippee Beading Collection

Melissa says “I love the trend toward bigger, bolder, and more in-your-face jewelry, especially those featuring tiny components that have the look of seed beads and small crystals.” I hope you love her designs as much as we do!

Meredith Steele
Technical Editor, Beadwork