Madeline Ellis, founder of Mimosa Handcrafted, shapes a bracelet that was cast earlier in the morning of Jan. 8, 2025 in Baton Rouge.
Madeline Ellis and her team at Mimosa cast jewelry in Baton Rouge once a week. 4 axis cnc
Adri Hawkins carefully shakes silver into the molds to create new pieces of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry on Jan. 8, 2025, in Baton Rouge.
Adri Hawkins carries multiple bundles of in-the-process Mimosa jewelry pieces across her lab on Jan. 8, 2025.
Molten gold cools in a plaster cast (or investment) to create a new piece of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry on Jan. 8, 2025, in Baton Rouge.
Adri Hawkins washes off the bits of plaster left on the recently cast metal pieces of Mimosa jewelry.
Silver Mimosa jewelry, shortly after casting, waiting to be finished.
Dawson Ellis works to finish a piece of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry.
Madeline Ellis shows a wax model of a Mimosa Handcrafted bracelet and its silicon mold.
Madeline Ellis, founder of Mimosa Handcrafted, shapes a bracelet that was cast earlier in the morning of Jan. 8, 2025 in Baton Rouge.
Madeline Ellis and her team at Mimosa cast jewelry in Baton Rouge once a week.
Adri Hawkins carefully shakes silver into the molds to create new pieces of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry on Jan. 8, 2025, in Baton Rouge.
Adri Hawkins carries multiple bundles of in-the-process Mimosa jewelry pieces across her lab on Jan. 8, 2025.
Madeline Ellis shows a wax model of a Mimosa Handcrafted bracelet and its silicon mold.
When Madeline Ellis invited me to spend a morning with her casting Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry, I jumped at the opportunity. I thought I had an idea of what to expect.
Until I was in Mimosa's "jewelry laboratory" in Baton Rouge and saw firsthand the sheer quantity of jewelry they're making by hand each week, I had no idea the scope of what Ellis and her team have created.
Even though the full name of the business is Mimosa Handcrafted, most folks, myself included, just call it Mimosa. Now I understand why "handcrafted" is a part of the name. Each and every piece of jewelry created starts with its own, unique wax model.
On Wednesdays, Ellis and her team use newly created wax models one day a week to cast hundreds of pieces of jewelry in bronze, silver and gold.
Once a wax model is used for a piece, it can't be used again.
Ellis still designs the pieces at home on her kitchen table, but the rest of the creation process takes place in what I call the jewelry laboratory, with each member of the seven-person team on hand being part mad scientist and part artist.
Molten gold cools in a plaster cast (or investment) to create a new piece of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry on Jan. 8, 2025, in Baton Rouge.
After designing a piece, Ellis tinkers with it for a while to get it just right. To make a bracelet, for example, she first draws her vision, then tweaks it repeatedly to account for the three-dimensional shape and bends the final version will require. Along the way, she photocopies it to test it around her wrist to determine what further changes need to be made. Then she carves models and continues to adjust the design.
After a design is refined, Ellis creates a master silicon mold, and the lost wax process begins. The lost wax process is a metal casting technique that uses a wax model to create a mold. Samara Thomas is the artist in charge of the wax model creations. She works in a room filled with molds and blue wax models of more than 600 different pieces, accounting for the different sizes of Mimosa's various designs.
On the morning I watched, caster Adri Hawkins heated the wax-filled plaster molds of jewelry pieces set in "trees," to melt away the wax, leaving cavities to be filled with metal.
Adri Hawkins washes off the bits of plaster left on the recently cast metal pieces of Mimosa jewelry.
"There's a tray underneath, and it'll melt out of that hole," Ellis said.
Once the mold for the wax is perfected, general production of the jewelry pieces begins. The team starts the process early in the day. I watched as she and a six-person crew, including her husband, Dawson, worked to do their weekly casting and burnishing of hundreds of pieces.
From there, Hawkins poured molten metal — bronze, silver and gold — into the cavities in plaster, also called "investment." As the metal cooled, she prepared for the next step of washing away the plaster.
Silver Mimosa jewelry, shortly after casting, waiting to be finished.
First, she quenched the molds in water. Then, she put them in a contraption that Dawson Ellis created. Basically, he added a windshield wiper to a converted dog bath box. Hawkins uses intense water pressure to wash away the remaining plaster — and is able to see what she's doing in the process, thanks to the windshield wiper.
They control the variables to make jewelry that's as close to perfect as possible.
"Every week, there's some mystery to the process," Ellis said. "Even the weather outside can affect it — how fast the kilns heat up, how slow the kilns heat up, the humidity of the investment."
Minute variables make a difference in the outcome — which is a part of the handmade process.
On a cold January morning, the heat of the kilns and molten metal felt good. I watched the many stages of the "handmade" process in action of hundreds of charms, bracelets, rings and more.
Before the pieces go into the final polishing, the Mimosa team lays them out on a table, and each member of the six-person team picks up each piece to examine and feel it from every angle to make sure it's smooth and without flaws.
Dawson Ellis works to finish a piece of Mimosa Handcrafted jewelry.
By my count, each piece goes through a minimum of 33 steps, touched by numerous hands along the way before its final polishing — tumbling for 48 hours in walnut husks.
And then, they find their way into the lives of Mimosa's many admirers.
Mimosa Handcrafted is in the process of expanding its Baton Rouge shop, located at 541 S. Eugene St. Ellis says she expects the larger store and showroom to be open by summer.
Email Jan Risher at jan.risher@theadvocate.com.
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