Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** This piece highlights the launch of The Melting Lab, a new venture by Galician designer Alicia Martínez that combines Fine Arts training with hands-on jewelry workshops and personalized design services.
Galician Alicia Martínez develops The Melting Lab, a project offering various workshops to bring people closer to the jewelry sector and custom jewelry design services.
Atlántico
Published: 05 Oct 2025 – 15:30
Alicia Martínez began her journey in design through her Fine Arts studies. But after taking some courses with her mother, she realized her future lay in jewelry. Thus, The Melting Lab was born, just a few months old, yet already offering different “Create Your Jewelry” workshops, custom jewelry design services, and jewelry maintenance. Over 50 people have already created their own jewelry, and the firm has developed various kits to create from anywhere in Spain.
After studying Fine Arts in Pontevedra, I took two years of fashion design, cutting, and sewing at a school in Oviedo. It was around that time when my mother and I attended a small jewelry course taught by a well-known Asturian jeweler. It was a course held in a neighborhood association, lasting just a few hours. That brief contact with the jewelry world, during which I made a pierced brass pendant that I still keep, led me to seek formal training. I eventually decided to pursue the Higher Degree in Artistic Jewelry in Santiago de Compostela, at the EASD Mestre Mateo. There, I was able to absorb the knowledge of my teachers, especially my workshop master, Carol Toribio, with whom I spent many hours over two years of training. With jewelry, I felt for the first time that “this was my thing.” You could say an impromptu activity to spend time with my mother ended up charting the course of my life.
There is no perfect moment to start a business, but I really wanted to dedicate myself fully to jewelry. I had been mulling over the project for a long time, and I think what motivates me most every day is seeing how this craft, so unknown, is wonderfully received if we make an effort to explain the techniques, to tell how things are made.
Creativity that promotes workshops where people design their own jewelry from scratch, fostering imagination and artistic “making.” Personalization where each piece is unique, made according to the client’s tastes, anatomy, and desires, or created by themselves in one of the “Create Your Jewelry” workshops. Transparency and honesty when working with clients in workshops, showing processes, guiding step by step, there is an implicit value of transparency. Education and sharing knowledge because the workshops not only produce jewelry but also teach techniques, encourage learning, and the visibility of an artisan craft.
This question is hard to answer, but I can say I am happy with where I have arrived. Since I completed the Higher Degree in Artistic Jewelry, I have tried to dedicate myself to this craft. Entrepreneurship is not easy, and I can proudly say this is the fourth time I have tried. I am very persistent! This time, I was clear that this is not just “something I like,” but I had to see it as a business to make it profitable. You have to know how to communicate the values and services you offer to reach people.
This past year has been a year of changes. My professional life has done a 360-degree turn, and that has been possible thanks to the support of my family, partner, and friends. I went from working in the marketing and design sector, where I already had almost 10 years of experience, to taking the plunge into entrepreneurship. This has meant not only a big change professionally but also personally. I believe this project represents who I am and my values, and that gives me a peace I had never felt in any previous job.
The Melting Lab is only a few months old, but it already offers various “Create Your Jewelry” workshops, custom jewelry design services, and jewelry maintenance. Over 50 people have already created their own jewelry, and the feedback is super positive. I have also developed various kits to create your own jewelry from anywhere in Spain, although right now I am reworking them for a relaunch very soon.
– Full name: Alicia Martínez Casals
– Define yourself as a person: I am a cheerful, outgoing, and creative person with many interests. And this project is part of my personality and the need I have to transmit my knowledge.
– A confessable quirk: [Not provided in original]