About

Meet the Artist

Hello, my name is Catalina Zavaleta, and I am the one-woman-show running Memories of the Sky from my home in California!

A life-long artist and crafter, jewelry has become my latest venture into creating custom pieces for people to cherish. My first (and longest-running) job was a freelance custom plushie business, where I created hundreds of orders over the years. (I seriously lost track at this point across the multiple platforms and diversity of my projects!) While it's a different line of work, please feel free to check out my old Etsy to see some of what I did a few years back.

But anyway, you're here for the jewelry, aren't you? Creating my own jewelry designs has long been a passing daydream of mine, which is ironic because I was not really known to wear jewelry myself. After a freak leg-breaking accident in the summer of 2025, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands to do nothing but doomscroll, since I was bed- and couch-bound when I was at home. I spent a majority of the time going down a jewelry and gemstone rabbit hole, learning exponentially more about the industry, materials, and design than I ever had. I once again had the daydream of being able to make and sell my own jewelry, but I told myself it was much too late for me to learn, since I assumed you would need to become an apprentice bench jeweler to learn properly. But suddenly, the more I learned about techniques, tools, and other people's journeys, the more the excuses disappeared one by one and I began to delude myself into thinking that, I too, could become a jeweler! (Jury is still out on whether or not I was truly delusional.)

Memories of the Sky was founded at the tail end of 2025, once I finally convinced myself to take the plunge. I decided to teach myself how to use Rhino to create jewelry CADs, and lo and behold, I was able to do it. The first ring I made reminded me that I am able to do more than I often give myself credit for, and urged me to follow the jewelry path after all. Currently, I make/design all of my CAD files, outsource my casting, and set the stones myself. While I am proud of what I have learned so far, I can't wait to see how much more I can learn in the years to come!