Nightmare Insomnia!! AJE Design Team Blog Hop

Nightmare Insomnia

On July 1, I stopped by the Art Jewelry Elements blog, and saw a post by Jennifer Cameron featuring her "Nightmare Insomnia" bead series. I was utterly fascinated by these beads!! Jennifer was hosting a drawing to win five of her "Nightmare Insomnia" focal beads, the winners of which would then create pieces with them for a blog hop at the end of the month. Regular AJE partners would also be participating. I threw my hat in the ring and was thrilled to have my name drawn! I received the bead pictured above--and I think had I been able to choose from the beads featured in the post, I probably would have chosen this one! It was delightful to design around!

I was really wanting to do something dark and nightmarish with it--like really play up those spidery, gunmetal endcaps--but I just didn't have the right things. I contemplated using polished, annealed steel (which would echo those hematite-like endcaps and have this urban Underworld kind of vibe), but I like a heavier gauge wire, and my annealed steel wire was just too thin (plus if you could even find heavier gauge annealed steel wire, it would be too stiff to work with). I opted for sterling silver (I've never been able to do a sterling piece in a gunmetal patina. I Must. Shine. It. Up.)

I wanted to have a little more length descending from the bead itself, and it seemed like a faux toggle bail might be easiest to accomplish that with.

The sterling silver toggle bail, once in place, really drew my attention to the luxuriousness of the bead--as you can see, the endcaps really have an iridescence and shine to them, and the pattern in the center of the bead introduces a little bit of lighthearted whimsy into the whole design--they are seaside colors to me, and the pattern makes me think of confetti. So perhaps it was that advanced stage of insomnia, where you've gone without sleep for so long you're getting maniacally cheerful (right before you fall over).

I didn't want to add too much more color to it, as I didn't want to turn it into something sugary, so I stayed with the charcoal/black theme as much as I could. I had some awesome faceted Czech glass in a hematite color (they glitter, but, like, menacingly--haha!) that seemed perfect for the bulk of the design, and I liked the sea green accents best with the focal. A recycled glass bead in Coke bottle green from Happy Mango Beads seemed just right. For the extra length I wanted, I attached a short section of black silk string, with another glittery charcoal bead and a few faceted Czech glass rounds in Prairie Green (which I was thrilled to find matched my recycled glass beads--going to pair those up for earrings in the future!)

I finished it off with wide deertan lacing in black, nickel silver end treatments, and sterling silver chain and handmade clasp. My handmade sterling silver rivets on the leather ends turned out very rustic indeed. (I'm not very happy with the riveting block I bought, I think I'm going to go back to my vise for mushrooming rivet heads.)

Scroll down below to visit the other artists in the hop!

Beti Horvath: Stringing Fool

Gretchen Nation: Art Food Lodging

Karen Totten: Starry Road Studio

Kathleen Douglas: Washoe Kat's

Keirsten Giles: The Cerebral Dilettante

Kristen Stevens: My Bead Journey

Lola: Bead Lola Bead

Lori Anderson: Pretty Things

Nancy Pederson: Something Heartfelt by Nancy

Pam DeBoer: Purple Notes from the Studio

Rana Wilson: Rana Lea Designs

Shannon Chomanczuk: For My Sweet Daughter

Well I've never been to Spain but I kinda like the music

I bought this stone donut a couple weeks ago with a vague idea what I would do with it. I nearly drooled in the store over the creepy black veining in it--makes me think of the black moss that hangs from the conifers up here. It is so not my usual style, but I was determined to try something different (I think the market for casual jewelry is probably a little bigger than the market for royal interview/Academy Awards/ballroom jewelry.) I was nervous about making the bail though (I mean, my God, 16 gauge wire is, like TWENTY THREE CENTS an inch--that's like, a quarter. Seven more and I could do one small load of laundry.) I wanted to make something kind of almost noir, maybe sort of Old World, maybe it would turn out kind of Mad Maxx. Or Anne Rice. Or sort of industrial. My only goal was that it not be frou frou. I collect shiny things and hide them and then make jewelry out of them that tries gamely to be casual but doesn't quite make it. Too much flash. Things start out as Just a Simple Pendant and end up as a Coronation Neckpiece.

Well, this one didn't quite make it to Mad Maxx. Little too dressy probably for Aunty Entity. Stopped just shy of casual. It's more like, maybe, something the wife of the Mayor of Barcelona would wear. But I think it's a step in a good direction that it looks more like Spain than Beverly Hills. I think that's partly because of the focal piece--it doesn't glitter or anything. Just trying to diversify. My current inspiration is an artist named Lorelei Eurto. Here is one of my favorites of hers:



(CLEARLY I HAVE A REALLY LONG WAY TO GO). This kind of design doesn't come naturally to me (being, apparently, a disturbing human-magpie hybrid, all the supplies I have are really shiny), and I'm trying to be disciplined to use what I have before buying more. But I did buy four bottles of highly caustic substances for oxidizing metal in an effort to increase my inventory of "casual" (non-shiny) jewelry--if you never hear from me again you'll know that I used it in a poorly ventilated area.