Woot! I finished it! :) And I had so much fun with it!
Okay, so earlier this month, on the Art Jewelry Elements blog, I saw the fabulous July Design component, Jennifer Cameron's Nightmare Insomnia beads. This bead is so many levels of fabulousness, I just cannot tell you. :) I could not wait to play with this one, so I hopped right on the opportunity to get one and participate in the hop!
Okay, so this is the bead Jennifer sent me:
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| You can't see it terribly well here, but in addition to the gorgeous swirly colors in here, there's an awesome zebra stripe. |
I pondered this bead for a few weeks, until I finally decided that I wanted to play with seed beads. I finally settled on a cellini spiral (my first ever!) using instructions from the fabulous Inspirational Beading blog. Here's some pics of the cellini in progress:
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| seed beads all over! |
So, I had originally thought to do a cellini spiral bangle, with the nightmare bead in the center focal. But really, I gotta tell you, I wasn't real sure how to do that, as I've never woven a bangle before (I'm pondering that next) and I wasn't sure if the entire thing might not be too chunky. After all, the cellini certainly has some oomph to it, and the bead is a lovely size, as well.
Eventually, I settled on a necklace, and decided to weave a basic spiral rope for either side of the cellini. I attached those ropes to the cellini section with a very haphazard and organic series of beaded "strings." Not sure if it was "proper," but it worked:
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| You can sort see the stringies here... |
Then, I had to figure out a way to attach the bead to the necklace. I really want it to be over-the-top (well, more than it was already...) and I thought it'd be fun to give it a bit of fringe. So, I wove a seed-bead-bail-system-thingy through the bead to secure an actual woven bail to one end and some danglies to the other. Then, I decided a woven bail would too much, so I just used 3 strands of seed beads to go around the cellini. So, here's the finished "thingie":
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| :) |
And here's the Whole Shebang!
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| Pretty! |
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| I love collages, don't you? |
You can find the rest of the Nightmare bead designs here:
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
