My amazing ADHD

Hillary has been diagnosed with ADHD since she was 19. Lately it has been taking a prominent role in her life, and it brought about some thoughts she wanted to share:

My brain works very differently from most other people's and it's hard to even explain sometimes. This makes life very difficult in the corporate world, because ADHD people are not good at things like error free data enter and other repetitive, mundane tasks. What they are good at is coming up with ideas that other people wouldn't and making connections that other people would miss. These are very valuable skills to have as a worker, as an artist and as a person. My ADHD is a big part of why I started making jewelry, and then why I wanted to do more and work differently, which eventually led to being here. It is why I have to do jewelry and dance and art, and why I love them so much. Those with ADHD often have a creative nature, and are often quirky. Quirky creativity describes me and what I do to a tee. I love creating new jewelry and new sketches, and I love coming up with new ideas.

ADHD opens new doors, but it erases some altogether. I will never be able to consistently remember to turn off the lights, enter numbers correctly every time, catch all grammar errors and typos when proofreading, find my keys when I need them, not leave piles of papers and stuff in the house, or intrinsicly understand what organized is. It doesn't matter how hard I try, certain things will never happen the way everyone would like.

That said, I wouldn't give up my ADHD. Like I said, it's part of what drives me to create and part of what makes my creations so different. Without the drive to create and the drive to try new things, there might not be an Artful Unity. Most people with one jewelry business, wouldn't necessarily move on to 2. I, however, had to try it or it would drive me crazy for the rest of my days.

I love myself, who I am, what I create, and my life. None of these things would be the same without my ADHD. I would be a different person, which is the last thing I want. Some days, I wish that I didn't have certain problems that come with the ADHD and some days I wish I could be a little more like everyone else so that we could understand each other. However, if it went away, I don't know that I would ever come up with the unique ideas I do
or be driven enough to pick up a pen and pencil to sketch them knowing that I am most definitely not a sketch artist. But, I am who I am: the designs jump into my head and beg to be made. I don't have the right materials to make them, so they beg me not to forget them; so, I sketch.



Thanks to my ADHD, there's one more design that won't be forgotten, and one more idea that has a chance to become a beautiful piece of jewelry. How crazy and how awesome is that?

New Artistry and Sketches

Hillary has drawn some sketches for ideas that she has for custom work. She created this jewelry business because she wanted to work on her artistry and work in new ways. She felt that drawing sketches would improve her artistry, help her see things in new ways and give customers a chance to customize an idea to their liking before it's actually made.

This first piece would be made from a square or cube gemstone bead wrapped with wire covered with czech glass beads in a complementary color. Hillary has some great corner drilled dark brown jasper cubes that would make a very elegant but funky necklace if combined with gold, copper or shiny brown beads. However a flat square/diamond in a more pastel color with pastel czech glass would work well for making jewelry with a softer but still elegant and unique look.




The second piece of jewelry is an assymetrical pair of earrings. They are made from chain and various types of high quality beads all in a similar color family. Hillary's original vision was for these to be made of high quality glass including some facted czech glass beads, but this would also work well with gemstones or pearls.

The original idea came from a custom request listed on etsy for bridesmade earrings for a dress that had a wide strap on one side, and no strap on the other. Hillary thought that having a two different earrings might be an interesting way to draw attention to the asymmetry of the dress while still balancing the overall look. This design would work well with any outfit, but Hillary thinks it would look most stunning with strapless or asymmetrical dresses.




The next piece is a necklace made primarily of silver. Silver chain and a silver triangular spacer are accented by small tear-drop shaped beads, and a larger, wire wrapped teardrop bead.

Hillary's original vision involved a Bali silver spacer but other hand-made silver, including Thai, would work well. Hillary envisions vintage glass for the teardrops, but told us that bright gemstones would be beautiful of their own right and would make the piece even bolder.




The final sketch is a set that would involve a lot of intricate wire work. It features wire wrapped teardrop beads with smaller beads worked into some of the wire wrapping. For the necklace, a wire heart covered in small beads surrounds the wire wrapped bead. The bracelet is made from wire wrapped beads with chain in between. The earrings are dangles made with wire wrapped teardrop beads.

For the large beads, Hillary envisions vintage glass or pearls, but gemstones would work as well. For the small beads, Hillary said that she likes the idea of Czech glass and crystals about equally.

Hillary stated that many color combinations would work well on this, but her three favorite ideas are iridescent white on clear or white, shiny royal blue on royal blue, or different shades of green. Contrasting colors would work on this set as well, but the combination would have to be carefully chosen as the design of the set is already very decorative and attention getting.



Thank you for viewing our sketches and we hope you enjoyed them. We will be listing some of these in the next few days on our Etsy site as custom items available for purchase. If you would like us to make one of these for you or make a sketch for you based on your own designs, please let us know. Also, if you have ideas or comments for us or for Hillary, by all means feel free to comment here or convo us on Etsy. Have a beautiful week.