Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Tansy Back of Pendant After completing Christi Friesen’s polymer class last week, I wanted to make a pendant using some of her techniques.   I also wanted the pendant to be my style (whatever that is!). The face of the girl in my creation was a bead given me by a friend and I knew someday she would call to be part of something.   I picked her up, held her, looked at my mix of clay and started creating.   It was fun to figure out how to place the polymer shapes to make her part of the forest and have personality.   Many years ago, a close friend and I corresponded.   We wrote to each other in our imaginary forest girl’s personalities.   Mine was named ‘Tansy’ and I think Tansy may have infused some of her personality into this pendant.   I just had to share her.

Several years ago I went to an estate sale wanting to find something to buy to remind me of family friends who lived in that house.   They were such interesting people who were creative, talented and so much fun.   I looked through everything upstairs and eventually found my way to the basement.   There it was! An old ornate brass doorknob.   It went in my box of treasures.   Recently I rearranged my art studio and found it.     My 2 part mold mix came from Cool Tools and just for fun I made a mold of the top of the doorknob.   Then I made a silver medallion using the mold and drilled a tiny hole in it because I wanted to incorporate polymer clay some way.   I know I’m supposed to figure out the entire piece of jewelry before I start anything so it comes out the way I want.   But this time the piece just grew!   I also made a bail that I thought might look good with it…or not.   I fired the pieces and tumbled them and patina’d them.   They sat on my desk for two weeks – until

May 26 (mark that date on your calendar!) I’m teaching a silver metal clay class at Bead-It in Prescott AZ.   I placed a limit of 5 people on the class so if you are interested call Bead-It (928-445-9234).   Yes, this is free advertising!! We are going to make a pendant from 10 grams of silver clay with a fold-over bail with tiny clay shapes and a CZ gemstone.   Because I want the class to be somewhat cost effective, I ordered 10 grams of silver clay for each student.   I’m used to having packets of 50 grams of clay to work with and I really need to know how big a piece the students can make from the 10 gram packet.   10 grams of silver metal clay next to a penny My task was to make a pendant as an example and to show at the bead store enticing students to sign up.   Yesterday I designed and made the piece.   And yes, I used every bit of the clay.   Today I torch fired the pendant and finished it.   It was my first time to torch fire a CZ stone.   CZ or Cubic Zirco

 2 Silver Clay Tortoises and 1 original sculpture  The last post about the tortoise left you hanging…..... with a mold ready to use!   The original sculpture was done with polymer clay and baked.   The mold was made with 2 part mold compound and I was concerned about his head and made a second one.   Just a note here….the first one was the best! For those of you not too familiar with silver metal clay, here is a brief description.   The clay is made of micro filaments of silver (recycled I understand) and blended with an organic mixture so the clay is malleable.   It dries pretty quickly so it is important to work quickly and keep the clay moist.   Getting the two parts ready In the case of my tortoise, I conditioned the clay and pressed it into both parts of the mold and let it dry.   Then I removed it from the mold and was anxious to see how the two parts fit together.   With a little adjustment they did well!   After cleaning the insides and sanding them so that the sides

Have you ever started a project and all of a sudden you realize your concentration is focused on a part of the project and you aren’t progressing?   You’re just stuck thinking about the same thing over and over?   Well, as most of you know, I make jewelry using silver metal clay.   I like to put the Mojave Stone cabochons that my dad cut and polished in bezels and design around the stone.   Let me share with you how I got stuck in the process.     Bezel shaped to fit a stone  I decided that I would make the bezels (the thin strip that goes around the stone and holds it in place) out of the same silver metal clay as the setting.I made a mold for the stone by pushing it into polymer clay (plastic clay that holds its shape) and carefully removed it.   Then I poured jeweler’s investment (that is a type of plaster) into the mold, let it dry and used it as a plug.   The plug holds the space for the stone and can be fired with the clay in a kiln.   Some stones can be fired in the k