Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

  Canyonlands is a wilderness of rock.   It is vast and sculptural and colorful.   It is fascinating to see the various rock formations, canyons, and mountains that make up the expanse of this National Park. There are three areas, Island in the Sky, The Maze, and the Needles.   The Maze and the Needles were a little too remote and needed a 4 wheel drive, lots of water and supplies.   We explored the Island in the Sky.   From the broad mesa, you can see views spread before you that stretch for a hundred miles in front of you and 1200 miles beneath you.   Views abound that take your breath away and are difficult to comprehend.     Rain is scarce but it is spring/summer and when we rounded a corner we had to stop and look.   There below the very tall rock formation were a lovely variety of wildflowers blooming.   What a sight! Yellow and purple wildflowers Quite the View! Lizards find rock shelves where they can...

As most of you know, my Tuesday blogs for a few weeks will be about my trip to several Utah monuments and parks.   Friday blogs usually have something to do with jewelry and creativity.   I always take a sketch pad and camera with me on trips.   So many things I see spark an idea for a piece of jewelry I want to make.   This trip was no different and one of the ideas I had after seeing the magnificent rock formations was to combine the vertical slabs of rock with the angled layers.   Since I’ve been taking several polymer clay classes, I decided that would be the medium.   Rock colors (copper, black, white, gold) mixed with some metallic mica powder and pepper represents the minerals.   I made some canes that combined the colors and that I could flatten for the long vertical rock formations.   For those of you who don’t know what a polymer clay cane is, picture a long cylinder of clay that has a design running through it.   You slice...

The first day of our trip led us through Flagstaff AZ with the beautiful juniper and pine forests, past Sunset Crater, Wupatki National Monument, and Navajo National Monument.   We stopped at those three places on the way home.   The Little Colorado River has a dramatic bridge alongside the road where we climbed around on rocks to look down into the river.   I started looking at the dry river bed with the idea of making texture plates for jewelry.   This one would be great to imbed in wet clay. Spaces were vast and sometimes the placement of the advertising made me smile! With lots of interesting cacti and wildflowers!  We wanted to get to Monument Valley and camp there for the night.   Never have I seen so many rental RV’s as I did on this trip.   All the campgrounds were full and this was early in the season!   We drove through the monument and took some side roads when all of a sudden we saw a very large ...

Trying something new!   I was in Joann’s recently and was looking for a Nifty Knitter to see if I could make chain with it.   There were several sizes of round plastic disc with a series of knobs or spokes to wrap yarn around.   The smallest one was 4” in diameter and while I wanted something to make a larger diameter chain I thought 4” might be a little large.   Then I saw the specialty knitter.   Check out that picture! Nifty Knitter Specialty Loom Several posts ago, I compared a spool knitter with another product and now I have to share this one! http://www.lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/2012/02/adventure-of-making-chain.html   I made my purchase and went home to try different gauge wire with it. I found the technique for the Nifty Knitter’s to be very similar to the Spool Knitter.   Using the small end for knitting lets the knitted wire pull through the center hole with no problem – just like the wooden Spool Knitter did. This plastic one ...

Last night we returned from a week of camping and driving and exploring some of Utah's monuments and parks.  We celebrated my 65th birthday with this trip and it did take my mind off the number of years.  Something about that number that makes me ... nervous! Camping with Peter is so easy.  We took Peter's incredibly delicious chili and a salad for the first night's adventure.  He is very good about finding lovely secluded places to camp.  Most of the places we landed either had no campgrounds or they were full.  I like to think of it as being 'closer' to nature. Our supplies included lots of water, canned chicken, bread, various kinds of soup, cokes, cereal, milk, bananas and coffee!  We were sure we could find a store and reload supplies. Utah has vast areas where there are very few towns with few stores (at least the part we traveled).  We stopped at Moab and had a wonderful lunch, got gas and continued on.  We explored Monument...

May makes me think of hats…maybe it’s the Kentucky Derby.   Maybe it’s remembering the black straw with the big turned up brim that I wore to church in high school.   Such a fashion statement!   Or it could have been the hot pink derby hat I wore with the faux black suit I designed in college.   Whatever it is, May just says ‘HATS’ to me.   You might like to check out this link to see the current Kentucky Derby Hats!    http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/04/living/kentucky-derby-hats/index.html?hpt=hp_abar I thought it might be a great time to share the story of one of my vintage hats that is on my etsy site www.etsy.com/shop/brittdesign . Many years ago, I started collecting hats.   I love to wear hats that are unusual and as people discovered my love, they started giving me their old ones.   One of those gifts was this Archie Eason hat that looks like three doves were swooping around and decided to land on my head.   It was just unique...

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 t...

 Mother's Cool Necklace  When I was young, I wanted jewelry like my mother's.   She was an art teacher and pretty cool.   I always wanted to be grown up like her!   I even wore her white wedge shoes to school in the 6 th grade without her knowing.   Yes, our feet were the same size then and, yes, the teacher did call my mother! When I was in college in the late 60’s and early 70’s, I was first an “everything must match girl” before I moved into the hippie flower child period of bright colors and macramé. Matched my red suit!  Macrame!  And this was Mom's too!!    When I married, my husband made our wedding rings from pieces of family gold jewelry and some new.   He finished them the evening before the wedding.   Fortunately for me, his mother and father had taught him the value of good handmade.   The rings are timeless and beautiful.   When I was working as an interior designer, my jewel...