Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Marble Canyon On a recent visit to the Grand Canyon, we stopped to see how the California Condors were doing in Marble Canyon.     These birds can have a wing span of 9 ½ feet and weigh up to 26 pounds.   They are BIG and magnificent in flight.   I spotted two on a ledge and watched them take off down the canyon.   I t started to rain as I saw three fly under the bridge below me.   I hung (more than leaning!) over the sides to see if I could get a picture.   The birds hopped from strut to strut keeping dryer that me.   They mate for life, lays a single egg every other year, and can live 60 years.    A wildlife recovery program brought the California Condor back from the brink of extinction. The last time a wild California Condor was spotted in the wild in Arizona was 1925.   By 1982 the total in California and Arizona had dropped to 22 birds.   They were all captured and a ...

September seems to be my vacation month and it is going into October!   I’ve had short trips one right after the other and I want to share some with you…but they aren’t over yet and it takes time to write about them the way I’d like to. So upcoming posts will be about: California Condors in Marble Canyon The beauty of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon Learning to survey birds with Sky Island Alliance Rancho Esmeralda in Mexico    Visiting my brothers in Kansas City MO Tucson’s Reptile Show Yes, I know there is nothing about jewelry or techniques but we all know that our everyday experiences influence the work we do.   My jewelry posts will show up with influences from these trips.   Count on it!

Finished!   After 2 days of trying several techniques, this necklace is finished!   I started out thinking it would be cool to make links from polymer clay with some brownish clay, some cutters for the links and complete a quick project.   Cutting the links was the easy part.   Deciding how to attach the links and what to combine with them was more difficult.   The links were baked.   I drizzled Sculpey Bake and Bond and dabbed Pearlex Powder on the baked links to add interest and baked again.   Holes were drilled for metal rivets and the links are ready.     Later I realized I needed to put color accent on the back sides and again drizzled the Bake and Bond and Pearlex Powder.   Baked the links a third time.   Next came stringing the group of beads with flex   wire and using crimp beads to attach the group to 18 g jump rings.   Testing by pulling the flex wire parted the jump ring.   GRRRR!   Maybe solder...

I made cages!   Tiny cages!   While practicing some of the steel wire techniques I learned from Keith Lo Bue’s http://www.lobue-art.com/  online class, I realized that my collection of tumbled stones just might be the start of a new line of jewelry…..Caged Stones!     So here is my first necklace.   Watch for the new series on my Etsy store www.etsy.com/shop/lindabrittdesign    First I made spirals and turned them into tiny cages.   Then I made ‘s’ links and jump rings and combined everything.     I brushed and buffed them, waxed them and inserted the dyed turquoise.   I need more practice to really control the consistency but I like the first piece!