Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

From my new fall collection My latest online class:  Building Better Beads with Dan Cormier What a learning experience!  I'm pretty experienced with polymer clay and know there is always something new to learn.  In this class I built a bead in 4 weeks.  No, I've never taken that much time to build a bead!  A lot of time was spent on each step building the best bead I could instead of making lots of beads as fast as possible.  The zen experience of looking at each step and deciding if it was the best it could be before going to the next step really made me focus.  While I may never spend that much time on a bead again I will look at what I'm doing with more discerning eyes evaluating time, value and quality.   Seeing the process of each step through the eyes and hands of a skilled professional who is willing to teach is invaluable.  Getting feedback on how to improve is so important.  The skills of sanding and buffing poly...

A Favorite Bracelet made from a DVD class Time - I can watch the classes at my convenience.  Maybe early morning or late at night! Or in the middle of the day or with earphones while waiting in a hospital room. Comfort - I don't have to dress for class -- actually I don't have to dress! Convenience - I can watch a segment and go try the technique.  I can watch the same part over and over until I get it!   I can watch again in a year because I don't remember everything. Authority and experience - the teachers are amazing, interesting, and professional.   Teachers are all over the world. New Techniques and tools - I learn so many new things, get new ideas and see what is available in other parts of the country. Expense - even though some classes are expensive they seldom cost as much as actually traveling to a different part of the country plus hotel, etc. There are tutorials and mini-classes and usually you...

2 Years of Simmering  Sometimes ideas sit and simmer.  Sometimes for years and then they need to be revisited. 2 years of moving these beads around my studio After cleaning off my work space in the studio many small containers of red beads appeared.  A couple of years ago (you know how time flies...) I had a idea for a necklace.  One group of beads I made were thin discs cut from a floral cane.  They cured on small muffin tins so they flared and ruffled.   The smaller thicker red discs and some much smaller round beads were added.  Then I stopped.  Probably a different idea got my attention and the red beads sat there.  Several times over the following weeks and months they were moved from place to place.  Then thinking about having to sand all those beads before I used them made me wonder exactly how I would put them together.  There were times I wondered why I just didn't throw them away. But there they ...