Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

A collection of polymer jewelry 'Carnival' This week I made a presentation to members of Mountain Artists Guild here in Prescott AZ of some of the things I've made from polymer clay.  The purpose was to expend the members knowledge a about the many possibilities of this wonderful medium.  I wanted to share my slides with you hoping to also expand and inspire you! Collaboration in Wood, Decorated Eggs So many uses of polymer.  So many ways to create!

The Round Shells are the Sea Snail 'Trap Doors' in last week''s post  My 'shell project' started soon after we returned home from Bahia Kino.  (see last week's post).  I wanted to make molds and see polymer and silver beads form.   I started by conditioning my polymer clay to use for the mold material.  As you can see in the photo below, one side of the shell is molded in the brown polymer and the other side (which is a more shallow mold) is in the blue polymer.  There is also one mold where I used several shells and both sides for the design.  When the polymer is baked it becomes hard and makes great molds.  polymer molds and 2 of the shells Polymer Beads from the Mold The first thing I did was to use polymer to see how the details of the shells came out in the molds.  I made beads with both the shallow side and the deeper spiral side of the shells.  Both pieces are fired and a wire added for the connecting loops....

My polymer interpretation of a piece of fabric A piece of fabric caught my eye in a fabric store and became the inspiration for my current project.  I started out wanting to make a lot of polymer canes (sticks of polymer with a design running through them) in colors that would go together but not match and would make me happy.  I also wanted to use up my Sculpey polymer clay that was getting old.  I used all the colors I had left and combined them in design strips of various sizes.   The wave design you see makes me think of fabric and gives a counterpoint to the structure of lines.  The piece above is approx 5" x 7" and it really does make me happy to see it.   Canes made into design strips Here's a little about the process:  The packages of clay were conditioned so they would be easy to work.  I made sheets of thin black polymer to use as wrapping for the finished design strips.  I think the black delineates the strip and pops ...

Canes - long rolls of polymer clay set in patterns If you design and make polymer canes you probably have boxes of them stacked in shelves like I do. And if you sometimes look at all the cases of canes and wonder "What am I going to do with those rolls of patterned polymer clay?" then we are a lot alike! One of many boxes of canes - waiting! This week my attention span was just long enough to take a few of the canes and put them together in new ways and make some beads and buttons.  The color choices were blacks, gray, white and a little rusty red wrapped in thin black casings.  The canes needed a little massaging to activate the clay since they were older. unfired buttons The buttons are 1/8" slices with the pattern going through the button.  Be sure and notice the color change from the unfired clay to the fired clay.  I try to make a couple of sizes of each pattern. fired buttons     The beads are made of thinly sliced canes app...