Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

One of the techniques I learned at Hadar's Tucson workshop used flat floral ribbon to make the shapes for clay.  The floral ribbon is flexible and can be cut with scissors.  Once it is bent into a shape, clay is cut and dried against the ribbon.  It is removed after the clay dries and one can proceed assembling the pieces.  At the class,we worked making jewelry but I wanted to experiment a little more and decided to make contemporary lizard for fun.  I used Goldie Roman Bronze clay as one of my goals this spring is to use all my various metal clays from several companies and then decide which I really like.  This turned out to be my largest piece I've made and just fit in a rectangular pan I had. Something I had to consider when I designed Turq.  His finished size is 3"x 5". My basic design with the floral ribbon Placing the dried clay pieces on a background Decisions:  do I want a bronze lizard that covers the skeleton or not? Nope!  I

Front of Pendant or Back of  Failed Pendant Described Below This is a story about my trials, frustrations and successes of making a pendant from Goldie Bronze metal clay and setting a stone in bronze bezel wire. Many of you won’t be interested in the details here but I’m hoping it gives you an idea of all the stages and work that goes into making a piece.  Last weekend I decided to make a pendant, finish it and then solder a bezel for the stone.  I practiced wrapping the bezel wire around the stone, cutting the edge straight and soldering the edges together.  Then I practiced soldering a bezel on a piece of sheet metal with my acetylene torch.  It melted the bezel.  I changed to a butane torch and that worked.  I tried to solder the bezel to the finished bronze pendant with bronze solder and melted the bezel.   Next I moved to silver solder and that did not work either.  It was time to go to FaceBook and ask my jewelry buddies for help!  I finally decided (right or wro