Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

The stone I selected for my class project is a Plume Agate.   I did not realize how healing the process of setting it into silver metal clay would be.  As you know, Prescott had two fires close by this summer – the Doce Fire and the Yarnell Fire.  It is not possible to have a fire close to your town without being affected.  It is not possible to lose 19 firefighters in one of those fires without being affected.  When I selected this stone, I saw plumes of smoke with the sun setting behind them.  I saw the burned ground with the lacy texture at the base of the stone.  I saw the beauty and the destruction of fire and I knew this was going to be my commemorative piece.  As I sketched the design for the setting, I wanted to emphasize the texture at the bottom of the stone.  I wanted to keep the main part of the setting simple so the eye would go to the plumes and I wanted to continue a flame from the front to the back.  ...

 see the silver metal clay pendant at the end of this post  I have to confess that I am not a mushroom lover.   I also must confess that I am intrigued with their appearance and have taken a great many photos of them from the east coast to the west; from forests to mountains and in my brother’s front yard in Missouri.   Many of the books I read (you know- the romance novels about Ireland and Scotland) often talk about the importance of fungi in medical treatment and in witch’s brews!   So I thought October would be a great month to share some of those pictures as well as share some of their history. The ancient Egyptians (about 4600 years ago according to hieroglyphics) thought the mushroom was the plant of immortality.   Mushrooms were declared to be the food for only royalty; no commoners could touch them much less eat them.   Other civilizations thought the mushroom could provide superhuman strength and could lead the souls of men to the land of the god...

When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave ...