Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

            HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

My friend, Luana, makes beautiful quilts and fabric purses/bags.   When she asked me to make 4 large beads for the rope she wanted to use in her latest ‘origami’ bag, I was flattered!   And of course I said, ‘sure’.    And we all know it wasn’t as easy as that!   I had a package of Sculpey’s Ultralight Clay that had not been opened and I thought this would be a great time to learn to use it.   It was such fun!   I molded lots of large beads with the idea that 4 needed to be about the same size.   These were going to be handcrafted and I did not want them to look perfect (like a machine made them).   After forming the bead and made a large hole in the center, I cured them in my convection oven.     The colors in the fabric turned out to be a challenge with lots of pinks and oranges.   I started polymer flower canes and made several and did not like any of them with the fabric flowers.   I made more.   ...

Italian Harpsichord This past week Peter and I flew to Boston for the Early Music Festival.   Attending the festival has been on Peter’s bucket list for many years and, of course, I was not going to miss it either. As usual we took lots of photos as we enjoyed the Back Bay area of Boston.      The weather was mostly rainy, overcast with only occasional sun.   I wore my ‘fitbit’ and at the end of 3 days realized I walked an average of 22,200 steps each day!   And yes, most of it was in rain! The Public Garden founded in 1837 was one of our first stops.   There is a lovely ‘lake’ with swan boats that were picturesque and not working that day.   Squirrels chased each other across grass and up trees.   Mother Mallard had her ducklings in tow as they swam.   The Globe Alliums looked like dancers in formation and the roses were in bloom.   But the Dogwoods took center stage with all the trees just filled with bl...

Sometimes design just evolves.  I wanted to make a toggle set from polymer for a knitted green chain I made.  I started with Premo green, purple, light green, and translucent clay.  I was thinking:  floral - wild violets   http://www.garden.org/weedlibrary/?q=show&id=2397 green leaves tiny formed flowers green and purple I also had decorative copper head pins and I wondered if I could incorporate those and make them connect the toggle set to the chain.  I played with the circle and the cut out for the toggle.  As you can see I ended up with tiny purple flowers raised on translucent circles laying on green leaves.  And they reminded me of wild violets. The toggle needed to be another leaf with a violet that fit onto the round leaf. After getting the width and length of the leaf correct, I added the decorative head pin and bent it to a circle.  I placed a tiny purple ball of polymer on top of the head and cured...

I have an idea about making flowers from polymer clay and I know I will have to experiment to get the idea to become a reality.   I want to use translucent clay with some color and I want to control the shape of each petal.   I’m also thinking large rather than tiny.   I want the petals to glow as the light comes through. Ready for the oven I began by using Premo translucent clay and Premo 5504 Fushia.   I conditioned each one separately. The fushia was rolled on a 4 setting and the translucent clay between 2 pieces of rag paper on a 5 setting.   The translucent slab went down first.   Then I sliced the fushia into 3/8” strips and layed them criss-cross on the translucent.   My multi colored fushia, gold, and copper foil went down next and another slab of translucent on top of that.   I rolled all that on a 1 setting and then cut the petal shapes.   I made a general paper pattern and kept cutting it smaller as the petals got smaller....