Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

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 it all.   Toggle set  When I placed it next to the kni

Finished Piece Back of finished piece This is the last and 6 th piece of jewelry I created in Hadar Jacobson’s Architexture Jewelry Class.   As you can see that was a very busy intensive class that was worth every minute and dollar!   There was so much to learn and Hadar was so willing to share.   This project focused on layering different metal clays.   I rolled out and textured a layer of brilliant bronze, a layer of copper, a layer of steel and another layer of copper for the backing.   Each layer had a different texture.   I cut out the top layer of bronze and placed it over the copper layer making sure I had the amount of copper showing that I wanted.   Those two layers were placed over the steel and then onto the copper back layer.   This was an interesting way to build a piece as it provided support for each layer.   And as you can see it really produces nice depth.    Before Firing  I made a long cylinder on a straw for the bail before finishing and firing

Sharing my work from Hadar’s class with you is making me remember and document what I learned.   It’s a really good thing!   Details can be so easily forgotten.   In between assigned projects, I made a pair of earrings from a slab of copper and a slab of brilliant bronze.   When you really look the top layer of one earring is plain copper and the back layer of the other is textured bronze.   The pieces on the top layer started out as a single shape and I cut them to look like cracked mud.   (At least that is what dried cracked mud looks like here in the Southwest).   Since the two materials have a slightly different shrinkage rate the cracks became a little wider.   After I sanded and fired them, I polished them and made them into earrings.   These were fun and I’ll make other earrings in a similar style.   I also tried my square pliers and love what I can do with them. This pair of earrings sold before I could get them in my etsy shop!

Several years ago I went to an estate sale wanting to find something to buy to remind me of family friends who lived in that house.   They were such interesting people who were creative, talented and so much fun.   I looked through everything upstairs and eventually found my way to the basement.   There it was! An old ornate brass doorknob.   It went in my box of treasures.   Recently I rearranged my art studio and found it.     My 2 part mold mix came from Cool Tools and just for fun I made a mold of the top of the doorknob.   Then I made a silver medallion using the mold and drilled a tiny hole in it because I wanted to incorporate polymer clay some way.   I know I’m supposed to figure out the entire piece of jewelry before I start anything so it comes out the way I want.   But this time the piece just grew!   I also made a bail that I thought might look good with it…or not.   I fired the pieces and tumbled them and patina’d them.   They sat on my desk for two weeks – until

Finished!   After 2 days of trying several techniques, this necklace is finished!   I started out thinking it would be cool to make links from polymer clay with some brownish clay, some cutters for the links and complete a quick project.   Cutting the links was the easy part.   Deciding how to attach the links and what to combine with them was more difficult.   The links were baked.   I drizzled Sculpey Bake and Bond and dabbed Pearlex Powder on the baked links to add interest and baked again.   Holes were drilled for metal rivets and the links are ready.     Later I realized I needed to put color accent on the back sides and again drizzled the Bake and Bond and Pearlex Powder.   Baked the links a third time.   Next came stringing the group of beads with flex   wire and using crimp beads to attach the group to 18 g jump rings.   Testing by pulling the flex wire parted the jump ring.   GRRRR!   Maybe soldering the jump rings closed would solve the problem.   When I tried that I b

I made cages!   Tiny cages!   While practicing some of the steel wire techniques I learned from Keith Lo Bue’s http://www.lobue-art.com/  online class, I realized that my collection of tumbled stones just might be the start of a new line of jewelry…..Caged Stones!     So here is my first necklace.   Watch for the new series on my Etsy store www.etsy.com/shop/lindabrittdesign    First I made spirals and turned them into tiny cages.   Then I made ‘s’ links and jump rings and combined everything.     I brushed and buffed them, waxed them and inserted the dyed turquoise.   I need more practice to really control the consistency but I like the first piece!

Several years ago I took Barbara Becker Simon’s class on Hollow Beads in Tucson AZ. http://www.bbsimon.com/pmc.html   I loved making my silver metal clay beads.   I made two that interlocked and actually finished the project in class.   I just could not decide how to use them.   They hung from a wire on my wall.   I’m sure you all have components just waiting for the jewelry gods to say, “Now! Now is the time to use this!” I’m finishing Keith Lo Bue’s Steel Wire class http://keithlobue.blogspot.com and just made the ‘U’ link chain.   It was on my work table when I decided I needed to see if I had anything to use as a focal.   That’s when I heard the voice saying “Now!   Now is the time to use your silver hollow beads!”      I must say that I am very pleased with the results and wanted to share this necklace with you.

My newest tools have been on the floor long enough!   The doming kit and the Swantrom Disc Cutter Set were getting dusty and I was getting anxious to try them out.   Out of the box and unwrapped! Swantrom Disc Cutter Set Remember my trip to the junk yard in a previous blog?   My friend, Kim, and I divided the scrap metal and the wire and it too was sitting on the floor.   Right!   I could hardly walk to the work bench. I had a couple of polymer clay discs ready for something and I liked the blue copper (someone’s failed etching project) from the junk yard.   So I took the disc cutter and tried it out.   After a couple of tries with the mallet, I had a disc.   Wow! It works!   And a second disc and tiny holes in each of those. I was careful to leave enough blue copper around the holes I cut so that I could use the leftover for another project I have in mind. Next the doming kit…not as easy.   In fact, I watched a Beaducation video on YouTube about using it and I will prac

 Bead-It in Prescott AZ Viking Knit is one of the oldest wire chaining techniques and we first see it being used in the 9 th century.   That must be about the time wire was being made in long enough pieces with a small enough diameter to be flexible for chaining.   It is again popular with jewelry makers and once a person learns the technique it can lead to a Zen like experience.   Basically it is using 26-30 gauge wire and making loops in a circular pattern around a dowel (or similar object) using continuous wire.   When it is finished, the tube is drawn through a series of holes, each smaller than the next, until the chain is the size you want.   The Project I’ve wanted to teach this technique and our local bead store, Bead-It, agreed.  We set a date and had lots of interest.   My first Viking Knit Class was a learning experience for my 7 students and for me.   Aren’t we always learning?   The goal was to make a bracelet with Viking Knit chain and an S hook clasp fro