Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Cleaning closets and de-cluttering is such a difficult task for me.  I’m determined to reduce the things I don’t use and have not used in years.  And exactly why do I keep all the stuff?  It’s the memories…… aaah! Today I started in my closet on the back wall.  It’s a long narrow walk-in and when I moved in, it looked so big …until I started unpacking!  I keep the ‘dress-up’ clothes, coats and vests on that back wall.  It's also a great place to store items for my vintage etsy store. The first piece I took out was a vest that has not been worn in 35 years.  It looks like new, beautifully tailored with handmade buttonholes and lined.  Someone should be wearing it.  And you wonder why I've kept it that long?  Yes, it has a story.  I made that wool vest.  In fact, I wove the fabric, cut the pattern and sewed it!  It was indeed a labor of love.  I was living in Mountain View CA at the time and w...

  Winter, snow and being in the house a lot makes me want to cook.   I happened to pick up my grandma’s cook book.   It is very old and a wonderful look into what her life was like when she was cooking for her husband and their two girls.   I think she also cooked for men who worked for them at the farm.   I loved having milk and cookies at her house.  She usually had a cake when I visited her! I wanted to share some of the pages and let you enjoy them too.   The book is well used.   Grandma gave it to my mother and now I have it.   Once in a while I try to decide what recipe I want to make from it but I seldom get past reading and remembering.  I love this story about the rose jar! 

Over the years and many moves later, I’m cleaning out my current master closet.   It is a long narrow closet with shelves and more room than I’m used to having.   That is where the ‘family boxes’ were stored when we moved to this house.   Those boxes have not been opened for a number of years for one reason or another.   Now I have time,   a vintage etsy store and not many family members who are interested in the contents.   http://www.lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/2012_11_01_archive.html Last month I came across the box of ladies handkerchiefs.   This week I opened a box of crocheted and knitted children’s clothes.   Not many items, but enough to revive the stories in my memory.    My mother had a pen-pal in England and they shared letters, stories and sent gifts.   This brown hand-knitted dress was one of those gifts for me as a little girl.   The pen-pal in England was a woman, a wife, a mother who had tw...

  Holiday’s always remind me of the big family celebrations that my mother gave.   Christmas was the big one.    Mom loved family celebrations!    The Austrian embroidered tablecloth and napkins came out along with the red and white dishes.   The crystal with the gold rims and the silverware were just the start.   I always helped set the table correctly.   At a very young age, I knew the knife and spoon were on the right of the plate and the two different sized forks were on the left.   There was always a flower arrangement or centerpiece and candles . Austrian tablecloth, red and white dishes, centerpiece and a grandson! Everyone’s favorite foods were made and there would not have been a celebration without ‘Mom’s Denver Biscuits’.   I can still smell the hot potato based yeast rolls.   Several of us make them now or at least know how.   Somehow they are not quite as good as hers were but they bring her back to...

Recently I decided to clean out the master bedroom closet.   It is a long narrow walk in closet and the coldest place in the house in the winter.   It was now or wait until spring.   I began with the usual – going through the hanging clothes and then the shoes and last the boxes that never got unpacked from the last move.   That was when the fun began!   When I opened a small box of handkerchiefs I could almost smell the lilac fragrance my grandmother was so found of.   There was a stack of my mother’s and grandmother’s beautiful handkerchiefs I had forgotten about.   Both women loved the femininity of the embroidery and lace on batiste and fine linen fabric.   They never went anywhere without a clean ironed square in their purses.     Finding those handkerchiefs got me to thinking about handkerchiefs in general and I did a little research.   It seems that King Richard II of England , who reigned from 1377 to 1399, was re...

My good friend’s husband passed away after 11 years of fighting lymphoma and leukemia.   This past year was terrible for both of them as they struggled to be positive and useful and loving.   I visited with her one afternoon and I listened as she told me how she will miss his presence, his humor, his wit and his nightly, “Good Night, Beautiful”.   She is, of course, glad he is no longer in pain and she has removed the reminders of that pain from the house.   We both know the reminders live within her and will fade with time as the good memories take over.   A doctor once told me that losing a loved one leaves a hole inside.   That hole can be likened to the hole in a doughnut.   The hole is there with healing around it.    I opened my memory box to share some of the pain and some of the humor I remember so well from my husband’s dying.    My friend was concerned about getting the ashes to another state.   I shared the st...

As most of you know, my Tuesday blogs for a few weeks will be about my trip to several Utah monuments and parks.   Friday blogs usually have something to do with jewelry and creativity.   I always take a sketch pad and camera with me on trips.   So many things I see spark an idea for a piece of jewelry I want to make.   This trip was no different and one of the ideas I had after seeing the magnificent rock formations was to combine the vertical slabs of rock with the angled layers.   Since I’ve been taking several polymer clay classes, I decided that would be the medium.   Rock colors (copper, black, white, gold) mixed with some metallic mica powder and pepper represents the minerals.   I made some canes that combined the colors and that I could flatten for the long vertical rock formations.   For those of you who don’t know what a polymer clay cane is, picture a long cylinder of clay that has a design running through it.   You slice...