Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

From my new fall collection My latest online class:  Building Better Beads with Dan Cormier What a learning experience!  I'm pretty experienced with polymer clay and know there is always something new to learn.  In this class I built a bead in 4 weeks.  No, I've never taken that much time to build a bead!  A lot of time was spent on each step building the best bead I could instead of making lots of beads as fast as possible.  The zen experience of looking at each step and deciding if it was the best it could be before going to the next step really made me focus.  While I may never spend that much time on a bead again I will look at what I'm doing with more discerning eyes evaluating time, value and quality.   Seeing the process of each step through the eyes and hands of a skilled professional who is willing to teach is invaluable.  Getting feedback on how to improve is so important.  The skills of sanding and buffing poly...

2 Years of Simmering  Sometimes ideas sit and simmer.  Sometimes for years and then they need to be revisited. 2 years of moving these beads around my studio After cleaning off my work space in the studio many small containers of red beads appeared.  A couple of years ago (you know how time flies...) I had a idea for a necklace.  One group of beads I made were thin discs cut from a floral cane.  They cured on small muffin tins so they flared and ruffled.   The smaller thicker red discs and some much smaller round beads were added.  Then I stopped.  Probably a different idea got my attention and the red beads sat there.  Several times over the following weeks and months they were moved from place to place.  Then thinking about having to sand all those beads before I used them made me wonder exactly how I would put them together.  There were times I wondered why I just didn't throw them away. But there they ...

  The Finished Funky Chunky Necklace https://www.etsy.com/listing/599601461/colorful-chunky-bead-necklace-boho?ref=shop_home_active_1 These polymer beads have been on my work table for months!  They are hollow, light weight and colorful.  I love them but did not have any inspiration on how to finish them.   One evening I happened to pick up my box of steel wire (baling wire from the hardware store) and some leather strips.  Maybe I could use the leather and weave it through the beads.  Nope!  The central bead was curved and too long for the leather to go through.  Next I tried the steel wire and I liked the look with the chunky beads.  I have found that if I am patient and keep parts (like the beads I love but have no idea what to do with) a solution will surface.  It makes cleaning up and cleaning the studio harder to do! It has been a while since I used steel wire and I remembered how black my hands got.  I...

 In my last post, I shared my adventure of making a complex polymer cane using fabric as an inspiration and the design in the fabric was inspired from Mexican tile.  I decided to make a necklace to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, (May 5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_Mayo and use some of the canes as beads. It was fun to give the beads dimension by curing 2 halves, assembling the halves into a whole bead and creating a way to hang them.  . Focal Bead Front of Focul Bead The focal bead looks like a pillow with the two convex squares over the four sides of skinny ovals The mobius bead above the focal pillow bead is attached to the necklace with a lobster claw. Each large bead is decorated front and back to give a finished interesting look to the necklace.  Polymer beads are lightweight and durable.  The back of the beads shown in the first photo above. Margaritas, mariachis, chips and salsa and a colorful one of...

Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pai...

Does anyone else wonder what to do with their canes once they are complete?  My dilemma- what to make using my frog cane.    I made the charms with the frog on his lily pad and you saw it in the previous post but I wanted something more sophisticated!  After watching Barbara McGuire’s tutorial on translucent canes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YOkLypJvE   I just had to try to use the technique she demonstrated and add my frog cane slices.   Polymer Canes  I love these beads!  And yes, I’ll do mor e of them.  Beads Before Curing Beads Before Curing Finished Bead Finished Bead Finished Bead Finished Beads I have another idea for a pendant with the frog so be watching for it!  Any other ideas for the frog canes?  I would love to hear from you.  And by the way, I’m trying to reach 900 likes on my facebook business page.  If you haven’t looked, please take a ...

Tubes – what to do with them? Recently I took Cynthia Tinapple’s class ‘Extrusions’ at CraftCast.com.    They have great classes!  https://www.craftcast.com/recordings/learn-make-extraordinary-polymer-clay-extrusions-cynthia-tinapple   One of the new tools I learned about was the tube adapter for the Makin’s Extruder.  I would tell you the make etc. but after I unwrapped the three adapters (each was for a different size tube), I threw away the packing. I think I got mine from Cool Tools.  I did not find this video until after I made my tube and even though it is for metal clay, it is a good demo by Cool Tools to show how the adapter works in the extruder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTdD8MVifWc This is what it looks like.   It’s the circle with the raised stem.  There were few directions so I played around with it and put the clay in the extruder, put the adapter with the stem side out next to the clay and the round disc in the c...

My first ever ‘Do Over Challenge’ was such fun!  I signed up to participate in Jeannie K Dukic ’s 6th Do Over Challenge not really knowing anything about how it worked.  I received a necklace that was very sweet with copper wire connections and pinkish pearls.  It sat on my work space for a couple of weeks while I pondered my next move.  One day I opened my polymer bead collection and was drawn to the pinkish and green beads.  They really looked good with the pearls.  I found some green crystal beads and a few other contenders.  But when I tried the small striped beads, I knew my combination!  This is the finished product for most of the pearls in the original necklace. It was the week to finish some of my long term projects.  I kept the wires with the red and green rubber bands from the braces I wore for 3 years.  When they finally came off, I asked the orthodontist if I could have them.  He wanted to know why ...

This is one of my solutions to the weak link in my Experimental Petal Neclace: I cut the curls off the tops of my petals and added eyelets.  Let me say that the Fiskar Eyelet kit I found on sale at Joann's a year ago really worked for this job. What a great little tool! I was able to rewire the copper loops that attach to the chain and here you have it!  A little more wire but everything is stable and this should be lots of fun to wear. Experimenting with this has increased my knowledge of polymer clay, its limits and possibilities.  Thanks to everyone for your interest and suggestions!

One of the best things about Facebook is being in a special interest group.   I belong to a polymer clay group and a metal clay group.   The polymer clay tutorials are listed and I always look.   So when Emma Ralph’s (EJR Beads) tutorial was recommended, I looked at it on her etsy site.   http://www.etsy.com/listing/113890791/polymer-clay-tutorial-by-emma-ralph I thought it was expensive and so I looked several times before I decided to buy it.   Wow! Was it worth the money.   It was well written and documented with many interesting pictures, techniques and tips!   In this blog, I want to show you some of what I learned and the ‘Illuminare’ beads I made. I followed her directions and took a couple of side trips!   The Thistle Medallion was one of the side trips. http://www.lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/2013/02/thistle-medallion.html     This bracelet was another.   http://www.etsy.com/listing/124530104/dragonfly-bra...