Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

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.   ...

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...

Black and white makes such a striking statement and I am ready for a statement!   E xperimenting with combining black and white polymer clay, I stacked alternating layers into stripes and swirled them.   Then I cut the swirls into little pieces and compressed the pieces into a one-inch ball in my hands.   Sometimes I cut those balls into 4 pieces and reassembled them into another one-inch ball.   I combined my finished beads with volcanic stone beads about the same size.   It became obvious that I created two basic designs and they would not go together.   Some of the black and white balls reminded me of zebra stripes and some were much more abstract.   I had to make a decision! Two statements - one now and one for the future!    I used smaller black matt beads for the back of the necklace with a silver toggle. And this is the happy result!