Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

A couple of months ago my friend, Helen, asked me to make her a ring for her thumb out of copper.   She’s been having joint pain and thought maybe the copper against her skin would help relieve it.   Of course, I said ‘Sure’!   I came home and thought about how to make a ring that would fit or could be adjusted to fit.   And the copper really needed to touch the joint.   And Helen lives 200 miles away so there would be no ‘fitting’. I cut paper and played with a design that would wrap around the thumb and not get in the way of daily chores.   I came up with this design.   During one of my practice sessions with my jeweler’s saw, I decided how to cut it and how to decorate it.   I practiced. The copper sheet I chose for the final ring came from my junk yard treasures.   It has striations on it and the plastic protection coating was still on one side.   I carefully sawed on my scribe lines and filed and sanded all the edges. ...

 2 Silver Clay Tortoises and 1 original sculpture  The last post about the tortoise left you hanging…..... with a mold ready to use!   The original sculpture was done with polymer clay and baked.   The mold was made with 2 part mold compound and I was concerned about his head and made a second one.   Just a note here….the first one was the best! For those of you not too familiar with silver metal clay, here is a brief description.   The clay is made of micro filaments of silver (recycled I understand) and blended with an organic mixture so the clay is malleable.   It dries pretty quickly so it is important to work quickly and keep the clay moist.   Getting the two parts ready In the case of my tortoise, I conditioned the clay and pressed it into both parts of the mold and let it dry.   Then I removed it from the mold and was anxious to see how the two parts fit together.   With a little adjustment they did well!   After cleaning the...