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.   ...

The stone I selected for my class project is a Plume Agate.   I did not realize how healing the process of setting it into silver metal clay would be.  As you know, Prescott had two fires close by this summer – the Doce Fire and the Yarnell Fire.  It is not possible to have a fire close to your town without being affected.  It is not possible to lose 19 firefighters in one of those fires without being affected.  When I selected this stone, I saw plumes of smoke with the sun setting behind them.  I saw the burned ground with the lacy texture at the base of the stone.  I saw the beauty and the destruction of fire and I knew this was going to be my commemorative piece.  As I sketched the design for the setting, I wanted to emphasize the texture at the bottom of the stone.  I wanted to keep the main part of the setting simple so the eye would go to the plumes and I wanted to continue a flame from the front to the back.  ...

There are so many amazing places to explore in the Southwest and so many surprises.  I had never been to Cedar Breaks National Monument (near Cedar City, Utah) and in fact, I was not even aware of it.   Peter had been there and wanted to show me the area and we both wanted to take photographs.  As we drove up the mountain to 10,000+ feet, the trees thinned to a few.    It was a surprise to step out of the car, walk through the bristlecone pines, juniper trees, wildflowers and grass to look out 3 miles and down into a half-mile deep natural amphitheater.  Breathtaking actually!    This monument is open June thru October (snow in the winter precludes travel) and I understand that the fall colors are incredible in September/October.  The rock colors come from iron and manganese in a varity of combinations to produce reds, oranges and yellows with some purple.  My colors!  The Indians used to call this area the ‘Circ...