Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

If you’ve been following my blog posts, you know that I love to photograph birds!   When eight Tundra Swans decided to visit the Prescott Lakes, I was ready with my tripod and Nikon camera with the long lens (Tamron 200-500).   I had my binoculars, hiking shoes and Peter (my resident birder)!   Tundra Swans breed in the Arctic tundra and migrating south to warmer weather.   It is really unusual for them to be this far south. We went to Watson Lake and saw four of the swans near the far shore….too far for any picture.   Then we went to Willow Lake and saw none.   The next day we retraced our steps and found four at Watson Lake and four at Willow Lake.   The ones at Willow were near enough for photography.     I carefully walked toward the water close enough to ‘shoot’ but not to disturb them.    Took lots of pictures in different exposures and happily left.   When I got home and looked, I realized the feathers weren’t as defined as I wanted and were overexposed.  I needed to try again

Small Bundle of Success #1 A small case of crystals has taken up space on my shelf for a few years and this December I decided to create jewelry using them.   There were vintage teardrops, Swarovski teardrops, and chandelier prisms - all have some kind of imperfection.   In the case of the teardrops the tops are broken and I just hate to throw them away.   3 Teardrop Crystals with Bead Caps My solution is to make bead caps with bales from silver metal clay and glue the crystals into the caps.   Since silver metal clay shrinks in firing, I knew I needed to make the caps larger.   I molded polymer clay over the top of the teardrop and baked it.   This gave me a firm form where I could build my bead cap of the silver clay.   I started with 3 forms and made 3 different caps with bales.   This was an experiment that worked!   The forms made the caps bigger than the crystals with room to shrink.  Also I found the perfect drying place for the clay caps......the points of my jewelry pli

It’s the New Year!   Instead of listing all kinds of resolutions or none at all, I’ve decided to share my goals for this year….     I will have fun doing whatever I am doing. I will experiment with new techniques and share them. I will exercise my willpower by enjoying and sharing small successes. Recently while listening to NPR, I heard Roy F. Baumeister talk about his new book, “ Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength ”. Recent research suggests that we might look at willpower as a muscle, exercising it and building it by achieving success in small things. Enjoying the small successes will make it easier to tackle bigger challenges and have success with those.   That made a lot of sense to me. In fact, I’ve used that technique in time management. So this year I will see how I can break down the things I want to accomplish into small bundles. I’ll be able to enjoy the success more easily and build up my will power muscle!   And of course part of enjoying that succ