Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Front of Pendant or Back of  Failed Pendant Described Below This is a story about my trials, frustrations and successes of making a pendant from Goldie Bronze metal clay and setting a stone in bronze bezel wire. Many of you won’t be interested in the details here but I’m hoping it gives you an idea of all the stages and work that goes into making a piece.  Last weekend I decided to make a pendant, finish it and then solder a bezel for the stone.  I practiced wrapping the bezel wire around the stone, cutting the edge straight and soldering the edges together.  Then I practiced soldering a bezel on a piece of sheet metal with my acetylene torch.  It melted the bezel.  I changed to a butane torch and that worked.  I tried to solder the bezel to the finished bronze pendant with bronze solder and melted the bezel.   Next I moved to silver solder and that did not work either.  It was time to go to FaceBook and ask my jewelry buddies for help!  I finally decided (right or wro

Today I was going to show you beautiful bronze earrings with sterling posts that I had soldered to the earring.  The earrings were going to have Mojave Stones in a bronze bezel and I was going to feel so smug about putting all those things together.  Instead I’m going to share what really happened! First I need to tell you that a client wanted earrings to match a necklace I made a year ago.  I said I would try.  In order to even come close to success I would need to practice by making several similar pair of earrings.  After this experience, my advice to myself would be:  make the earrings at the same time as the necklace.  There are too many variables possible. I still had Goldie Bronze hard and soft clay left from the original necklace.  Rio Grande carried bronze bezel and bronze solder so I ordered that.  Next I made the earring backgrounds from the Goldie Bronze clay and I added leaves and flowers and stems.  After sanding they looked good.  I had not used my kiln la

Necklace with many connections! Connections have always fascinated me.  People meeting people, learning how materials can be made to work together, finding the same shapes over and over in nature, using the same information in many contexts and - cold connections in jewelry, connection of notes in music!  Connections are everywhere! I thought I’d share a few things that have helped me see connections in history and look at my world a little differently. One of the books that has caught my interest and become a favorite is The Brilliant History of Color in Art by Victoria Finlay.  Not only does the cover with all the stacks of colors catch my attention but the author’s method of using one or two pages to tell the fascinating history of a color works well for me.  http://www.amazon.com/Brilliant-History-Color-Art/dp/1606064290/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421886674&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Brilliant+history+of+color+in+art I can pick