Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

An inspiration for a necklace! It's been raining a lot around our Prescott area  and mushrooms of various kinds are bursting through the ground.  On a recent trip to Tucson we went to the Sweetwater Reclamation Area (a favorite place to see birds) where we found more fungi.  I've been fascinated with fungi for years and have accumulated many pictures!  Thought I'd share some with you this week.   These tiny umbrellas are less than an inch in diameter growing next to a potted plant I find the colors, shapes and textures so interesting.   I don't know their names and need to look those up. In the meantime I'm sharing their beauty! Beautiful flare to this fungi Another angle of the flared fungi Stacks of bracket fungus I love how the bracket fungus attaches to the curve of the tree

Looks like leather!  I used chalk, guilder's paste and Golden's paint Silk screening on polymer clay seems to be a big topic of interest lately with lots of Facebook posts and tutorials.  Guess it's time for me to try something new!  Helen Breil has a great tutorial (free) to get us started.  http://www.helenbreil.com/silk-screen-demo.html   After watching Helen's tutorial as well as others, I decided that a rainy day would be perfect to start experimenting.   I used to do silk screening on fabric in college and this is the same idea. I took my Kato white polymer scrap clay, conditioned it and put it through the widest setting on my pasta machine.  I put it on a piece of paper to leach (that makes the clay stiffer and not so soft and squishy).  My stencils are made of paper that I verathaned to keep them waterproof so they would last longer and one small metal stencil.  I've ordered a couple of Helen Breil's stencils but I'm using mine until

It's September and I'm really not ready for the fall season!  I'm still wanting those warm days with the  hot sun, a good book on my ipad and the quiet afternoons on my deck with the birds and lizards.  I've started looking in my closet for summer things that I haven't worn! And I'm thinking of things that I want to do before the first snow in late October.  In the meantime there are beautiful places to visit and help ease the transition into fall. Visiting the lakes and taking a walk are things we love to do on a glorious day here in Prescott AZ. Wednesday's are 'free park' days and Peter and I will start making our weekly trips to all the lakes checking on the birds in the area.  We went to Watson Lake and found some Cormorants, Canadian Geese, and local Mallards.  It was too early for the ducks to return andI got excited about the lines of plants with a Cormorant tucked in the center. The sky was blue with lovely billowy white clouds an