Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Who's heard of wall button?  My older brother, the wood turner, went to a wood turning demonstration in Kansas City, MO.  He learned about wall buttons there and I'm including a video of that meeting.  The wood turned wall button makes interesting wall art especially for someone who sews, knits or crochets.  It's definitely a conversation starter.  Rick Bywater's Wall Buttons He made one for my birthday and I was pleasantly surprised when it came! Mine, made of Purple Heart, had grooves in it for polymer accents.  Dave and I collaborated on several turned vases that included polymer bands.  What fun to work together.  The colors of metallic gold, red and yellow combine in concentric circles and are quite striking against the Purple Heart.  After the polymer was conditioned, placed and textured it was cured with a heat gun.  Had to be careful to cure the polymer and not burn the wood! I'm thinking of asking him to make a couple of coaster size buttons a

Finished Jellyfish! While taking my latest metal clay class with Hadar Jacobson, my muse took over and said, "Oh this could be a jellyfish!"  And so my mokume gane project took this shape! For anyone not familiar with mokume gane it is a Japanese metal technique that merges several different metals.  Artists of metal clay came up with a way to merge different metal clays to form similar patterns.  Artists of polymer clay developed a totally different method.  (more on that in another post).  In Hadar's class we used bronze, copper and steel to form the patterns and inserted those pieces of dried clay into a bronze base.  The mokume gane pattern shows well on the body of the jellyfish. This was a piece that I brought home in dried clay (greenware) form and fired the piece in my kiln.  I was so happy that it fired well and finished beautifully.  In the greenware state I added wire loops for attaching the polymer tentacles.  The partially completed jelly

Flexible Copper (Hadar's Quick Fire) There's been a flurry of metal clay in my studio.   My late winter goal was to use the older Hadar  clay that I have so I can focus on her new One-fire clay.   Over the years (yes it keeps that long in powder form) I've collected many containers of Quick-fire bronze, copper, steel, etc.  They take longer to fire and have 3 stages of firing instead of 2.  Hadar's Flexible Copper  My mid-west background of using and saving kicked in and I would not allow myself to use the new One-fire clay until all the other was gone.  So I started creating.  First I was just going to make some simple earrings and then a pendant.  Pretty soon I wondered how I could make some pieces using tools not used before.  One thing led to another. Crisco Ad Engraving A metal engraved stamp for a Crisco ad that my mother saved became a necklace.  When this piece was fired, it separated in two parts.  I liked it so much I repaired it and fire