Blue Sea Grass Pendant Giveaway & Half Off Sale.

This striking dichroic pendant was one of the items most requested for our next giveaway. This sparkling blue pendant features a graceful enamel and gold "sea grass image" fused to it's surface. Pendant is 1 3/8" X 1 3/8" with a gold plated thatched bail and an 18" blue satin cord with gold plated barrel clasp.
We have many new designs in our shop and would love to see one in our next giveaway. We are also having a half off sale in our Etsy store Helix Elemental Studio. Just enter the code HELIXHALFOFF when prompted at checkout for 50% off your entire purchase. This code is good until Feb 24th. which is also when we will draw a winner for this beautiful dichroic pendant!
 HERE'S HOW TO ENTER:
1 .Visit http://www.helixelemental.etsy.com// and/or http://www.christinacolwell.etsy.com/./ Come back here and leave comment listing the item that you would like to see in the next giveaway. Please provide the name and item # of the item you'd like to see in the next giveaway. You may select as many items as you like but please list each item on a separate comment . Each comment = one entry.


2.Blog, Twitter, Facebook this giveaway and leave comment for each action with link. Comment = one entry.

3.Follow blog and leave comment. Comment = one entry

4. This giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere.

Have fun and good luck!

Time To Evolve..again.

When I start to get bored with making dichroic glass jewelry it's time to do something new. In the very competitive jewelry market you need to try to be as extraordinary as other talented and successful artisans without copying them. When I wanted to experiment with more complex layering techniques I wasn't sure I could splice the more complex shapes without creating lots of divots or air pockets. I wanted to cut more fluid, wavy shapes and splice them together so as to give dimension to the piece. Another way of forcing new designs was to use alot of different materials. So I began ordering deeply textured dichroic glass and finding ways to use the very opaque dichroic glass that I previously disliked because it doesn't permit the underlying glass colors to show through.
Creating templates in Photoshop allows me to make more exacting cuts with my ring saw, but even still I have to meticulously grind and shape the glass to fit as perfectly as possible. I like to create "windows" in the upper layers that allow to shapes and colors of the lower layers to show through. And, as far as the opaque dichro, I just started using it behind a more pale colored glass instead of on top, and the results are very nice.

Now that glass work has gotten exciting again I can only look forward to refining the new ideas and building upon them and, hopefully, expanding them to their full potential. I've shown in this photo a couple of the templates I've used to create the top two pendants shown. The fairy pendant is the result of  layering a pale aqua glass over a sparkly and very opaque dichroic glass with a wavy "ribbon" of opaque mint green through the middle.