Hand Crafted Jewelry from Spirit of Design

Spirit Of Spring Design
by Gini Sage

Gini Sage began as a stained glass artist over thirteen years ago, and has expanded her art to include silver jewelry crafted from Precious Metal Clay (PMC™), which fires in the kiln to become 99.9% pure silver.

Many of her pieces incorporate her custom fused dichroic glass cabochons.
Her work also includes Sterling Silver Wirework, which incorporates a wide variety of semi-precious stones.

All of her pieces are custom designed, and she sells not only from her studio, Spirit of Spring Design, in Seagrave, ON, but also at the Meta4 Gallery in Port Perry, ON and the McLaughlin Art Gallery Gift Shop in Oshawa, ON.

The inspiration for much her work is drawn from nature and gardens, as she has a Certificate in Landscape Design from the University of Guelph, as well as being a Durham Region Master Gardener.

What is PMC?

Precious Metal Clay, PMC ™, is an exciting material developed and patented in the 1990s by Mitsubishi Materials of Japan.
Microscopic particles of silver are mixed with a moist binder to create a material that has the feel and working properties of modeling clay.

Using simple tools, objects are easily given shape, texture, and character.

After air-drying, the objects are heated to temperatures approaching the melting point of the metal, where the particles fuse together to make a dense, 99.9% pure silver object.

Fired PMC work can be polished, soldered, enamelled, and enjoyed like any other silver item.

What is Dichroic Glass?

Coatings By Sandberg, Inc.
Dichroic Glass is a multi layer coating placed on glass by using a highly technical vacuum deposition process. Quartz Crystal and Metal Oxides are Vaporized with an electron beam gun in an airless vacuum chamber and the vapour then floats upward and attaches then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. Our colors have as many as 30 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 35 millionths of an inch. The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and by careful control in thickness, different colors are obtained. Thus, all our coatings are created using the same exact materials. Originally created for the Aerospace industry, Dichroic Glass is now made available to the artist community through Coatings By Sandberg, Inc. The main characteristic of Dichroic Glass is that it has a transmitted color and a completely different reflective color. Furthermore, these two colors shift depending on angle of view. With the play of light together with its vibrant color, Dichroic Glass is a prime tool used to add interest to any piece of work or project.