Amid all the festive Christmas decor and events is another festive event for one very dear friend. Yes D's birthday falls in the wonderful month of December, YaY! There are so many fun activities to choose from in order to celebrate her special day. This year we decided to do something very exciting, B found an ornament workshop!
A local company Viscosity offers an ornament making workshop and so the five of us girls headed down to to enjoy a festive and exciting birthday outing. We had no idea what to expect but were pleasantly surprised and intrigued! We actually got to do a lot of the work ourselves!
The process is so exciting, first it starts with a dollop of glass procured from the giant furnace by the instructor. We then roll the glass in the colored sand.
We then stick it in the glory hole and soften up and melt it all together. We then took more of the color and rubbed it all over and back in it went for some more time in the hole. We wore sunglasses because it was SOOO toasty.
After we finished applying the coloring, the instructor them firms it up into the proper shape and puts a bubble into the glass. We then get the job of blowing the ornament ourselves, while the instructor shapes it for us.
A few chose to put a ribbon around their ornament - which requires an additional layer of glass be spun on top of the other glass. While the instructor is obtaining the additional glass the original glass must be rolled back and forth in order for it to remain in the correct shape.
The additional glass is then placed on the existing glass while you roll the rod away from you. This process is mostly done by the instructor and then it is placed back into the glory hole for some softening of the glass once more.
Then we get to shape our ornament by blowing into a tube and pushing air into the preexisting bubble the instructor created.
From there we're able to torch it if we've decided to use the metallic. The torch creates the shine. It was pretty fun - and the instructor extremely trusting!
We all did something a little different! The top two are pictures of D's, the one next to it is B's. The bottom row from left to right is Dana's, mine, and Jackie's. They required 24 hours to cool, because it has to be cooled slowly or they will shatter. D will pick them up on Monday for us. Perhaps more pictures will be forthcoming.
We had an excellent time doing it! Happy Birthday, D!
A local company Viscosity offers an ornament making workshop and so the five of us girls headed down to to enjoy a festive and exciting birthday outing. We had no idea what to expect but were pleasantly surprised and intrigued! We actually got to do a lot of the work ourselves!
The process is so exciting, first it starts with a dollop of glass procured from the giant furnace by the instructor. We then roll the glass in the colored sand.
We then stick it in the glory hole and soften up and melt it all together. We then took more of the color and rubbed it all over and back in it went for some more time in the hole. We wore sunglasses because it was SOOO toasty.
After we finished applying the coloring, the instructor them firms it up into the proper shape and puts a bubble into the glass. We then get the job of blowing the ornament ourselves, while the instructor shapes it for us.
A few chose to put a ribbon around their ornament - which requires an additional layer of glass be spun on top of the other glass. While the instructor is obtaining the additional glass the original glass must be rolled back and forth in order for it to remain in the correct shape.
The additional glass is then placed on the existing glass while you roll the rod away from you. This process is mostly done by the instructor and then it is placed back into the glory hole for some softening of the glass once more.
Then we get to shape our ornament by blowing into a tube and pushing air into the preexisting bubble the instructor created.
From there we're able to torch it if we've decided to use the metallic. The torch creates the shine. It was pretty fun - and the instructor extremely trusting!
We all did something a little different! The top two are pictures of D's, the one next to it is B's. The bottom row from left to right is Dana's, mine, and Jackie's. They required 24 hours to cool, because it has to be cooled slowly or they will shatter. D will pick them up on Monday for us. Perhaps more pictures will be forthcoming.
We had an excellent time doing it! Happy Birthday, D!
1 comment:
That looks like so much fun. I am looking forward to seeing your ornament.
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