Baubles

I never thought I would have to make so many baubles. When I started glass blowing with all those high hopes and dreams, I don't think baubles entered my mind. Initially we used to make them just at Christmas, but we now sell them all year long. People are hanging them outside and in their windows.

However I have grown to love them. I have made a lot of baubles now and I can make them almost subconciously - not all of them - but the more standard ones. It is a bit like driving a car, I can chat to my assistant or even customers whilst blowing.

Also the more elaborate ranges have become like affordable maquettes of some of my ranges, a bit of art. I decided a long time ago that when i made a bauble, it had to be good, round is not negotiable and the diamonds are mould blown ( the only pieces that we make in a mould). When you are using colour on the outside of the glass (outside casing) in a random way like I do, the colours have different co-efficiencies of expansion and are prone to blowing out assymetrically. To counter this I use a little extra glass to give myself a chance at keeping the bauble round. This means that the baubles are heavier than people expect - my way of looking at it, is I would rather a round slightly overweight perfectly formed bauble as against a misshapen, light, pig's ear of a bauble. And it does make them more robust, which to my mind is a good thing, if not commercially the best!

I can still remember opening the xmas decs box when I was a kid and seeing the broken baubles. Every year a few more of my absolute favourites had to be thrown away. I mean, I wasn't a sensitive kind of a child, and at the time - that was life, but now I look back and think what a waste.