Holiday Blown Glass Ornaments with Blue Moon Glassworks

The Glass Blown Ornaments class at Blue Moon Glassworks was really fun and left us feeling super accomplished!

We went in hoping that maybe one of our ornaments would turn out ok enough to hang on the back of the tree, but left with 10 front of tree ornaments that people compliment all the time! Plus we got to play with fire and molten glass...

The Teacher

Jim is great! You can really see his passion for glass in all it’s artforms. In fact, he started this class after going to a glass conference and taking the class himself! In the studio, Jim stresses the importance of safety, but also creativity. He made sure everyone in the class had fun, learned, and got to go home with beautiful hand blown ornaments. 

The Setting

The class is held at Blue Moon Glassworks in the back of the shop. The maximum number of students is 6, which is nice because it allows for a lot of hands on teaching time and allows you to ask questions and get the attention you might need. Each student also got their own torch and tools to fire their ornaments as well as their own cooling oven. It may not be as “gram-worthy” of a setting as some of the other classes we’ve taken, but maybe that’s a good thing? Who needs a gram-worthy setting when you’re playing with fire.

The Class

The class was flexible and catered to us from the minute we called to schedule. They worked with us on booking based on our availability before the holidays. Once you get there, everything is laid out and ready for you. You have your own set of glass cylinders and so many colors of glass frit (tiny pieces of glass that color the ornament) that the hardest part is choosing your color combinations. 

Jim walked us through an example ornament, then had each of us make one while he coached and the others watched so that we could get hands on while he was 100% focused on the person doing it. After that, it was up to each of us as we torched, blew, and pulled our ornaments into balls and “chili peppers” (elongated ornaments that you pull as you blow). In the end, we each went home with around 5-7 ornaments we had made, depending on how many tries it took to get the process down.