It’s Christmas! And like it or not, for me that means baubles. Lots of ’em!
This year, I’ve gone all shabby-chic with a range of clear glass blown ornaments decorated with hearts and dots. With some baubles, I’ve left the colours as they are and pulled the rods to stringers to draw the designs before blowing. With others, I have mixed two colours together to give a swirled effect when the stringers are pulled. The results have been finished with a nice ribbon and look as if they would work well as ornaments for any time or year, not just Christmas. Each bauble has a hole to allow air pressure to equalise inside and outside the sphere, making these look thoroughly traditional. They also have a nice weight, not thin at all, which I like.
Along with a range of blown, coloured fruit and veg – garlic, pears, oranges and apples – these baubles are, like pets, not just for Christmas. In fact, they could hang in a window all year round and act as a modern equivalent of the traditional “witches ball”. Decorated with spirals of colour, these balls were hung in windows to catch any evil spirits before they could enter a house and cause mayhem. Art glass feng shui – sounds good to me.