Watch and Marvel At a Holiday Ornament Being Made

Watching how holiday ornaments get made is very relaxing. Kick back with hot cocoa by the fire place and be mesmerized.

Made by New York Corning Museum of Glass, this YouTube video takes us through the steps of making an ornament. It begins with a hollow glass mold, surrounded on each side by two thin glass straws used to hold it. The mold is held up against a fire used to melt it and make it malleable. Next the amorphous mold is placed in a machine that gives it a more distinct, detailed shape, and again it's placed in the fire.

Once the shape of the ornament is complete, color gets added. In the case of this particular ornament in the video, the straw that feeds into the empty mold is filled with a metallic silver paint that colors over the whole inside of the clear, glass ornament. Hence, from the inside the ornament gets a glassy, silver paint job. Next, glitter is glued by hand to the outside of the ornament for decoration, and the straw sides of the ornament are removed.

Of course, the video skips over a few steps, like how the straws are removed or how metal catches and hooks are added to the ornament. But the process is otherwise fairly straight forward for a handmade ornament. Mass produced, factory ornaments, on the other hand, are a different story.

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