If you're interested in custom ornaments manufacturing, please scroll to the bottom of this page.

GLASS ORNAMENTS AND DECORATIONS - HOW THEY'RE MADE

For an in-depth photo tour of glass preparation and how it's readied for painting, click here: Christmas Tree Ornaments.  The following photos show what happens to the glass once it's been shaped into the final form of the glass ornament.  Virtually any design can be created as a custom ornament.

Glass Ornaments Finishing Process

The glass ornament shape is carefully inspected to insure the finished glass shape is perfectly formed.  In some cases, the bottom part of the pipette might need to be filed off or made more smooth.  In all cases, both the top and bottom glass extensions are removed, so that the only pipette remaining is a small opening with a rim of approximately 1/4".  This opening is the familiar "top of the glass ornament" that serves to receive the gold ornament "cap" with its hanger.

 The glass ornament is then conditioned on the inside with a proprietary solution, (photo on the left).  In the case of this blown glass ornaments manufacturer, a second silvering solution is poured into the hollow glass shape and swirled around by hand, ensuring perfect inner coverage of all surface areas, (photo on the right).

All glass Christmas ornaments are inspected 1-by-1 to ensure a perfect and sufficiently thick silver coating exists throughout the ornament.  The photo on the right makes clear the contrast with a before and after shot.

The next step is hand painting.  Almost all glass ornaments require a white base coat.  This gives each color a consistently opaque finish.  In the photo below, the glass ornament has received a white base coat, with a small amount of air brush applied rose for the dog's cheeks.

After the base coat has dried, the hand crafted blown glass ornaments are passed usually to several painters, each one specializing in either the application of a particular paint color, and/or a special brush technique.  In the case shown below, a blue shawl is painted onto the ornament.  It appears as a matte finish color.  For this glass Christmas ornament, the desired finish is shiny, so an additional lacquer is painted as a second and third coat once the original coat of paint has been allowed to dry.

You can see the difference between the two stages and the finish each achieves in the following photograph shown for contrast:

After the remaining colors are painted and the glass ornaments have dried between each coat, the final product emerges.  At this stage of producing glass Christmas ornaments, a few samples would be sent to the client for final approval prior to production.