Blown Glass Ornaments

No matter the time of year, I'm always looking for something to add to my Christmas collection. It seems that there is a never-ending array of items that can be found most anytime and most anywhere! One particular item that has caught my interest is blown glass ornaments that can be hung from the tree or hung from its own special stand.

A bit of history for this type of ornament:
During the dark ages, German natives in northern Bohemia developed a new form of blown glass in the 4,000 year history of glass. They learned the glass blowing skills from wandering Venetian traders, and created glass decorations to adorn the Tannenbaum (fir tree) for the winter solstice festival.

Early Christians adapted this custom to celebrate the birth of Christ, and the Christmas tree ornament was born. The invention of the blowpipe by some unknown artisan helped bring about the craft of blown glass. Glass blowing in Germany dates as far back as the 1500’s. The craft began as a cottage industry in Lauscha East Germany and it spread through most of the German country side. Beginning in the 1860’s Germany would change the world when glass blowing expanded to include delicate ornaments made from glass molds. For many years, Germany was the major world source for glass ornaments.

Today, we can find all varieties and all shapes and sizes of blown glass ornaments. And we can find them for virtually every holiday imaginable. If you decorate for it, you can find appropriate blown glass ornaments made for that holiday! My own interest still remains primarily Christmas, but I will admit to collecting a few for Halloween also. Those I have been collecting in recent years are from a particular designer by the name of Susan Cherry. I enjoy the whimsical nature of her work. I also thought it would be fun to create a very small niche in our bookstore to carry some of those ornaments. So, like a lot of other collectors - I too found that I wanted to share my interest by providing an inventory, if only a small one, of product that fit within my collection.

In our store, you will find a small inventory of blown glass ornaments made by Cherry Designs, Inc. - each of them brand new. We invite you to view them at KC's Kozy Korner.

Oh, and of course, while you are there - check out the books! We have a few books in our store(hmmm, that may be an understatement!). Books are always our first interest.