How a glass Christmas bauble is made by hand in Kilkenny

A glass Christmas bauble takes a few minutes to make and years to learn. Ours are blown at Jerpoint Glass Studio in Stoneyford, Co. Kilkenny, where Keith and Kathleen Leadbetter began blowing glass in 1979. Here is what happens between the furnace and the gift box. The sequence below is how hand-blown glass is worked generally, and every studio has its own way of doing each step.

It starts as a glowing ball on the end of a pipe

The glassmaker gathers molten glass from the furnace onto the end of a blowpipe. At that point it is not a bauble, it is a heavy orange lump that moves like honey and will not stay still. The pipe is turned constantly, because gravity is pulling the glass out of shape the whole time.

The colour goes in while the glass is hot

The colour in our Green and Berry baubles is not painted on the outside. It is worked into the glass while it is molten, which is why it appears as swirls running through the body of the piece rather than as an even coat. The Clear bauble is left plain, with no colour worked in at all. In the Green and Berry the colour moves with the glass, so no two carry exactly the same pattern.

The bubble becomes a sphere

Air is blown down the pipe to open a bubble inside the gather, and the shape is brought round by turning, reheating and gentle work with the shaping tools of the trade. Each reheat buys a few more seconds of working time. The finished bauble is about 8 cm across.

The loop is made from the bauble itself

Rather than pushing a metal cap into the neck, the glassmaker draws hot glass out of the top and shapes it into a loop with tongs. That is the part most people notice when they hold one for the first time: the thing you hang it by is made of the same glass as the bauble.

Then it cools slowly, or it cracks

Glass that cools unevenly builds up stress and breaks, sometimes days later. Finished pieces go into an annealing oven and come down in temperature slowly over hours. It is the least dramatic part of the process and the one that decides whether the piece survives.

What we do with them

Each bauble is tied with a white satin ribbon printed with the name of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, and packed in a gift box with a card telling the story of how it was made. They are €29.99, in Green, Berry or Clear.

€10 from every bauble goes to the Trust, the volunteer-led charity that brings Irish people home when they die suddenly or tragically abroad. It has brought 2,612 people home, from 88 countries, to families in all 32 counties. In January it brought Martina's son Kyle home to his family in Kilkenny.

The whole story is on the Home at Last campaign page, and you can buy one on the product page. Postage is €10 per order, however many you buy, anywhere in Ireland and Northern Ireland.