How to Make a Glass Vase

Traditionally, a vase was just used to hold flowers. It had an easily recognizable shape consisting of a base, body and neck. These days, vases can be of any shape. They are decorative pieces on their own, with designs ranging from plain to colorful and intricate. Vases can be made from a variety of materials, but glass is one of the most popular.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Make a Glass Vase

1. Design your vase. Draw your vase on paper the way you want it to look when finished. Focus on the shape and include any designs you may want to add to it.
2. Prepare your tools and equipment. You will need a blowpipe, blocks, marver, bench, punty, jacks, different types of shears, paddles and tweezers. You will also need the glass you will work with and the furnace with which to melt it.
3. Prepare any embellishments you may want to add to your vase.
4. Look into the possibility of using a local glasswork studio if you do not have the necessary equipment.
5. Begin by gathering some of the molten glass in the furnace onto the pre-heated end of the blowpipe.
6. Roll the glass on the marver. Blow air into the blowpipe to form a bubble within the glass. Gather more molten glass onto the bubble if you want to make a larger vase.
7. Shape the glass with the blocks and, depending on your design, add a neck. When the piece is of the right size, use the paddles to form the base of the vase by flattening the bottom.
8. Transfer the vase to a punty so you can work on the top half of the vase.
9. Detach the vase from the punty and anneal it. The annealing process involves heating the glass to its stress-relief point, keeping this temperature constant while the piece heat-soaks, then slowly cooling the glass. The amount of time it takes to cool the vase to room temperature will depend on the type of the glass and the thickness of the vase.
10. Watch "Walking on Broken Glass," a video on how to make a glass vase, at Glassblowing.com.
11. Look through "Celery Vases: Art Glass, Pattern Glass, and Cut Glass," a book by Dorothy Dougherty, for ideas on vase designs.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear protective gear when working with intense heat and molten glass.