Becky Lugart-Stayner
It’s officially Christmas-tree decorating season! Of course, you’ll want to pull out those beloved sentimental ornaments you’ve collected over the years since they instantly bring warmth and nostalgia to your spruce, pine, or cedar. But we also love the charm of DIY Christmas ornaments. Handmade pieces can be just as meaningful, especially when creating them turns into a festive family holiday project. Getting the kids together to craft and laugh adds a whole new set of memories to the tree that you’ll remember year after year. Even if the house already looks merry and bright, there’s always time to dream up a few new homemade creations………Continue reading…
Source: CountryLiving
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Critics:
Christmas ornaments, baubles, or globes are decoration items, usually to decorate Christmas trees. These decorations may be woven, blown (glass or plastic), molded (ceramic or metal), carved from wood or expanded polystyrene, or made by other techniques. They may come in a variety of spherical shapes such as balls or tiny figurines.
Ornaments are almost always reused year after year rather than purchased annually, and family collections often contain a combination of commercially produced ornaments and decorations created by family members. Such collections are often passed on and augmented from generation to generation. Festive figures and images are commonly preferred.
Lucretia P. Hale’s story “The Peterkins’ Christmas-Tree” offers a short catalog of the sorts of ornaments used in the 1870s: The modern-day mold-blown colored glass Christmas ornament was invented in the small German town of Lauscha in the mid-16th century. The first decorated trees were adorned with apples, white candy canes, and pastries in the shapes of stars, hearts and flowers.
Glass baubles were first made in Lauscha, Germany, by Hans Greiner, who produced garlands of glass beads and tin figures that could be hung on trees. The popularity of these decorations grew into the production of glass figures made by highly skilled artisans with clay molds. The artisans heated a glass tube over a flame, then inserted the tube into a clay mold, blowing the heated glass to expand into the shape of the mold. The original ornaments were only in the shape of fruits and nuts.
After the glass cooled, a silver nitrate solution was swirled into it, a silvering technique developed in the 1850s by Justus von Liebig. After the nitrate solution dried, the ornament was hand-painted and topped with a cap and hook. Other glassblowers in Lauscha recognised the growing popularity of Christmas baubles and began producing them in various designs. Soon, the whole of Germany started to buy Christmas glassware from Lauscha.
On Christmas Eve 1832, a young Victoria wrote about her delight at having a tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed round it. In the 1840s, after a picture of Victoria’s Christmas tree was shown in a London newspaper decorated with glass ornaments and baubles from her husband Prince Albert’s native Germany, Lauscha began exporting its products throughout Europe.
In the 1880s, American F. W. Woolworth discovered Lauscha’s baubles during a visit to Germany. He made a fortune by importing the German glass ornaments to the United States.Although glass baubles are still produced, as expensive good-quality ornaments often found at markets, baubles are now frequently made from plastic and available worldwide in a massive variety of shapes, colours and designs.
Since the 19th century, there are a large number of manufacturers producing sophisticated Christmas glass ornaments in Poland, which produce “bombka” or the plural form “bombki”; Poland is the largest producer of glass bombe (bauble) ornaments that are exported to many countries all over the world, mainly to the United States, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Norway, France, the UK, and millions of glass-blown Christmas ornaments are made year-round in Tlalpujahua, Michoacan, Mexico, and exported to Spain, New Zealand and France.
They are also made in Chignahuapan, Puebla, Mexico.Handcrafted Christmas ornaments have become a staple of craft fairs, and many smaller online businesses owe much of their success to both the internet and the growth of craft stores. Sugar cookies, popcorn balls, gingerbread and many types of cookies can be used as ornaments.
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