Paperweight Workshop

About this experience

Our famous glass making experiences are back.

Experience first-hand and close up, the extreme temperatures required to transform sand into glass and learn about some of the 2000 year old skills developed by the ancient Romans.

During this experience, you will work one-to-one with one of our highly skilled glassblowers who will tutor and support you through each step of the creation of your own multicoloured crystal Paperweight. This is a truly unique and educational experience during which you will manipulate liquid glass at temperatures of up to 1200 centigrade.

What happens during the experience?

Firstly, your tutor will demonstrate the process of creating a coloured Paperweight from start to finish, which will help you visualise what you will do when you are invited into the hot seat.

You will have the opportunity to choose the colours you wish to use from the selection we have available, and with the assistance of the tutor, melt them into the glass which has been prepared for you. Your tutor will gather clear glass from the furnace, over the top of the coloured glass you have made, to give you enough glass to craft your Paperweight.

A wooden block, or occasionally a wet newspaper hand-pad, is used to form this molten mass into the desired shape. Metal hand-tools called jacks are then used in a process called cutting-in to narrow the glass at the intersection of the blowing iron. As the glass cools it becomes stiff and brittle where the jacks cooled it, so it can be separated from the iron and put into a kiln to cool. It is important your glass cools slowly or it will crack. Being a worse conductor of heat that wood, paperweights take considerably longer to cool than hollow objects.

Can I take my bauble home straight away?

Your bauble must cool slowly to prevent it from breaking from breaking. As it is solid & quite sizable, this will take a few days. Once at room temperature we will grind the base flat for you to ensure it sits nicely on a table.

If you are unable to pop back to the factory to collect it within the week, we are happy to organise for it to be posted.

To ensure a safe working environment a maximum of three participants per hour can participate in this experience. In total a maximum of four non-participating friends or family may watch. When not actively blowing you will be asked to remain seated for your safety. Each individual hands-on experience will last around 15-20 minutes.

Only one person will blow glass at a time. Your safety is our paramount concern so you will enjoy extremely close supervision & tuition. The minimum age for this experience is 13 years as it involves closer contact with hot glass than our bauble workshops.

Terms and Conditions please note, our 10% welcome code is not able to be used when purchasing glass blowing experiences.

Do you want to book for a larger group, maybe a family birthday or a work away day? Feel free to email us shop@cumbriacrystal.com to arrange.