hand blown glass, blown glass Today I found a really beautiful Swedish Hand Blown Glass Vase online that I'd like to add to my crystal collection. It's shown here and would be perfect to display the flowers from our cutting garden. I've been fascinated by hand blown glass for years and have a fine collection of it and I'm always willing to add more beautiful vases, goblets, and bowls to what I already have. Glass making is fascinating and yesterday I did some research into it thinking it might be a fun hobby, but when I looked into what it involved, I decided I'd leave it up to the artists who make these fine things and I'd stay an appreciative collector.

Hand blown glass takes enormous heat which requires a lot of energy. The kilns for melting glass are expensive to buy and probably expensive to use since the temperatures that silica sand melts at is 4200 F. That's awfully hot to have in the house or even on the patio, and I even read that some municipalities require a special permit to have something that hot in a residential neighborhood.

But knowing what it takes to make hand blown glass only makes me appreciate it more. Today when I went to My Glass Beautiful at http://www.myglassbeautiful.com/ to see what was in stock for hand blown glass and I saw this beautifully shaped vase, I was pleased to find something that I don't have in my collection already. I have no blue vases and thought that white flowers would look superb in this, especially roses, so I ordered it.

In Phoenix, it's almost time for the roses to start budding up again but it will be a few months before I have any flowers, so I may just buy some white roses when I'm getting groceries after it comes. We buy so many things online these days because the selection is better and prices are generally better. It seems the only things I buy locally are food and kitty litter.

Now that I know what it takes to make things like this hand blown glass vase, I'll be able to tell a few stories about the process of making hand blown glass to my friends and family who enjoy the glass objects I have but not with the fascination I have for it. Ever since I was in grade school and the teacher told our class that the windows in our classroom were actually liquid, I've thought that glass of all colors, shapes, and designs was an incredible product.