JingleNog Debuts at William Glen and Christmas & Company

JingleNog Debuts at William Glen and Christmas & Company

Back in 1981 Bill Snyder and Glen Forbes formed a partnership with Irv and Julie Keller, owners of Keller's of Modesto, to create an import company known at Christmas Ornaments LTD. Together they leveraged their buying power, along with over a dozen independent store who comprised the William Glen Catalog Association, to purchase mouth-blown, hand-painted glass Christmas ornaments from West Germany. This was the beginning of a Christmas business that thrives into the present day.

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Every JingleNog style begins with our founder and designer Melissa Byrne's drawings and stories. JingleNog's unique and exquisitely detailed heirloom quality collectible Christmas tree ornaments and tree toppers are handcrafted to Melissa’s specifications in Italy and Poland using the old world European glass making techniques. Molded and free blown glass methods require talented artisans who have years of specialized training in the art of creating the finest luxury mouth blown glass Christmas tree ornaments and tree toppers.
 If the style is a mouth blown molded glass ornament, the sculptor, following Melissa's drawings and instructions, creates a soft clay shape which is reviewed and adjusted by Melissa until all of the style's details are approved.

Once the clay sculpture is approved it is baked until hardened and then shellacked so the shape and details will remain in place. A metal mold is now created. These metal molds have at least two parts and depending upon the complexity of the style can have many more "parts". 

Once the metal mold for the style has been made we can start to create ornaments. First the glass blower assembles the metal mold and using a tube of tempered glass blows the glass into the mold, shaping and forming the piece with each breath. After the glass has been fully blown into every detail of the mold this new clear glass form is set aside to cool.The stem of the glass tube is left at the top of the piece to be used as a handle until the end of the development process.

The clear glass form is now filled with liquid sterling silver which becomes the ornament's lining. The excess silver is removed from the inside and the ornament is set aside until it dries and is ready for painting. All of the ornament's paint, glitter and trim details are slowly added one at a time, setting the piece aside to dry before the next detail can be applied. It takes on average seven days to create each of our mouth blown European glass Christmas ornaments. After the ornament has been fully painted, glittered and trimmed the glass tube handle is cut off and our jingle bell charm and JingleNog hang tags are added to a top metal wire and the ornament cap is secured to the glass. An exquisite JingleNog Christmas tree ornament has been created! All of JingleNog's gift boxes are assembled here in the United States.

 

source: jinglenog.com