Learn how to make these beautiful glass paperweights at home.

You need:

Glass paperweight

Craft paints and brushes

Tin or plastic cup

Coloured foil, sequins

Glue, glitter glue

Painting (instructions)

If you are painting your glass paperweight, the options for decorating are endless.

Fill up a tin or plastic cup with water.

Put on your apron and keep the old towel in hand.

It would be easier to use a small paintbrush so you will be able to paint tinier details on the paperweight.

Once you’re done painting, leave the paperweight out to dry for at least a few hours.

Metallic foil and sequins (instructions)

Cut out small squares of the foil.

Glue them onto the paperweight in a mosaic pattern.

Once you’re done gluing the foil squares, leave them to dry.

Once it is dry, coat a layer of clear glue to seal the mosaic foil squares.

After that too has dried, you can apply little blobs of glitter glue on each foil square.

Paperweight facts

They were first made in Vienna for a trade fair in 1845.

They are exhibited in museums as pieces of fine glass art.

Famous paperweight collectors include Oscar Wilde, Queen Victoria, Queen Mary and Napoleon III’s Empress Eugenie.

In 1925, glass paperweights were recognized as a decorative form of glass art and the auction house Sotheby’s conducted the first major auction of paperweights.

Antique paperweights were made between 1845 and 1860 in three French factories namely Baccarat, St. Louis and Clichy.   

The value of a paperweight is determined by workmanship, design, rarity and condition.

Old towel or cloth

Apron so you don’t make a mess on your clothes

How to make a flower paperweight

You will need:

A large rock with smooth surface

Glue

Water

Flowers

Hardback book

Paintbrush

Instructions

Remember how you used to dry flowers when you were little? Put the flowers into the hardback book. This presses and dries the flowers. Keep the flowers in the book for around a week (No, you can’t do it within hours).

Next, take the rock and wash it and clean it thoroughly.

Pour the glue onto a plate and add some water into it to make it runny.

Now, using the paintbrush, put a coat of the glue on the rock.

Arrange the flowers on the rock in a manner, which you desire.

Put another coat of glue over the flowers and let it dry.

Repeat the above-mentioned step 6 times.

Types of paperweights

If you collect paperweights, you are bound to end up with a varied collection.

There are three specific types of paperweights.

Millefiori

An Italian term meaning thousands of flowers, the Millefiori technique had been used to decorate jewellery, glass plates and vessels.

Lampwork

These paperweights feature flowers, animals and other lifelike sculptures inside. These sculptures are often made of glass.

Sulfide

They usually have an encased portrait plaque usually made to commemorate an event or person. 

Compiled by Sarah Kellapatha