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Soffieria De Carlini is one of the only Italian workshops with the skill to produce ornaments such as this. Let’s take a look at the ornament’s “architecture”. This design actually consists of three separate elements: the clear glass globe, the Santa on his sled, and the bottom drop-shaped base.

The clear dome is created by glassblowers who pass it on to an artist who in turn adds glittered snow dots.

Glassblowers free-blow the miniature Santa figure and send it out of the workshop for silvering in an environmentally-safe facility. It then returns to the workshop’s artists who paint Santa’s base coat and face. The artists add facial features, attach the floppy felt hat, and glue on chenille piping to trim Santa’s clothes. Two colors of chenille piping are used to create the candy cane held in the crook of Santa’s arm. Just attach a bit of faux fur for a beard and Santa is ready to be glued to the wood sled! 

Like Santa, the base is free-blown, sent out for silvering, and returned to the workshop.  Artists paint the base a shiny reflective red. After the paint dries, they apply a clear-drying glue in the artistic pattern shown, sprinkle that with gold glitter, shake off the excess, and allow the base to complete drying.

Once the three individual elements are finished, they are joined together. First, a snowy-white glittered cardboard circle is fitted into the red base. After drying, Santa and his sled are secured onto the cardboard circle. Next, artists apply a coat of glue to the bottom of the clear globe and secure it onto the completed base. To hide the seam, an artist glues the gold metallic braid around the middle. Finally, an artist trims the globe’s stem and applies a cap, loop pin, and the workshop’s logo tag.

As you can see, the masterpiece comes to life after a lengthy process with production time spent both inside and outside of the soffieria (workshop).