Bring the Forest Floor Indoors

The light turns golden, the air smells of woodsmoke, and the ground becomes a carpet of copper and amber. Most of us just walk past it. This autumn, we’re inviting you to stop, gather a little of it up, and seal it in glass forever.

Over a cosy three-hour afternoon, you’ll create your very own four-sided lantern – a piece that captures the spirit of the season so precisely you’ll find yourself spotting new details in it every time the light catches it differently.

How It Works

Our nature table will be laid out with an abundance of carefully pressed leaves, delicate bracken fern and feathers, all gathered for their shape, texture and character. Your job is the fun part: choose your favourites and arrange them into a composition you love.

From there, you’ll dust your foliage with glass pigments and powders, building up colour and depth across all four panels of your lantern. Once you’re happy with your design, everything goes into the kiln, where the real alchemy happens.

This technique is called Fossil Vitra, and the results genuinely have to be seen to be believed. The heat of the kiln fuses your pigments permanently into the glass surface while leaving behind an extraordinarily fine, fossil-like imprint of whatever you placed there – right down to the veins of a leaf or the individual hairs on a feather. It’s less “craft project” and more “tiny miracle of physics,” and it never stops being satisfying to watch unfold.

What You’ll Learn

• Foliage selection and composition – choosing and arranging natural materials for maximum impact
• Working with glass pigments and powders – building colour, depth and contrast
• The Fossil Vitra technique – how heat and glass combine to capture extraordinary natural detail
• Seasonal colour theory – blending warm autumnal tones for a cohesive, atmospheric finish
• Kiln-forming basics – understanding how your design transforms during firing

What You’ll Make

One completely unique lantern, approximately 14cm wide and 26cm tall, with all four glass panels carrying their own fossilised impression of leaves, fern or feather. No two are ever the same – your choice of foliage, arrangement and colour palette means your lantern will be entirely your own.

Once lit from within, the fine detail in the glass really comes alive, throwing soft, textured light around the room. It’s the kind of piece that turns a dark October evening into something rather lovely.

Perfect For

• Anyone who loves the look and feel of autumn and wants to hold onto it a little longer
• Nature lovers who’d rather press a leaf into glass than into a book
• Those looking for a relaxed, sociable way to spend a Saturday afternoon
• Gift-seekers wanting something genuinely one-of-a-kind ahead of the darker months
• Complete beginners – no glasswork experience needed at all

Why This Course is Special

It’s rare for a technique to be this accessible and this impressive. The Fossil Vitra process does the heavy lifting in the kiln, so while your composition takes care and a good eye, there’s no complicated cutting or fiddly assembly to worry about. You’ll spend your afternoon doing the genuinely enjoyable part – foraging through beautiful natural materials and deciding how to arrange them – and let the kiln handle the rest.

The level of detail the process preserves is what makes people fall in love with it. Fine leaf veins, the soft edge of a fern frond, the texture of a feather – all permanently held in glass, lit up every time you switch your lantern on.

Loved the Sound of This? There’s More Where That Came From

• Introduction to Glass Fusing
• Wave Crest Art Glass Fusing Workshop
• Browse our full course calendar to find your next session.