Create stunning botanical glass art using real pressed flowers, leaves, feathers, and natural treasures. This beautiful workshop teaches you the delicate Fossil Vitra technique – where nature literally becomes part of the glass, preserved forever with intricate detail that looks almost magical.

Imagine cow parsley flowers, delicate leaf skeletons, feathers, honesty seed pods, and ginkgo leaves captured permanently in glass that glows with light. The results are breathtaking – nature’s finest details preserved with colours and textures that photographs simply can’t achieve.

You’ll choose from our abundant nature table overflowing with dried botanical specimens (or bring your own foraged treasures), arrange them on glass, dust them with coloured enamels and powders, then watch as the kiln fuses them into permanent art. The organic patterns and delicate structures of real plants create effects no artist could paint by hand.

What You’ll Learn

• Fossil Vitra technique – the ancient method of fusing natural materials into glass
• Selecting and arranging botanical specimens – composition with nature
• Working with glass enamels and powders – creating colour and depth
• Layering techniques – building dimensional botanical art
• Adding decorative elements – screen-printed imagery, additional glass colours
• Understanding how organics behave in the kiln – what survives and what burns away beautifully
• Creating depth and shadow – making flat materials look three-dimensional

What You’ll Make

One Large Wall Panel – Your choice of size and format:

• 20cm x 60cm (portrait or landscape orientation)
• OR 40cm square

Create a stunning botanical composition using real pressed flowers, leaves, seed pods, feathers, and more. Layer with enamels, powders, and optional screen-printed details (bees, dragonflies, delicate leaf patterns) to build depth and interest.

PLUS: Choose One Set

• 6 Coasters (10cm square each) – perfect for gifting or your own table
• OR 2 Bowls (15cm square) – functional botanical art

All pieces use the same Fossil Vitra technique, capturing real natural materials permanently in glass.

The Nature Table – Your Botanical Library

We provide an abundant selection of pressed and dried natural materials:

Flowers & Seed Pods:

• Pressed cow parsley (Queen Anne’s lace)
• Honesty seed pods (silver moon discs)
• Various pressed wildflowers and garden flowers

Leaves:

• Ginkgo leaves
• Acacia leaves
• Delicate leaf skeletons
• Ferns and fronds

Natural Elements:

• Feathers (various sizes and types)
• Sycamore seeds (helicopters)
• Grasses and seed heads
• Other foraged botanical treasures

Feel free to bring your own foraged materials too! Pressed flowers from your garden, leaves from a special walk, feathers you’ve found – anything dried and relatively flat works beautifully.

Perfect For

• Nature lovers wanting to preserve botanical beauty permanently
• Gardeners who want art featuring their own pressed flowers
• Those who collect and press flowers but don’t know what to do with them
• Creating memorial pieces (using flowers from meaningful occasions)
• Botanical artists exploring new mediums
• Anyone who finds working with natural materials meditative
• Making thoughtful, nature-inspired gifts

Why Fossil Vitra is Special

Nature Captured Permanently Unlike pressed flowers in frames that fade and crumble over time, the Fossil Vitra technique preserves botanical details permanently in glass. The organic material burns away in the kiln, but its impression, structure, and essence remain forever in the glass surface.

Intricate Detail You Couldn’t Paint The delicate veining in leaves, the lacy structure of cow parsley, the individual barbs of a feather – these microscopic details transfer into the glass with extraordinary precision. It’s nature’s own artistry, preserved.

Light and Depth Glass brings luminosity that pressed flowers in frames can’t achieve. Light passes through the botanical impressions, creating shadows and depth. The enamels and powders add colour that glows rather than reflects.

Every Piece Completely Unique Because you’re working with real natural specimens, no two pieces can ever be identical. Even if someone makes the same botanical choices, the way leaves overlap, how the enamel settles – it’s all unique to your piece.

The Magic in the Kiln

Overnight, something fascinating happens. The organic materials burn away (they’re carbon-based), but they leave their perfect impression in the glass. The enamels and powders fuse permanently, capturing every vein, every delicate structure.

What emerges is glass art with extraordinary botanical detail – shadows and impressions where the natural materials were, colours enhanced and made luminous, all permanently fused and smooth to the touch.

Your pieces will be ready for collection approximately one to two weeks after your course.

Bring Your Own Treasures

Planning to use your own foraged or pressed materials? Perfect! Consider bringing:

Already Dried and Pressed:

• Flowers from your garden
• Leaves from memorable walks
• Petals from special occasions (weddings, funerals, celebrations)
• Foraged botanicals that mean something to you
• Pressed four-leaf clovers, special finds

Tips for your materials:

• Must be completely dry and flat
• Pressed flowers work best (not fresh)
• Relatively delicate materials (chunky twigs won’t work)
• Bring more than you think you’ll need

Even if you bring your own, you’ll have access to our nature table too, so you can combine personal materials with our selection.

Memorial and Meaningful Pieces

Many students create memorial pieces using botanicals from significant occasions:

• Wedding bouquet flowers
• Funeral flowers from loved ones
• Flowers from a special garden
• Pressed flowers collected with someone no longer with us
• Botanicals from meaningful places

The permanence of glass makes it perfect for preserving these precious botanical memories in a way that’s beautiful, lasting, and can be displayed rather than hidden in books.

Experience Required: None – complete beginners welcome

Course Duration: Full day (10:00am – 4:30pm)

What’s Included:

• All glass and materials
• Abundant selection of pressed botanicals
• Glass enamels and powders
• Screen-printed decorative options
• Tools and equipment
• Kiln firing for all pieces
• Tea/coffee and biscuits

What to Bring:

• Comfortable clothes and closed-toe shoes
• Your own lunch (or visit local cafés)
• Your own dried/pressed botanicals (optional – we have plenty!)

Take Home:

• One large wall panel (20cm x 60cm or 40cm square)
• PLUS 6 coasters (10cm square) OR 2 bowls (15cm square)
• Ready approximately one to two weeks after course

Perfect Gift for Nature Lovers

This course makes an exceptional gift for:

• Gardeners who press flowers from their gardens
• Botanical artists exploring new mediums
• Nature enthusiasts who collect and forage
• Those creating memorial pieces from meaningful flowers
• Anyone who finds nature meditative and therapeutic
• Craft collectors wanting unique botanical art

Gift vouchers available

Excellent Value

For £175, you’re creating:

• One substantial wall panel (20x60cm or 40cm square)
• PLUS 6 coasters OR 2 bowls
• Using the intricate Fossil Vitra technique
• With botanical materials provided
• Full day expert instruction
• All glass, enamels, and materials
• Kiln firing for all pieces

That’s multiple finished pieces of unique botanical glass art, all created in one wonderfully relaxing day.

What the Technique Preserves

The Fossil Vitra process captures:

• Delicate leaf veining – every microscopic detail
• Lacy structures – cow parsley, Queen Anne’s lace, ferns
• Feather barbs – individual filaments visible
• Seed pod patterns – honesty’s silvery discs
• Flower structures – petal edges, stamen positions
• Natural textures – that you simply can’t create by hand

The level of botanical detail is extraordinary – it’s nature’s own precision art.

Display Ideas

Your botanical glass art looks stunning:

• Large panel in windows – backlit by natural light (shows detail beautifully)
• On stands as free-standing art
• Bathroom or bedroom – bringing nature indoors
• Kitchen or dining – coasters for functional beauty
• Study or studio – inspiration from nature
• Memorial displays – preserving flowers from significant occasions

The bowls work beautifully as decorative catchalls, display pieces, or gentle reminders to bring nature indoors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Will my own pressed flowers work as well as yours? A: Yes! As long as they’re completely dry and pressed relatively flat, they’ll work beautifully. The technique works with all botanical materials.

Q: Do I need to press flowers before the course? A: Only if you want to use your own specific materials. We have an abundant selection ready to use, so you don’t need to bring anything.

Q: What happens to the actual plant material? A: It burns away in the kiln (it’s carbon-based), but it leaves its perfect impression in the glass. The structure, veining, and details remain permanently fused in the glass surface.

Q: Can I use fresh flowers? A: No, they must be dried and pressed. Fresh flowers contain too much moisture and won’t work with this technique.

Q: Will the botanical impressions fade over time? A: No! Once fused into glass, they’re permanent. Unlike pressed flowers in frames that fade and crumble, these botanical details are preserved forever.

Q: Can I make more coasters or bowls if I skip the wall panel? A: The course is designed for one substantial wall panel plus one set (coasters OR bowls).

Q: Is this technique suitable for memorial pieces? A: Absolutely. Many students use flowers from weddings, funerals, or meaningful gardens. It’s a beautiful, permanent way to preserve those botanical memories.

Q: How delicate are the materials? Will they break easily? A: They’re as durable as any fused glass – proper glass that can be handled normally. The botanical impressions are IN the glass, not on the surface, so they can’t rub off or damage.

🌿 Preserve nature’s beauty permanently in glass that glows with light 🌿

Your Tutor: Jennifer Barker Glass Artist – Lead Instructor & Founder

Jennifer has been working with glass for over 30 years, having discovered her passion for the medium while studying at Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Universities, where she completed a BA and MA in Glass.

Her expertise spans the full spectrum of glass techniques – from delicate kiln-formed pieces to large architectural installations. Jennifer’s specialist areas include kiln-formed glass, surface manipulation, and kiln-casting, but she’s equally passionate about traditional techniques like stained glass and copper foiling. For 12 years, Jennifer was Head of the Glass Department at Glyndwr University, where she discovered that teaching glass art was almost as addictive as making it.

What sets Jennifer apart as an instructor is her genuine love for sharing knowledge. She believes that anyone can learn to work with glass beautifully – it just takes the right guidance, encouragement, and plenty of hands-on practice.