In Venice, I took the vaporetto (water bus) to the island of Murano, to check out all the glass. A fair amount of the glass studios were open, and almost all of them were free, in the hopes that after you had watched the artists do their thing, you would go next door and purchase their wares. The first guys we saw were making vases. Apparently red glass is expensive because one of the things they use to make the glass red is gold. There was a line of well-dressed guys who worked there standing outside the door (cheap advertising!), and as we passed by them, one of them said, "Will you blush for me?" He knew not what stout stock I was made of; no, I will not. :)
All of the studios had cool detail work on the gates and doors, too, as would be expected.
Glass roses. It was fun watching all the big, burly Italian men sweating away to create these delicate little glass flowers.
Doorknobs on one of the shops.Glass rubble outside a studio.