Hi Helen,
sometime i am amazed that my kids never blew up the house, or burned it down!
when I was a youngster, my parents must have had similar apprehensions about my "laboratory" in the basement, e.g. when I heated sulfuric acid, and the vapors floated up the stairs. I also made glass on a little home-made furnace where a blower pushed burning coals up to 1500 degrees centigrade. Ruby glass uses a tiny amount of gold chloride, so it is not especially expensive from that point of view, but the color only develops on tempering the glass when it has first cooled down, and that's where secret art comes in.