The sun is out. The cherry trees are in bloom. What a beautiful day to live in the Pacific Northwest!
About a month ago, I took my very first glass blowing class at Uptown Glassworks in Renton. I was nervous and excited. I’d never done anything like this before and I wanted everything to be perfect. After all, I was creating something I’d hope to display in my home for years to come.
“Don’t mess up,” I kept telling myself. Being a big klutz, I imagined myself dropping something breakable, or worse yet, burning myself or someone else as I maneuvered around the tight space with a molten piece of glass perilously perched on the end of a long pipe. (The glass in the glory hole is heated to over 2000°F. Hotter than hot). My first instructions from the teacher: “Don’t hurt anybody, including yourself “. (Yikes, no pressure). After the safety briefing was over, my first big decision was to choose the color of glass I would be blowing. There was a table of glass pieces in a rainbow of colors to select from. How would I ever decide? “Don’t overthink it,” was the advice of my instructor. Not a problem for me. I immediately chose red (of course) my favorite color.
After an hour or so of hands-on instruction on how to heat and shape glass, under the watchful eyes of expert glass artist, Chris Heilman, my masterpiece was finished- and it was beautiful… from what I could tell. When glass is hot, it is really hard to discern the color of the final product and it takes about 24hrs to cool before you can actually see exactly what you’ve created. So, after anxiously waiting the requisite 24 hrs., the finished product was picked up and I was the proud owner of my very first piece of glass art…custom made by me! I love it and it makes me smile to see this on my table every day.
I lucked out with the cutest kiddos for my Easter Mini Sessions last weekend in Bellevue! This was my first year offering Easter Minis, and everyone had so much fun that I’m definitely going to repeat the event next year. Check out these cuties. Don’t you just love the bunny ears? So adorable. Thanks to all the families that participated. I hope you had as much fun as I did!
Sweet little Evelyn was my first Easter mini session of the day and she was such a good girl. She made my job easy (which is saying a lot for a 2 year old). We giggled. We played. She just loved rolling back and forth across the eggs and being silly. What fun!
Next up is Grant. I just LOVE being Grant’s photographer. We always laugh and have such a good time. We tell silly jokes and have important conversations like, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” He’s just an awesome, quirky kid and I couldn’t ask for a better subject to photograph. Grant even comes up with some of his own poses. See the “bunny” pose above? That was all Grant. 🙂
Beautiful Olivia was fascinated by the plastic eggs during her Easter Mini Session. She opened up each and every one and handed them to her dad. She was so impressed with the eggs she would hardly look at the camera. Her mom, Dad and I practically had to stand on our heads to get her attention. Good thing mom and dad are super funny…. they got some big laughs from their sweet little girl, but boy she sure made us work for it! I was singing songs, mom was playing peekaboo, and daddy got the brilliant idea to throw eggs at her. She LOVED it! She even threw a few of her own…. Such a funny and sweet kid.