glassybaby.

I was lucky enough to spend a Sunday evening in Seattle’s Magnolia District at the glassybaby studios recently. For those of you who perhaps haven’t heard, glassybabies are candleholders that are quickly becoming a hot collector’s item.

I first saw some at the home of local cookbook author Amy Pennington, and soon after noticed Ree Drummond singing their praises over at The Pioneer Woman. Then I started receiving a yearly invitation to an MS fundraiser at the studio. Add this to the fact that Shara, my BFF, got bitten by the glassbaby bug, and, well, I figured this was the year for me to actually go to the fundraiser and see for myself.

I don’t get to a lot of fundraisers; something about the “fund” part often gets in my way. But MS is a cause near and dear to my heart. Both my grammy and my mom have MS, and I have been raising money for the cause since second grade.

Awesome thing about fundraisers {besides the obvious of raising money to help others!}? The food. Those little green cupcakes were filled with the most delectable lime curd the world has ever seen.

The place was hopping with skinny jeans, boots, heels, and blow-outs. And giant purses. It was great people-watching.

Dead center was my minor-local-celebrity sighting: Meg Coyle of King 5 News! Is it weird to get a little star-struck around a news anchor?

I loved that there were crocks of lighters and tea lights all around. It made it easy to test out the glassbabies to see which was my favorite.

Glassybabies are the vision of Lee Rhodes, who has survived cancer three {!!} times. She found candlelight very healing. She began to make these little gems and give them to others. Many of the colors’ proceeds {all have super-cool names, like “Cabo” or “Taxi”} benefit different causes.

Shara and I grabbed a table {the better to eat all of those goodies and to drink our vino, dontcha know} front and center. It got a little hot, being so close to all that molten glass, but it was so cool to just watch, watch, watch them all do their thing. One glass-blowing gal was wearing a fashionable scarf, however, and we were worried she’d catch that baby on fire!

The mold that this gent was working with was right on the other side of our table. He’d come over and put the molten glass bulb into the mold, close it, and blow on the end of that pipe. They were making a run of the same color all evening.

The tools are a little scary.

For our fundraiser donation, we were each able to choose one glassybaby to take home. So many great choices! No wonder why people start to collect them.

There’s my bestie! Hi, Shara!

Shara surprised me with a gift for Friend’s Day when I picked her up that night – my first glassbaby. It’s called “BFF.” So appropriate!

I chose the yellow one called “Chartreuse.” Yellow looks horrid on me, so I like to buy it in all things but clothing.

Here are my two little gems on top of the piano, all lit-up and soothing. My husband doesn’t get it, but I am hooked.

The End.