Last fall I was wandering around the east Greenlake neighborhood, searching for a parking space to meet someone at the local coffee house for a meeting and I saw some folks decorating what looked like a small, industrial building. Signs indicated it used to be a dairy, but clearly this was not a dairy now.
Turns out I stumbled upon "Glassybaby," an artisan glass candle holder operation. I was spotted, invited in and there in front of me was a rainbow of dense, squat glass candle holders (looking like hefty cups), many flickering with candles to show off their luminosity.
But hey, you can't just look in the outer display room. Come on in, they say, and see the glassblowing studio and more sample candles, this time shown off on a large table in a dark room. The choices, the choices! How do you pick? Off into the old dairy room 3 glassblowers were turning out glassybabies (I think I recall it takes about 30 minutes per baby.) They were twirling and snipping away, music pounding in the backgroun. They looked like they were having fun. That's always a positive check mark in my book.
I went back and selected three glassybabies - not cheap, but when your gift recipient holds them, caresses their contours and sees them glow in their homes, you'll know they are special.
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