Glass blowing day

Hope and Grant and I had such a fun day over the weekend! Daddy was away on a bike trip, so we decided to fill the day (which happened to be kind of grey and dreary) and make it fun.

We spent the morning hosting Grant's friend, Elliott, for a playdate. Hope played with them some, and also enjoyed some one-on-one time with me. Then we headed out to lunch at Grant's choice of restaurant - California Tortilla. Not my favorite, but that's usually what he requests any time there's the possibility. We had some time to kill afterward, and the weather was getting colder, so we ducked into TJ Maxx to grab a sweatshirt for each of them. It had been so warm up until the weekend, that we were unprepared! Anyway, I usually don't enjoy shopping with Hope and Grant because they have such a tendency toward having "the wants," but this time was an exception. They both found a shirt they were really excited about, and they both spent $5 from their allowance for something extra they wanted. Success!

Then it was time to head over to our main adventure - glass blowing! I have a Macaroni Kid arrangement with this studio, so Hope and Grant each got to make their own glass Christmas ornament. It was awesome!

When we arrived, the owner showed the kids some samples so they could pick out what colors and shapes they liked. Grant chose a red swirl pattern on a round ornament and Hope wanted to combine the flat shape of one ornament with the ridged pattern of another (the guy said he'd never tried that before, but was up for the challenge!).

Grant was feeling a little nervous about being around the incredibly hot furnaces and molten glass, but of course there was never any danger to him - the kids part was safely away from all that. Nevertheless, he wanted Hope to go first and she was happy to. They rolled her glass through the colors she chose for her stripes, then twisted it to make the swirl effect, then she blew air into it to make it round, they put a mold around it to make the texture, then finally she flattened it to make it the shape she wanted. It didn't take long, but Hope was really excited about seeing her vision come to life!

Once Grant watched Hope do it, he felt much more excited. In fact, he told the artist all about watching an episode of "How It's Made" where they were making marbles and more elaborate glass items. Grant thought it was pretty darn cool to watch this glass artist use some of the same tools and techniques! Grant's process was nearly the same as Hope's, except he dabbed colored glass all around his ornament before swirling it, and didn't flatten his but kept it as a globe.

I'm looking forward to picking up their masterpieces later this week and hanging them on the tree next month!