glassybaby tales

Anniversary...Reunion

   I was given the 'green light' to share an amusing email verbatim. The only caveat, withhold the name. Why the padlock? The email concerned a 14th wedding anniversary surprise. The email follows:

   "This year is our 14th wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is "ivory," but dead elephants aren't my thing. Is there an "ivory" glassybaby? Is there a color of glassybaby that I can pass off as ivory?"

My color consultation? We have Cream and Sheer Cream, both ivory-esque.We also have Elephant (implicitly alive.) Happy 14th wedding anniversary in advance to our dear customers who shall remain unnamed.

   An in store anecdote that stayed with me. A customer purchased a nice smattering of chinababies. Each would go into the hands of newly found friends. To explain...an adoption group formed through a wonderful organization. Each family comprising the group had traveled together to China to unite with their adopted babies. For their reunion stateside, this customer was giving each family a chinababy as a gift of celebration and unity. So incredibly sweet.

   More mirth, a customer labored over the table of chinababies...unboxing them, studying each vessel, holding each one up to the table lamp nearby.Finally she comically rolled her eyes at me and exclaimed:"This is not good for my OCD."

Until Next Time...Nicola    

Men Descend Upon glassybaby

   Happy Valentine's Day. Our demographic is clear...mostly women swish in and out of our store for gifts, often healing gifts, a touch of home decorating, a special table adornment for a party etc. etc.. However, there is a Valentine's Day calibration change to that demographic. The men descend upon the store, often with the look of love and the look of color query in their eye. Always upon reconciliation at the register is the look of 'she's going to love this...damn I'm good."

   Which reminds me of an amusing anecdote from our time at University Village. A young, hip guy bantered with me as he decisively stock piled a rather large order for his mother, aunt, sisters and girlfriend. He digressed to explain that he has a good friend, a glass blower, who often begs the question: "Why do you buy glassybaby when you can buy my glass?" The obvious rhetorical answer conveyed: "A man's gotta buy what the ladies want." Smart.

   I cull through the web orders for blog bits. I am forever struck by the  beautiful range of levity and depth. Just yesterday turning those pages I found birthday wishes, two Goldenrod being sent to a family displaced  by hurricane Katrina, and a woman bought a Seattle Sunset for herself...she described that she is celebrating another year of living and surviving her cancer.

Happy Valentin's Day...Love glassybaby. Until Next Time, Nicola

Grace Photo...Cozy and Crinoline

   Grace Seidel's photography captured Patent Leather in our store window. Her creative eye, the red glassybaby, the wishbone tree in the distance, the same tree refracted in the clear glass base, struck me as the perfect harbinger of Valentine's Day.(Thanks for sending the photo Grace.) Cupid is in the air and in our colors...think, Taffy, Peony, Patent Leather, Ferrari, True Love (of course) and in some cases, even,... Wet Dog.

   We are on the brink of ushering in Spring colors. I have seen the ribbons of new color on our shipping table...poised to be named.  (Upon furtive consultation with...let's just call it our 'color mole' I now posses new glassybaby name knowledge...there will be a 'Pretty,' a 'Cozy,' a'Crinoline,' a 'Blue Bird,' and more.) Spring colors are on the way...stay tuned.

   A nice store passage...Lee and I color consulted and fluidly chatted with a couple today. They currently live in Louisville; however they miss the Northwest, their former hometown. They dream of moving back if careers and stars align. They are glassybaby fans and made our store part of their Northwest itinerary...buying 4 lovelies to take home with them. Conversation can take the most amusing inroads. They smiled to reveal the confluence of their surnames...Jennifer Olive married William Pickles. So charming, and they are 'expecting' (a sweet little gherkin.)

   Until Next Time...Nicola

Global Martha and 10 Thousand

   Airing on the Martha Stewart Show in September of 2005 still reverberates for glassybaby, even globally. We just received a slew of overseas emails extolling the beauty of our product. Having seen the 'Martha' piece, Caroline Murphy and Gunnar Johannson both contacted us. (Pop Quiz: Who is from Ireland and who is from Sweden?) I had to smile at the quintessential surnames.

   Often I smile at store 'sound bites.' To follow, a smattering of current favorites.

1. "I brought another victim." (customer shopping with a friend)

2. "I'm acting like this is the biggest decision of my life." (customer choosing color)

3. "I want to get married all over again just so I can use glassybaby." (our newly wedded, adored employee, Elisa)

   End note...we have a new customer. She is a cancer survivor, who was expertly treated at the University of Washington Medical Center. Her husband discovered us at U Village during the holiday. He purchased one glassybaby for his wife as a meaningful Christmas present. She explained to me, that opening the gift, learning from the enclosure card that proceeds would go directly into the hands of those who helped heal her, brought her to tears. Her recent proclamation: glassybaby is now her gift of choice. A particularly sweet honor for us.

   Until Next Time, Nicola

P.S. the blog has received 10,000 hits, which astounds and humbles me...Thank you for reading.