This was the view from our window. The rooms are right on the ocean, which was lovely, but it was rainy and windy the whole time. Oh well.
This was a project Orion worked on off and on the whole trip. It is a solar factory, complete with panels and batteries lol!
But the highlight of the trip was the Jennifer Sears Glass Art Studio! I had read online about being able to do your own glass blowing, and there was an age limit, which Orion was several years away from. I was hoping they would let him at least watch and do part of the process along with Ron, but they let him do pretty much the whole thing! The lady said most kids his age don't have the attention span or will seem like they aren't being safe, but she goes by the kid, and Orion was GREAT! There were some thing he didn't want to do, so Ron did those, but he was involved in almost all the steps! I did my best taking pictures while holding Akasha. It wasn't exactly the kind of place she could run around lol, and we couldn't go in with them as there were no glasses that fit her, so I did my best from the viewing area!
Picking glasses:
Some of the beauties on display:
Picking gloves:
Picking colors. Not what I would have chosen lol, but I wanted this to be Orion's project all the way!
Learning about how to hold the metal bar. She was telling him how much of it gets hot and where it was OK to touch it. We absolutely LOVED the gal that worked with them by the way. She was so into it and just great with kids.
She grabbed the first bit of molten glass and let them know it was hotter than a volcano in there!
Is there where the term red hot poker comes from? Yowza!
She rolled it around to get the color pieces to stick to it.
Over here they were cooling the rod in a little fountain thing:
Walk and turn, walk and turn, walk and turn. She really stressed how important it was to keep turning it so the shape would stay even.
More walking and turning...
...right into a second oven where the colors were getting melted.
You can just tell from these photos how much she loves what she does!
These next two pics have to do with swirling the color around.
And this is a mold to help make sure it is a true sphere:
Tina (at least I think that is her name) put the first blow into the glass to get it started...
More rolling lol.
It went back in the oven to soften it for blowing, and here you can see the tube attached for blowing:
Ron starting to blow. Tina told Orion his dad's breath would be trapped in there forever, which totally fascinated him! :)
A little bigger....
A little bigger....
"I think it's done."
Can see the colors a bit better in this one, and notice the fairly young boy in the back working all on his own. Loved how child friendly this place was!
Walking over to the cutting area.
It is being held upside down here, about to be cut, and if you look closely, you can see the "BLOW YOUR OWN GLASS FLOAT" backwards on the window. :)
Going into the cooling area!
And that was it! You have to come back the next day to pick up your creation as it takes 24hours to cool.
Another shot of some creations with the Glass Art Studio sign in the distance.
Next day - the finished product! Taken with my cell phone, so not great. Will try to take another one in good light sometime soon!
The little spot on the bottom is a flat area for standing it up. You can also pick a little loop so it can hang, which I would have chosen I think, but again, this was all Orion's project!
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