Flowers die, chocolates melt, glassybaby forever. That is the compelling concept behind this Seattle-based hand-blown glass vessel business, which grew out of founder Lee Rhodes' garage into something Oprah and Martha Stewart talk about.
The old store, still operating in the Madrona neighborhood, is attached to the glassblowing studio where glassybaby are made. Projections on the white walls of the U Village location bring scenes from the studio in order to maintain that workshop feel.
During the past three holiday seasons, glassybaby has done a brisk business at a temporary stand they set up in U Village for the Christmas shoppers — we have no reason to believe that the new brick-and-mortar won't be every bit as successful.
Related Posts:
• Blogging the Chronicle: Illuminating Seattle
• Glassybaby Grows Up
Veronica & Keith's Handmade Chic 
The World's Ugliest Condo: The Big Bathroom Reveal 
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Hunslet Dinner Plate
A Beginner's Guide to Superb Stir-Fry: Quick, Healthy Meals from a Wok
Homesteaders' Cocktail Recipe: Lovage Simple Syrup
Comments (11)
Wait...they sell identical glass votive holders? In different colors?
Is this some kind of art project?
Apparently they sell 70 different colors of the same votive, for $40 a pop. Yikes. At first I was thinking I was glad I didn't live in SF, because I'd be there all the time, but with the merch being limited in style and so expensive, yeah, not so much with the regret anymore!
They do look cute, though.
Erm, Seattle. The SF tag at the bottom threw me off. Glad I'm not in SEATTLE. Sorry.
They are incredible in person. Once you see one, you want one. The amount of work that goes into them = the price tag.
I got a set of these for Christmas and they're really pretty. $40-worth of pretty? I don't know about that...
OMG - these are just gorgeous. I wish I could see them in person - I'm sure the website is not doing them justice!
wow. gorgeous. wish they were priced lower if you bought them in sets...or had a frequent shopper program. :) would make a really lovely mother's day gift.
yeah i've live in seattle, they are lovely... but not $40 lovely IMHO
I walked by the store the other day and, um, yeah, I was confused how they could sell nothing but different colored otherwise identical glasses. At $40, I really don't get it. They don't look at all impressive to me.
I guess this must be the fashionista equivalent of beanie babies.
I grew up a few blocks from their Madrona studio and my mom has a few of them. They are absolutely beautiful.
For those of you concerned about the $40.00 price tag...they are hand made in the United States by skilled crafts people. I don't know where your morals lay, but I have such a hard time with the fact that we are constantly buying things that support sweat shops, the loss of American jobs, child labor, etc because we all want things cheap. cheap. cheap. Buy quality and less quantity and put your dollar where ethics are. (Of course, if your ethics are not the same as mine, look at Walmart instead...or Crate and Barrel who have a long history of mass producing popular independent designs without paying licensing fees. Which, in fact, they did to Glass Babies a few years ago.)
These look so beautiful. I am amazed that some people can spend the money on multiples of them, though. The founder says she wants to try to sell them like flowers, send a box of glassybabies instead of flowers. She was quoted as saying she just wants 1 billion of the 16 billion dollar flower market. But isn't there a limit to how many people will buy? There is certainly a limit to how many can afford to buy ONE $40 candle holder, beautiful and made by skilled artisans or not. Unfortunately her dream of a Glassybaby in every household just can't happen I'm afraid. Must be one of Oprah's favorite things.