GirlFest, put on by the Girl Scouts of Western Washington, is coming to the Clink Event Center on October 20th! Tickets ($15 each) can be bought here and more information can also be found here.
Have you ever thought, “I sure wish there was one whole day where I could learn more about what I like and who I am”? If you’re a girl (or know one!) and you live in Washington, then you’ll be pleased as punch to know that day exists! It’s called GirlFest, and it’s a day-long celebration on Oct. 20 for EVERY girl (and their families) that celebrates all the cool things about being a girl!
Seattle Public Schools has early enrollment open for the 2013-14 school year allowing incoming kindergarten students and other families new to Seattle Public Schools for the 2013-14 school year a way to jump on the enrollment process starting this week. Early enrollment is offered through Jan. 31, 2013.
Parents can enroll their students at the JSCEE Service Center, Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The JSCEE address is 2445 3rd Ave. S., Seattle. More information on the process, and a link to additional information and help on the process can be found here. In addition, more information and a link to enrollment paperwork can be found here.
Twirl Cafe turns 2! On October 21st from 9am-1pm join Twirl and celebrate their birthday.
Wear your costume and join us at the Twirl Patch for a fun Anniversary Pumpkin Bash! Help crank our REAL cider press and watch as we turn Washington’s own apples into fresh cider!
There will be plenty of festivities including: * Face Painting * Costume Dance Party * Queen Anne Books Story Time * Carnival Games * Balloon Animals * Spin-the-Wheel and Raffle Prizes * Chance to win a Petunia Pickle Bottom Diaper bag! *
FREE PLAY RSVP On Our Facebook Events Page and get an extra raffle ticket! Come join this fun and festive Anniversary Party and help us celebrate another year of providing Seattle Parents with a community establishment to gather, play and learn!
On October 6th, 9:30am-11:30am Twirl Cafe, 2111 Queen Anne Ave, is hosting a costume swap!
Clean out that attic and bring in those old costumes from Halloweens of past and swap with your neighbor for new-to-you costumes and accessories for the kids that won’t break the budget! This will be a fun fall event, with a Halloween craft, swap and lots of free HOT Cider to go around. PLUS, if you bring in a costume for the swap, you’ll get ½ price admission to the play area! So come spend the morning with us and get ready for FALL!
Bring any used costumes or dress up items (ages 0-7) that you would like to part with, and in return you will be given tickets in exchange for the ‘value’ of each costume. You are welcome to bring accessories like wands, wings, and hats. The more costumes you bring, the more tickets you will be given to swap for different costumes. Event starts at 9:30AM for costume drop off, swap will open around 10am.
True to the unique flavor that can be seen in all of Henry’s works around town, the Twirl mural features a big red bird, some colorful frogs, and a whole bunch of lemurs – a perfect fit for the jungle-gym apparatus the mural surrounds.
Henry first started painting murals in Seattle in the summer of 2008 after he was injured and could no longer work at his landscaping construction business. Since then the popularity of his paintings have soared. When he first started, Henry had a goal: He wanted to paint 50 murals around town. Now, three years later, that milestone has come and gone. This Twirl mural is Henry’s 119th in Seattle alone. He also has works in Olympia, Tacoma, Bellevue, Bellingham, and the Dominican Republic.
“I never planned on being a professional artist – it’s just something that happened,” he said. “It’s the best! I don’t have to have a real job.”
Drop by to see Henry’s brand new mural at Twirl, or catch his work along walls and in storefronts around town. If you haven’t caught one yet, you’ll have plenty of chances – Henry says he plans to keep painting his whimsical characters wherever he can until he either can’t paint anymore, or he runs out of free wall space.
Henry will be having a show of his canvas work later this week, on Saturday, June 11 from 6 to 10 p.m., at Kristos in Eastlake (during the art walk).
If you’d like to catch more of Henry’s work around town this summer, visit his studio at Short Stop Coffee in Fremont (336 NW 40th Street), swing by one of his upcoming shows, and keep on the lookout for his latest project, “The Little Cupcake Gallery,” a mobile gallery featuring works from other local artists (as well as Henry) located in a refurbished blue school bus that parks around town.
Local painter and muralist Ryan Henry Ward will be painting a brand new work live at Queen Anne’s own Twirl Cafe from noon until 5 p.m. today, Monday, June 6.
Henry’s murals can be seen in and around business all over Seattle, as well as on a number of concrete walls and homesteads, like the house on Nickerson that was transformed into a three dimensional work of art last year. His whimsical style will be a perfect addition to the kid-centric Twirl Cafe, which focuses on providing a family focused space for relaxation (for parents) and child play (for kids) in the Queen Anne community.
Want to see some of Henry’s prior work? Check out this time-lapsed video of Henry creating a mural at Lowell Elementary:
While Twirl’s play area will be closed while Henry paints today, the cafe will remain open for coffee and lunch service, and Twirl owner Rebecca Pelletier invites neighbors to swing by and watch the artist in action.
A little background information on Henry, courtesy of Twirl Cafe:
Ryan graduated with a degree in Art, Writing and Storytelling for Children from Fairhaven College in Western Washington. It was at Fairhaven that he began to focus on his writing, theatre crafts and painting. He has written and illustrated several books for loved ones, as well as illustrated children’s books authored and published by others.
Since June of 2008, Ryan has completed over 110 murals, and it is this body of work that he has become most famous for. Previous to becoming a public muralist, he had painted dozens of murals in private residences around the Pacific Northwest. He has created works in India and Thailand, as well as four murals in the Dominican Republic. Selling over 400 original canvases in Seattle over the past couple of years, Ryan’s vision of creating primitive images with a dream like surreal quality has come to fruition… He wants the natural rawness of the painting process to show through his balanced, bright, and whimsical work.
You can check out more of Henry’s work at his website and on his Flickr page. I’ll be swinging by Twirl later today to catch the artist at work, and will be posting updates as he goes.
QuallyQue.com, a website that works to helps connect businesses and neighbors within communities around Seattle, has asked Queen Anne residents to vote on our neighborhood’s business, organization and service gems—stores with staff that always have smiles on their faces, non-profits that consistently do great work to help the community, and restaurants with dishes so delicious you’d gladly break a diet for a bite.
The results are in in several categories, and every day QuallyQue is announcing a few more of the winners. Take a look at which businesses in Queen Anne have made the list so far:
This project is the third of EBE’s four-phase development plan for 2.1 acres of property, called “The Collection,” along Upper Queen Anne’s main drag. The first two phases–the Sweetbrier and Eden Hills mixed-use residential/retail buildings–have already been completed.
Until very recently the Sweetbrier was struggling to fill its retail space, but in the last 16 months a number of new tenants have moved in, including Key Bank, Twirl Cafe, and most recently, Menchie’s frozen yogurt.
The plans to move forward with the Seven Hills project comes only eight months after EBE put The Collection of properties from 1911-1919 Queen Anne Ave N up for sale, a package that included both the Sweetbrier and Eden Hills developments, and the half-block where Metropolitan Market is located, EBE’s phase four project.
Artist rendering of Met Market project.
The group still plans to redevelop the final plot into a four-story, 125-unit apartment complex with 40,000 square feet of ground-floor space for the longtime neighborhood grocery and other retailers, and 200 underground parking stalls. According to EBE principal Joe Geivett, the company plans to start this phase in 2012.
When The Collection developments are completed, they will amount to more than $140 million in property value, in 250,000 square feet of mixed-use retail and residential space at the top of the hill, according to a Jones Lang LaSalle report published in April.
Currently EBE is working with an “unnamed partner” to finance the Seven Hills project, according to the DJC. The City of Seattle has tentatively scheduled a design review meeting on the new version of the project for January 19. Read up on past design review recommendations on the project here. Review the project’s permit status here.
Twirl Cafe is having a grand opening celebration this Saturday, October 9 from 10 a.m. onward at its brand new digs in the Sweetbrier building, at 2111 Queen Anne Ave N.
We first heard that Twirl was coming to Queen Anne back in June, when we spoke with Queen Anne resident and Twirl owner Rebecca Pelletier. The idea behind Twirl was to create a community oriented family-style gathering space—part kids play space, part cafe. Pelletier ultimately decided to open her play cafe in Queen Anne, thanks to the neighborhood’s vibrant community atmosphere.
Twirl will offer classes and activities for kids and adults, childcare services (while the parents enjoy some downtime or in-house workshops), and yummy health-oriented eats. And from the look of things so far, even the food will capture the Queen Anne feel. ‘The Howe,’ ‘The Galer,’ and ‘The Bigelow,’ are all specialty sandwiches on the menu.
There will soon be one less empty space at the top of the hill, and one more place to bring the family for some good food and creative fun. Queen Anne resident and first-time mom Rebecca Pelletier will be opening Twirl Cafe–a half kids play space, half coffee shop/community gathering spot–later this summer at 2111 Queen Anne Ave N (in the Sweetbrier building).
Pelletier, a Queen Anne-er for a little over three years, has wanted to be a business owner for some time. When scoping out locations for her new play cafe, she was inspired by the Queen Anne’s community feel and walkability, despite the steep slopes. It wasn’t hard for her to get cozy with the idea of opening a community-based small business right here in her home neighborhood.
“I love Queen Anne because it is the perfect mix of urban and residential. Coming from Capitol Hill, we wanted a “walkable” neighborhood that was safe and quiet for raising a family. We love it up here,” she wrote. “I had always felt there was a lack of family-focused establishments on the hill, and in Seattle in general. The ones that I had been to, I always left feeling like there was something missing, or it wasn’t quite right. I wanted a place I could take my child where she would be happy, and I would be happy.”
From this the concept for Twirl was born. According to Pelletier, the space will go beyond being a cafe (which will a health-oriented menu, she adds) and open creative space. She also plans to offer unique and fun classes for children and adults, and has already committed to providing childcare while parents attend workshops throughout the year. Pelletier describes Twirl as an “environment that is relaxing, comfortable, hip for the adults yet entertaining for the kids.”
In in addition to building a space that is creative, comfy and filled with good snacks, Pelletier says that part of Twirl’s mission as a community-oriented small business will be supporting other organizations within the community.
“This means partnering with other small, local business to provide unique products and services. Our menu is full of healthy, natural, organic, and sustainable menu choices. The classes we will offer provide a learning opportunity for both parent and child. The play area will be clean, contained and will include an imaginative tree-house structure, and many other toys and activities,” she wrote.
Pelletier says she plans to charge a flat rate fee for the play area, which “will not be your average box of toys.” The classroom space will also double as an open gym for tumble/active play.
“I want Twirl to be a place new parents can come meet other new parents, meet other friends with kids, or maybe have some one-on-one play time with their child(ren). It’s a chance to take play outside of the house, and have a good cup of coffee or sandwich (or both!) while you are at it. I can think of many rainy Seattle days with my toddler when this kind of place would have been great,” she wrote.
No word yet on a definite opening date (we’ll keep you posted), but look for Twirl at the top of the hill as it prepares to open later this summer! For more information, check out Twirl’s website and blog.
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