Sarah Alston Photography

SSShhhh….It’s A Secret!

By Sarah Alston on February 26, 2010

On January 16th, 1920 the 18th Amendment was passed, prohibiting alcohol in the United States of America. In Title II, Section 3 the National Prohibition Act states that "No person shall on or after the date when the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this act." Padlocks marred the landscape of saloons, taverns and clubs throughout the land. President Hoover proudly stated that the amendment was "a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive." Yet never in the history of America has a law been so blatantly violated and spawned such a great level of corruption. Instead of putting an end to the use, sales and production of alcohol, it served as a catalyst, which amplified its demand and inevitable supply. There grew an even stronger desire for the devil’s candy. And since it had to be consumed privately, out of the eye of the law, the underground bar was born.

Because of its secrecy, it was coined the "Speakeasy".

Belltown Billiards opened it’s doors to the dance community on Sunday night in the first Speakeasy event. Hosted by my best friend, Jesse and her boyfriend Nate, the night was a smashing success with Peter Flahiff kicking off the dance with a lesson, Pearl Django playing live music, and of course, dancing the whole night long.

I was asked to photograph the event and set up a vintage photobooth. Since most dancers are natural showoffs, I had no problem getting everyone to flirt with the camera for some super fun shots!

Here’s a few more shots from the night:

Belltown Billiard’s ambiance was INCREDIBLE!!!!

Pear Django set the mood with their fantastic live music!

Peter Flahiff and Mark Smith had too much fun showing off for me…

And here is the slideshow from my super-fun, vintage photobooth!

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Caution: Little Scientists at Work!

By Sarah Alston on February 21, 2010

Last weekend was my son’s 7th Birthday, so we decided to throw him a Scientist party. By the end of the day, our house was trashed, but we had SO MUCH FUN! We did tons of experiments, ate pizza, then had all the boys spend the night.

We decorated the house with cool signs (A big THANK YOU to Erin for helping me out with these!!): Shoot Name-003 Shoot Name-004 Shoot Name-005 Shoot Name-009

Then all of his friends came over and we did science experiments!

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We started out with the good old "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment. If you drop a package of mint Mentos in a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke, it explodes straight up into the air! Directions on how to do this project can be found HERE.

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After that, we shot off Film Canister Rockets. I didn’t get any photos of this because I was so busy helping kids…and frankly, I was having too much fun making my own rockets. We could have done this experiment the whole party and been happy….

After our messy outdoor experiments, we moved indoors. Our next experiment was Cleaning Pennies. I started out by giving the kids wet paper towels and telling them to clean the dirt off the pennies. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get them clean! Then we showed them how to drop the pennies in the vinegar and salt solution…they LOVED watching their pennies get clean! (Thanks to Erin Rily for taking so many of these pictures for me while I helped with the experiments!!!)

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Next, we learned how to Skewer Balloons. You should have seen how funny these kids were…they were SO PROUD when they figured out how to do it!!!!

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Next we made Cornstarch Suspension. This was our messiest experiment. This mixture is neither a solid OR a liquid, but something called a Suspension. When you squeeze the mixture, it becomes a solid, but when you let it go, it becomes a liquid again. The kids had a blast rolling it into balls, then watching the balls melt back into a liquid when they stopped rolling it. Pretty cool!!!

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Time for gifts!!!

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Then came my favorite part: THE CAKE! Every year, I spend hours and hours making crazy detailed themed cake for my kids parties. This year, the cake was really simple to make, but looked SO SO COOL!!!!

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Please ignore the fact that the brain is backwards…I was really tired when I made it. Fortunately non of the kids noticed it…

I bought a Brain Jell-O Mold and filled it with a mixture of orange Jell-O, raspberry Jell-O, evaporated milk and a few drops of blue food coloring. The color of the brain turned out perfect! Then I made a red velvet sheet cake, sliced it in half and laid them out side by side. I cut out the profile of a person, then frosted it a peachy skin color.

Voila! A brain cake for a scientist party!

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I also had earthworm cupcakes made by my mother in law for those kids who were too grossed out to eat brains!

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All of the Happy Birthday singing made Orrin cry….

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All in all, it was a fantastic birthday! Thanks to my wonderful hubby for helping me with the experiments, and to all my girlfriends who helped out behind the scenes to make signs, helped me clean up, and helped me run the experiments. You guys are the best!

And Happy Birthday to my big boy..I can’t believe he’s getting so old! I love you, buddy!!!!

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It’s educational and FREE!

By Sarah Alston on February 17, 2010

Just down the road from my house is the fantastic Redondo Beach. Highline Community College hosts a Free Aquarium that is open to the public for a few hours ever Saturday. It’s small, and only takes about 30 minutes to an hour to visit, but it has it’s own petting aquarium where you can feed the starfish, multiple aquariums with an octopus, jellyfish, and tons of other sea life local to the Puget Sound, as well as 3 microscopes for your kids to examine microscopic ocean life up close.

I was able to visit there last weekend, and got some fun shots from the day! If you are looking for a fun free place to take your kiddos for the day, or to host an inexpensive birthday party, this is the place to go! Afterwards, you can always take a nice walk along the beach on the boardwalk, or have lunch at the fabulous Salty’s Seafood Restaurant right next door!

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These starfish actually crawl up to the side of the tank and expose their bellies for people to feed them bits of food (ground up clams, shrimp and other fish). They would never do this out in the wild, but here, they know that when there are people around, food will surely come! You can actually watch them move the food toward their stomachs, which is in the middle of their body, by wiggling all their little tentacles.

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