Things to Do in Vestavia Hills

Inside their blue-walled studio, staffers at Do It Yourself Crafts help visitors wield glass, tie-dye, silver clay, and pottery paints to create colorful, one-of-a-kind artwork. Glass-fusion classes teach patrons the skills they need to meld glass shards into funky tiles, and parties bring friends together to bond while they work on various art projects; patrons 21 or older can tote along libations to fuel the festivities. During pottery-painting sessions, patrons select a piece of raw ceramic bisque to adorn with provided pigments, choosing from forms such as plates, mugs, and plaques.

Time for Three mixes classical, country-western, gypsy, bluegrass, and jazz music to create a unique hybrid sound. Violinists Zachary De Pue and Nicholas Kendall and double bassist Ranaan Mayer met while studying music in college. The three-piece bonded over a shared love of musical improvisation and went on to play more than 200 shows. Conductor Christopher Confessore leads the trio with a skillful eye and even more skillful conductor’s wand. Though the concert begins at 8 p.m., it’s preceded by a cocktail hour that begins at 7 p.m., where guests can impress each other by playing octave-jumping leapfrog.

Rhythm N Motion fetes shimmying strut masters and boogying beginners alike with its high-energy adult dance classes, in which you can bust moves in a supportive and fun environment. Burn calories and mold muscles Tuesdays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. with Burlesque Strip Aerobics, a total-body workout that emphasizes fun, flirtation, and fitness set to old-school jazz music. The class doffs its dapper cap at the tease element of strip keeping students comfortable and fully clothed. The Tuesday evening 6–7 p.m. timeslot ushers in Hip-Hop Fusion, which engages abs and extremities in rhythmic sweat sessions useful for cardio development and stockpiling moves for future DDR-based job interviews. Thursday evening Ballroom 101 classes sate steppers and swayers with a variety of dances, regularly featuring the social swirls and soulful shakes of the tango, hustle, waltz, foxtrot, and wolfgallop performed with or without a partner from 7 to 8 p.m.

Led by director Carla Higginbotham, the instructors of Dance Trance aim to create a fun, lively workout using intuitive, easy-to-follow dance moves and upbeat music. The instructors demonstrate the routine without shouting disruptive directions as students shake and shimmy their way through strength building and cardio drills.

The sleek, dark body of the A-12 Blackbird is invisible to radar detection, but that doesn’t stop it from attracting the attention of every visitor to the Southern Museum of Flight in sight. The retired bomber is just one of the aircrafts in the Southern Museum of Flight’s outdoor collection, and it gives visitors a glimpse of what’s to come. Stepping inside, you can almost hear the purring engines from the Korean War jet or 1920s Huff-Daland crop duster.

Not only does the museum bring high-flown feats of engineering artistry down to earth, it sets its impressive collection of airplanes into realistic dioramas. The exhibits, designed to give life to the history of southern aviation, sprawl across 75,000 square feet and includes photographs, models, original engines, and the tiny gnomes that power them. The Korean War Jets exhibit, for example, uses mannequins and a surprisingly realistic mock-up of Kimpo Air Force Base to tell the story of No Kum Sok, a North Korean lieutenant in the Air Force who defected.

Resident dance champion and National Dance Council of America-certified instructor Sterling Burroughs has been teaching dance for more than 25 years. His impressive teaching career includes 14 Freddie Awards and more than 150 regional and national awards from the Fred Astaire Studio organization. He has trained several award-winning performers in many styles. Now, Sterling leads a team of instructors in teaching these acclaimed techniques to budding dancers of all ages and skill levels. Students learn to gracefully twirl and twist through Latin and ballroom dances such as the rumba, East Coast swing, and the foxtrot. During group and private lessons, instructors help students communicate through movement, from the long, yearning strides of the tango to the slight adjustments to falling powdered wigs performed during the Viennese waltz.