Ice Medallion
If you live in a warm area like mine, winters are less about snow and snow play and more about crisp days, rain, fog, and overnight freezes. Back in December, we observed that nights of below-freezing temps were causing our birdbath to freeze over. We decided to do an experiment to see if we could remove the sheet of ice from the birdbath without breaking it. When that proved possible, we wondered if we could maybe decorate the ice and freeze pretty bits of nature into the ice.
We put some winter bird berries and bits of evergreen needles on the large disk of ice, then laid the ice disk back into the birdbath (with nature bits on top of the ice). We added a little very cold water from the garden hose and waited for the next overnight freeze. We didn’t know if our experiment would work!
In the morning, we found the birdbath iced over again, and our leaves and berries embedded in the ice (but moved from our original placement). We had to wait a few hours for the day to warm enough for us to lift the ice out of the birdbath. While we waited, we brought a bowl of warm water from the house and warmed a metal kebab skewer in the water. We carefully bored two holes in the ice disk while it was still seated safely in the birdbath.
We lifted out the disk and poked a piece of twine through the two holes to make a wide hanger. Then we hung the ice medallion in a tree and watched the winter sunlight sparkle through it.
I think we’ll try this again sometime with pretty yarn in a coil.
Of course, this pretty piece of nature art didn’t last long. Perhaps if you live in a colder climate the ice medallion will stay longer?
February 5, 2013 at 2:45 pm
that is so cool. we are sorta done with winter here. lol it lasted about a good two weeks. i think if we made an ice thing it would have to be in the freezer. lol