Colored Ice Blocks

Up for some winter fun? If the weather outside is hanging out below freezing, then this something for you and your kiddos!

This is a seriously simple project, but it's lots of fun. Our 3 year old daughter had fun "helping" me.

I did about 4 cups of each color. I just used regular liquid food coloring and added color until I liked how it looked. Liquid watercolors would probably work really well, also.

We poured the colors into all sorts of containers for freezing. Make sure to use containers that are wider at the top than at the bottom so that the blocks pop out nicely. I made the mistake of using cleaned juice "cans" and couldn't get the blocks out for 2 days! Oops.

An excited little girl.

Pretty colors! I did two mini-muffins of each color. I found that the purple turned kind of black as it froze, but the other colors worked out great.

We lined them all up outside and left them for 2 days.

Frozen! See how the purple (in the upper right corner) has turned blackish?

We timed our ice blocks really well. We had two really cold days to get them nice and solid, then the third day was a bit warmer so that the blocks came out a bit more easily.

I even bundled up our little guy to come watch. Sunlight is good for all of us!

Stacking...

Building...

So many possibilities!

Our daughter insisted that this is a parking garage (what??!) but it looks like an ice castle to me. :)

Twenty-four hours later, this is what our ice castle looked like.

I love how the color ended up concentrated in one area.

The castle stuck around for 2 to 2 and a half days before completely melting away. If your weather stayed colder, then that wouldn't be an issue. Just make sure to build it somewhere where it won't be in the way all winter!

Happy building!

~Regina

Fun Christmas Stuff Around our House

First off, we have our Christmas tree.  Now, with a very curious, active toddler, I was stumped as to what to do about ornaments.  Sure, they make those "unbreakable" ones, but neither my husband nor myself were sure that they would stand up to our daughter.  One day, we wandered around the discount store, looking for ideas when my daughter picked up a package of golden jingle bells and gave them a shake.  As I turned towards her to make sure she wasn't about to break anything, my eye caught another package of red jingle bells. And thus, our Christmas tree ornaments were found....

After bedtime and clean up, our tree looks like this:

During the day, it looks more like this, and this is on a good day:

The poor little bells spend more time on the floor than they do on the tree, but at least my daughter has fun running around shaking them!

Second, we have three ice wreaths that I had fun creating from various left-over craft supplies that we had laying (lying? I can't ever get those straight.) around.  The original idea is over here and she made some gorgeous wreathes!

Mine were mostly colored string and ribbon. Nothing special, but still fun.

This morning I noticed that the wreaths were "growing" icicles! How fun!

Third, we have our over-the-door swag thingie. ;)  It's just lights, ribbon, and glass ornaments. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

It was difficult to get a full picture of (daylight coming through the doors), so you'll just have to fill in the gaps...

Finally, since my daughter loves bells so much right now, I found some larger bells on sale at joann's and made a bell door knob hanger.  To do it, I learned how to loop braid ribbon and how to make korker spiral ribbon.  For loop braiding, you can do it with one color or two colors.  For the korker spirals, I found this blog and this blog most helpful.  Everyone had slightly different ideas about how to do them, but the idea is all the same, so I just mish-mashed it together and mine turned out great!

Well, my daughter is knocking on her bedroom door to be let up from "naptime."  Coming soon: how to make cinnamon rolls with my basic bread dough recipe! Mmmmm!

~Regina