Easy Nature Crafts – Number 2 – Make your own Ice Lantern!

Hello everyone!

How are you doing?  And how are you doing really?  As we continue to dance under the Covid cloud, I hope this will provide a little moment of distraction and escapism. It is literally a little light of hope. 

I first saw this when I was little. It was in a little Christmas craft book we had. I recently thought I would give it a go, and relive those carefree happy childish moments, even just for a couple of hours – because sometimes that is all you need.

It is also a perfect excuse to arrange a winter country walk, and you can take a basket and some gardening scissors to pick some festive foliage such as Holly and Ivy for the lantern. It certainly connects you to nature more than attempting to get some scruffy plastic foliage from an overpriced supermarket.

 What you will need:

• Freshly foraged greenery, berries, or dried bracken/pine cones.

• Larger bowl – preferably glass so you can see through it

• Small cylindrical container (like a yoghurt pot)

• Sticky tape (I used masking tape which worked pretty well)

• Access to a drawer in the freezer – you’ll have to move the peas!

• Small pebbles to use as weights.

• Tealight

• Matches

There’s no set instructions for this really – it is pretty easy, but here is what I did as a guide:

 

Fill the larger bowl half way with water

Place you e.g. in the middle if the bowl and push to a depth around half way up the larger glass bowl (i.e. there should be water beneath the pot.)

Hold in place by using masking tape and attaching it from the pot to the rim of the bowl.

Weigh down the pot with pebbles to make sure it stays at the right depth.

Arrange your selected greenery and berries in the water, make sure that they are equally dispersed all the way round. Top the rest of the bowl with water, but don’t fill it over the yoghurt pot.

Once you’re happy with your arrangement, CAREFULLY place it in a drawer of the freezer and leave overnight and throughout the next day until the sun sets (sounds like an old spell doesn’t it?!)

 

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Once fully frozen, remove from the freezer and place in a shallow bath of tepid water, you will begin to hear the ice crack

Turn out on to a table and if the yoghurt pot is still frozen in, put some of the tepid water into the cavity – this will help you remove it.

Place outside, or in a dish if keeping it inside, place a tealight in the cavity and light it.

 

THAT’S IT!!

A very simple craft to do – especially if you have kids as well. Once it is lit, sit back and enjoy the warm light of the candle sparkle through the ice and illuminate the lush greens and reds of the berries and leaves etc. It really is beautiful.

 

Let me know if you make one too! I would love to see them!

 

Love Charlotte

xoxo