Christmas decorations

I found a picture from someones pintrest on facebook and decided to look into it.  The website provided didn't really give a 'how to'... so here it is ladies and gentlemen.

Ice Sculpture Gumdrops

What you need:  FYI I thought about cleaning my table before taking the picture, but then decided I couldn't be bothered, and you all deserve to know I'm not both crafty and clean.

1. water balloons
2. food coloring
3. faucet filler

I used regular water balloons, but if I had had any on hand I probably would have used a bigger variety of balloon, so my sculptures will be small.

My food coloring is liquid, I have not tried the gel form but doubt it would work as well, you may try it and inform me of how it goes if you like.  Also that blue thing in the center of my food coloring is my faucet filler, I don't know where you would buy one of these without the water balloons, mine was included with the balloons, and was very helpful.

Once you have all your ingredients you'll want to either only have older kids work with you or be sure the little ones are out of the way as this project can be pretty messy... my jeans will attest to that.

start with an empty balloon and drop 10 drops of food coloring into the balloon slowly... I recommend attempting to hold the balloon in a manor that lets the liquid fall downward, otherwise you end up with it on your hands as soon as you start to fill it with water.
After filling it with food coloring you'll hook it to your faucet filler and turn on the water.  Because there is no way until this point to know if your balloon has a hole in it, either wear an apron, or try to cover your balloon as much as possible with your hand as you fill it.  I managed to get red food coloring on my pants when one of them had a hole directly aimed at my leg.

 

Pretty huh? and these are my nice jeans

 

After you've filled the balloon you'll want to tie it off, careful not to squirt yourself with anymore of the colored water, and place it in a plastic bin. These are mine sitting outside.



 

As you can see there is a tiny amount of snow already on the ground, but it is snowing and hopefully tomorrow I'll have a good covering of snow and some frozen balloons.  Hopefully no pesky neighbor kids see these balloons and decide to use them as weapons... that would be a bad day.

Anyway, there is the how too, and just as soon as I have some frozen solid balloons I'll pop open the balloons remove the plastic and place my sculptures on the walkway leading to the house.

One more thought before we get to step two, I have never done this before so I'm only guessing but I thought if I wanted them to turn out like gumdrops I'd better sit them upward so that they have a chance of that once frozen... so that is why you can see they are placed all upright as carefully as possible.  I'm a bit worried about the four on the top and whether they will sit properly when I place them in the yard, but hopefully the snow will help out with that.