How to Make an Outdoor Ice Bunting

UPDATE--THURSDAY, JANUARY 20TH:
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Ohdeedoh, Craft Magazine, and Cottage Life Magazine for featuring the ice bunting! I'm happy to report that despite my initial fears about melting, it's still doing great on day five. Please, if anyone else tries one, I'd absolutely love to see photos!

This was really a fun project. It's easy, if a little time-intensive, but we've found the results to be so worth it. Ice Bunting lit by the afternoon sun:
Ice Bunting lit by artificial light at night:
Last week, Roots of Simplicity did a series on fun winter activities. On Monday, they made ice necklaces. We almost made these, but I wanted to color the ice with food coloring and didn't want to stain my girls' coats. After a few minutes of thinking-while-cleaning, I figured it out--we'd make an ice bunting to take the place of the fabric bunting that hung over our back balcony in the summer.

If you'd like to try one yourself, here's what we did:

1. Find molds to make your ice "ornaments," as Ninna labeled them. We made five different shapes/sizes using different molds: a popsicle mold, filled halfway; the shallow "muffin pan" we use to make crayon cakes; a painter's palette; old plastic applesauce cups; and a regular ice cube tray.

2. Color the ice. We only made colored ice, but next time I might make a few without food coloring to add a little more variety. Pour as much water as you want into your molds, and then add a 1-3 drops of food coloring, being sure to stir it up. All of these first steps can easily be done by toddlers and preschoolers. You can, as we did, extend it to a color-mixing activity, especially since the color palette of food coloring is quite limited. The girls stirred the water with popsicle sticks, and we wiped them down between colors to prevent cross-contamination (this is a highly scientific process...)


3. Add yarn "ties" to the water. This is how you will attach each individual piece to the longer length of yarn. You'll need them long enough for adult fingers to be able to tie them, so don't make them too short; you can trim them later. Be sure to press the center of the yarn into the water until it's fully submerged and has absorbed the water so it freezes well enough inside.

4. Ever so carefully put them outside to freeze. In theory you could do this in the freezer, but the whole fun of these activities is that you can freeze things outside. As we've been saying at our house, the whole outside is a freezer.

5. While you're waiting, braid three strands of a long length of yarn from which to hang the ornaments. It's important to make a braid or to maybe use some kind of thick, rough rope, because the ornaments are relatively heavy and will just slip right down the yarn. If you make a braid, like we did, you can insert the yarn ties between the strands of the braid, and they'll stay put. This can also be done by an older preschooler if you attach the end to a wall with a push pin so the strands hang down for braiding. When you're done, firmly attach the braid to the place you'll be hanging the bunting.

6. When they're frozen, attach the ornaments to the braid. I'm not going to lie. This part was a little labor-intensive and pretty much froze my fingers. And since I hung it high across our balcony and had to stand on a chair on said balcony to reach it, and since I'm the only member of our household with the fine motor skills to do it anyway, my little helpers weren't able to do any of this part. I didn't take a picture of myself doing this (for obvious reasons), but just make sure you pull the yarn ties between the strands of the braid, and you should have no problem. I triple-knotted each one because I do things like that. It probably wasn't necessary, but I know they aren't going to fall off.

7. Trim the extra length of the yarn ties.

That's it! We made ours during a VERY cold weekend, and tomorrow is supposed to be even colder, so I know it's not going to melt. We have a couple of warmer days coming mid-week (followed by near-arctic temperatures, according to the weather report), so I'm tempted to take it down mid-week and put it in the freezer to save our work.

We love this and will definitely make one next year. We don't have any winter birthdays, but if we did, I think this would make a great outdoor decoration for a birthday party (perhaps at the entrance of the home). Also, it's pretty fun to photograph:
What other things might one do with ice hung from a string? I'm sure there are plenty of fun variations on this.