One of my dear friends, Cara, turned me on to ice globes. The ones she makes are enormous (bigger than a grapefruit) and can last a long time when the weather remains below freezing. She uses heavy duty balloons to make sure that they don’t break and they yield a nice thick layer of ice. Below is a photo of the one she gave me, it’s so pretty! The weather has been ideal for making ice globes, the snow and cold temperatures create the perfect environment to place these along the walkway of a house to illuminate it at night. I put the ones I made in an urn that had collected snow over the weekend and added a wreath that I still had from the holidays. I’m not sure if the photos really do justice to how beautiful these are!

This was my first attempt at making them, and I used regular balloons which made an ice globe about the size of an orange. I was amazed that they came out right on the first try, there’s nothing tricky about this DIY Project! The key is not to freeze them solid, you want to freeze them about halfway so that the inside of the ice globe is hollow. It took about 4-5 hours for the water to freeze to the right consistency (larger balloons will take more time). The way to determine if the ice globe is frozen enough is by checking it a few times during the freezing process. It should be hard to the touch, however, when you gently shake it you should feel water slosh back and forth inside. Here are the photos and the step-by-step instructions. You’ll need: balloons, water, a knife or something sharp to make a hole in the bottom of the ice globe and battery operated tea lights that you can purchase at places like Bed, Bath and Beyond or Amazon.

I used regular balloons.

Filled them with cold water to accelerate the freezing process.

Once the balloon is filled with cold water, tie the end and place it in the freezer.

I could have probably just placed these directly on the shelf in the freezer, but I elected to put them in a small votive to see if it would be easier to pierce the base of the globe where the battery tea light would need to fit. It took about 4-5 hours to freeze the water inside the balloon.

Here is the balloon with the frozen water, I ran a little warm water over it for about 5 seconds to release the balloon from the ice globe.

Very carefully pierce a hole in the base of the ice globe to allow the water to escape – PLEASE BE CAREFUL not to cut yourself!

Pour the water out.

Placing the balloon in the votive during the freezing process made a circular opening that the battery operated tea light would fit in nicely.

Here are the three ice globes that I made. When I poured the water out, I stored them in the freezer until the evening.

I had a wreath from the holidays left over, so I placed the wreath around the urn and put the three ice globes in the snow with the tea lights.