Ice Marbles

I have not been murdering people in my back yard… though I could see how you might make that mistake. I have been making Ice Marbles.

For the past few days it has been FREEZING in upstate New York. I don’t just mean a little nippy, I mean single digits. Yesterday it was seven degrees when I took the kids to school in the morning; today’s high was fourteen. Personally, I think this sort of weather calls for wrapping up in a blanket, sitting by the fire, and drinking tea until it becomes late enough in the day to drink wine.

I have a friend—one of those crafty types; the sort who wouldn’t have a Pintrest disaster—who thought the weather called for making Ice Marbles.

And then, suddenly, there was something of an epidemic of Ice Marble-making among my Facebook friends.

And I though, hey, why not? Pixie would love it and how hard could it be? All you need are balloons, food coloring, and glitter. And cold. I have all of that. Especially the cold.

And did promise to write about Pintrest disasters, after all.

So yesterday, after lunch, Pixie and I found the balloons and the glitter, we dug out the food coloring (I don’t know I keep calling it that—it’s not as if we would actually use it on anything we would put in our mouths) and started our Ice Marbles.

We used a funnel to hold the balloon open while we put a few finger pinches of glitter and 8-12 drops of food coloring in each balloon. Then we filled them full of water. I put the balloons right on the faucet and turned on the water—that was the nerve-racking part… watching the balloon swell and swell and swell and wondering if I was about to get showered with colored water and glitter. I didn’t, though, and all of the balloons made it outside to freeze.

We waited…

 and waited…

and finally, after not quite 24 hours, we decided they were ready. They weren’t. The first one—a red one, naturally—sprung a leak, spraying red water everywhere and making gory I-slit-someone’s-throat patterns in the snow. All that was left was a shell of vaguely pink-and-glitter ice. It was kind of pretty when the sun hit it.

All of them spurted water everywhere, but none with quite as much vigor. Or maybe I was just expecting it. Or maybe it was just that it wasn’t red.

I don’t know why they all leaked. Maybe it was the snow… maybe seven degrees just isn’t as cold as I think it is. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to move them. Maybe I’m just bad at this sort of thing and the Ice Marbles knew it.

The one thing I was worried about—that the balloons would stick to the ice—wasn’t a problem.

There is still glitter all over my dining room.

I have stained gloves. I have green icicles. I may have frostbitten fingers.

And a Pixie who is thrilled by her Ice Marbles.

UPDATE: My Crafty Friend says that Ice Marbles take much longer than you would expect to freeze solid… a few days at least, even in weather as cold as this.