While we are waiting for the light
It’s cold and freezing, maybe even borderline to be too cold to be outside. Some people take advantage of the cold, and make big beautiful ice hotels, I would love to stay one night in the Ice Hotel in Québec or in Sweden where I might get lucky enough to see the northern lights, but you have to pay a lot of money to stay there for a night. Ice hotels are an example of brilliant architecture and art that will melt away in the spring.
Well a stay there might just be a dream for me, but it gave me some great inspiration to make a mini ice castle with my kids. It is a great way to utilize the freezing temperatures for making some ice art.
Making an ice castle is a great project for older kids; they can start by sketching and designing how it should look while smaller kids are moms’ best helper.
You need
Empty milk and juice containers. Whatever you have in the house you can recycle and use different shapes.You need a lot of empty milk or juice containers for making the ice bricks for your castle. So start saving and collecting containers.
Water
Bucket
Water
Wooden spoon
Waterproof mittens
Fill containers with water (you can add food coloring if you want) and set them outside for a day or two.
When the water is frozen, take them out of the containers. Use scissors to get them out of the box. If it is really cold it may be a good idea to go inside when you take the ice out of the containers.
Fill a bucket with water and put snow in and stir. This is your glue for the castle blocks.
Head outside and find a spot for your ice castle
Start making the foundation using the water and snow mix between the bricks. How fast it will freeze depends on how cold it is. Have the kids decide where to put the windows and doors.
We used icicles to make castle towers on the top. We also use the water and snow mix for the roof. At the end my daughter decided to have a pink castle so we mixed some water with food coloring to make the castle pink. At dusk we put some candles inside and the rest of the evening we watched it glow from the window.
A great way to create beautiful lights in the winter darkness.
Can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
– Kari
