Wintercraft ice globe luminaries

Wintercraft ice lantern kits are terrific, and the instructions on their website are clear and comprehensive.  Go to Wintercraft's own website to learn more about their balloons and how to use them.  Their methods aren't the only option, however.  Here are some of the things I do differently.

Wintercraft's balloons are extra-big
and exceptionally strong.  Their clip
allows easy closure and permits
re-opening if needed, and their base
holds the balloon in place for freezing.

I also use ordinary good-quality balloons for ice globes, but nothing matches Wintercraft for ease of use for making big globes, so this discussion deals with the Wintercraft balloons.  They come with convenient clips for closing the necks, and the necks themselves are very long, which makes it easy to hold the balloons in place on a faucet or hose end.  For using them with a garden hose, I put a plastic quick-connect fastener on the end of the hose, which provides a smooth surface and an expanded end to make it easy to hold the balloon in place while filling it.

Following the usual instructions, you end up with a very thick ice globe that has an opening from the bottom into the core.  If you want to put a candle in it, you have to drill or melt a chimney for it.  Otherwise, you use an electric light source.  These are beautiful, long-lasting, weather-resistant ice globes.

An aging ice globe made with Wintercraft's
instructions -- lasting far longer than
most other ice luminaries.

However, as a person who dives into doing things without reading the instructions, I ended up with a different way of using these marvelous balloons.

I like to mount a big ice globe on top of
a tower of Arctic Ice Lanterns, with the
opening on the top, often with a "crown"
of decorative ice knobs or hearts, or a
school of fish "swimming" inside the bowl.

To make my large, flat-bottomed ice globes, I fill the balloons with 30 pounds or more of water.

I used to blow some air into the balloon for a base after filling the balloon but before sealing it.  That works okay, but for making the flat bottom, it's actually easier to put some air into the balloon before adding the water.  If there's air in the balloon when you add the water, you will have less leaking around the neck of the balloon, and you won't have to add air against the pressure of the water later.

If you blow some air into the balloon
and clip it shut before sliding the neck
onto a faucet or hose, then remove the
clip -- but hold it close -- and fill the
balloon with water, there will be less
leakage of water, and you won't have
to blow air in when there's already
water in the balloon.

This method produces a fishbowl
design with the flat water surface
forming the bottom and the area in
contact with the ground or support
becoming the open top of the bowl

When the balloon is full, re-clip the neck and leave it to freeze until the wall is an inch or two thick.  This makes a very large bowl that can be set on top of an ice tower.  Usually, I also add some decorations around the rim, or cover the entire surface with tiny cocktail ice cubes, or put ice fish inside.

Small cocktail ice "cubes" surround the
rim of this ice globe.  The candle rests on
a lid from a metal can, which helps diffuse
the heat and delay melting.

When I found a silicone mold for making ice fish
this design became my new favorite way to use
ice globes that already look like fishbowls.

Wintercraft's own preferred methods would probably appeal to most users, so check those out first. The advantages are better protection of the flame from wind and precipitation, and a much longer-lasting ice lantern.

However, if you want a really huge, clear globe that is suitable for decoration, consider using this technique with the added air in the balloon and a somewhat shorter freezing time.  (The end result is "upside-down" with respect to how the Wintercraft version is positioned.)

Return to the introductory page.

See the page for ordinary balloons used to make globe ice lanterns.