Constrained balloon ice lanterns

A fairly easy way to add variety to your ice lanterns

Making an ice lantern in a balloon can yield more than just globe and teardrop shapes.  A balloon that is constrained within a container can take on a totally different form.  Oddly, I made ice lanterns in bucket-type molds and separately in balloons for a couple of years without thinking of putting the balloons inside the molds.

This large luminary was made in a
36" party balloon inside an IKEA
"Fniss" wastebasket, producing
a softer form that is taller than
the wastebasket mold.

We had actually been constraining balloons all along -- just not thinking of it that way.  Wintercraft's sturdy balloons require only a minimal support, but ordinary thin latex balloons flatten into a blob if they aren't placed in bowl to maintain their rounded shape.  The instructions for making a globe ice lantern from an ordinary balloon simply assume that some kind of support is needed -- and we went beyond that by using bowls with fluting to make the globes more interesting.

An ice globe luminary made by
constraining an ordinary latex
balloon in a fluted bowl.

A blob.  This balloon does sit on a
plate with a slight rim, but the large
balloon would need more support.

Ordinary balloons' weakness becomes an advantage when you want to create varied forms, and especially if you enjoy more rounded edges to your designs.  This Norwegian website opened my eyes to the exciting options that this method offers.

You can curve a shape above the rim of a container, and you can make oval and other forms.

An oval bucket used to make a
luminary with both a curved top
and an oval shape

You can soften the lines of the Arctic Ice Lantern without losing the six flat faces that provide surfaces for decoration.

The Arctic Ice Lantern mold being
lifted off a balloon with a frozen
ice lantern in a rounded shape

Removing the balloon, with the
Arctic Ice Lantern hexagonal
mold in the background.

Note the bubble wrap under the ice lantern.  Although the luminaries are usually resistant to cracking, setting them on a layer of bubble wrap provides extra protection, and it also insulates them from warm surfaces.

Smoothing the contours of the
central hole (which had remained
open as the rest of the walls froze),
using a flat-bottomed metal pet
food bowl full of hot water.

If the ice lantern is removed when the walls are at the right thickness (about an inch), there will be a hole in the ice where the mold was sitting on the ground.  Sometimes, a thin layer of ice or slush covers that area and can be easily broken through.  If the luminary has frozen further, or if the surface that it sat on was particularly cold, the ice could be thick there, and it might need to be melted using the metal bowl with hot water, in order to reach the core of liquid water.  The arched surface of the balloon seems to direct the ice crystals to form straight lines, so if you want a nice round hole, you need to smooth the edges.

The finished lantern as made in a
balloon inside an Arctic Ice Lantern
sits on top of one made in the same
kind of mold (upside down as a base).
You can see the contrast between the
sharp edges on the lower one and the
rounded contours of the upper one.
The faces of both are flat enough
to add ice appliques.

Without repeating the details of production, this is another example of a base made without a liner and an ice lantern on top that was frozen in a balloon inside the same type of mold:

This ice lantern and base
were frozen inside a
small plastic bucket.

Here is a step-by-step description of freezing the large luminary at the top of this blog post:  

A 36" latex party balloon is filled with
cold water while inside an IKEA "Fniss"
wastebasket.  To ensure that a hole remains
at the upper end of the finished luminary, the
bottom of the wastebasket at this stage, I put
a raised disc in the center.  The disc could be
any of several options, such as a yogurt cup,
a rubber stopper, etc., but I had found a
container lid that worked very well.
Usually, the end remains open
even without using a disc.

Blowing some air into the balloon makes
a flat base for the finished ice lantern.
This one is sitting on a cold porch,
where it took more than 24 hours
to freeze.  I often freeze some
smaller balloons so that I
can check their thickness
before deciding when to
unmold a large one like this.

Sealing the balloon with a removable clip makes the job easier.  I use clips that Wintercraft sells to seal their extra-strong balloons, but Ikea's clips for small bags would probably also work well.  Tying the end of the balloon works, too, but it can be difficult if the balloon is under much pressure.

I brought the ice lantern indoors
when it felt solid and other balloons
that I froze around the same time had
proven to be thick enough.  

Removing the wastebasket from the balloon,
which is sitting on bubble wrap after having
its clip removed so that the balloon flattened
over the base.  It sometimes requires
pouring hot water over the mold
to loosen it enough to remove.

The blue disc with the raised center
was a lucky find.  It happens to fit
perfectly in the wastebasket and
guarantees that the center of the
ice lantern's top (the base during
the freezing process) will be the
last area to solidify.  This is a
nice touch, but usually not
absolutely necessary.

This large ice lantern is hard to handle
because of its weight.  I cut a hole in the
balloon and used a hand-operated pump
to remove the water from the core before
moving the slippery lantern around much.

The balloon peels off easily.  Along the stress
lines, the ice crystals tended to form in straight
lines, making a rectangular hole at the top.

Because I would rather have a round hole at the top,
I smooth the opening using a metal bowl filled with
hot water, refilling it as it cools.  Spinning the bowl
quickly melts a shallow area that keeps it centered.

I decorated the luminary with ice
snowflakes.  The large size makes
the curvature gentle enough that
they will stick in place as well as
they would on a flat surface.

When finished, this ice lantern provided
good protection against a strong breeze
that extinguished other luminaries.

One of my favorite constrained balloon shapes resembles the glass chimney of an old-fashioned kerosene lamp.

A constrained balloon ice lantern
sitting on a base made in a plastic
party tray lid.

It is made by filling a balloon with water while it is held inside a vase with a flared top, then adding some air to make the flat bottom, and freezing it -- being careful not to let the walls get too thick.

This flared plastic vase is filled
over the top with water in a sturdy
balloon.  Air is added to make the
flat bottom of the ice lantern.

The chimney is narrow enough that it can end up with too tight an opening to allow placing a candle in it or getting adequate ventilation.  I have had to pare down a candle to fit down the hole and drill air holes in from the lower end when one of these ice lanterns froze a bit too long before being unmolded.  On the other hand, if they aren't frozen long enough, the chimney can be too thin and delicate.

This plastic vase came from Party City.
It has small struts at the bottom;  I put
a lid of that size over them to make an
air pocket to delay freezing there and
to help flatten the upper end of the
chimney.  Even so, it is often
necessary to melt open the
end of the chimney to
release the water
from the core.

Another very lovely constrained-balloon ice lantern is made using a plastic container with squared, outsloping sides.  This yields an ice lantern with sides that face upward, making its decorations easy to see when it is placed on the ground and protecting the flame from wind.

The plastic tub from Party City shapes
the ice lantern to produce flattened
sides that face upward and can be
decorated with ice appliques.

Unmolding the constrained
balloon luminary.

The slight inward slope of the sides
and the flattening that the mold
produces enable this ice lantern
to display the owl appliques
where they can easily be seen.

Constraining a balloon inside another object expands the options for creating different shapes.  It allows you to make ice lanterns that are larger than the molds you are using (but watch out for a flood if your balloon breaks!) and it produces a flatter base than you will usually get from simply freezing your luminary in a mold.

Return to the introductory page.

`