Destruction. Delay? Delight?

The inevitable end -- delayed if possible

Ice lanterns don't last.  You can delay the inevitable, but at some point you might as well enjoy watching the destruction of your luminaries by sun, rain, wind, and heat.

Ice turns to water or even directly
to water vapor as the sun shines
on the ice lanterns.

Delaying ice lantern meltdown

* protect against sunlight by positioning ice lanterns in the shade
* use LED lights rather than candles
* move ice lanterns to a freezer when they aren't on display
* if using candles, isolate them from the luminary with an insulator
* limit burn time of candles
* make the ice lanterns as thick as possible
* place ice lanterns on top of thick bases of ice

Making the best of the meltdown

* if a candle melts through a lantern into the base below, reposition the candle

The candle sits inside the upper ice
lantern, which is on top of an
upside-down globe luminary,
itself on a column of
ice lanterns.

Several days of candles burning in
the upper lantern, along with warmer
weather, melt through the base of the
upper lantern and the solid upper end
of the base, creating a pool of water
in which a floating candle was lit.

This pair of ice lanterns shows one with
the base of the upper lantern melted
through and the one in the background
with the base still intact.  The column on
which the further lantern sits was made of
two Arctic Ice Lanterns with their open
ends joined, so that the large lantern on
top has a solid base under it.  The one in
the foreground is a large luminary placed
on the open end of another ice lantern.
Where there is more ice to melt through,
the candle is less likely to end up in the
supporting structure.

* Candles can be placed on something that at least spreads the heat over a large area, or on something that provides some insulation. Wintercraft recommends using a small upside-down plastic cup.  I usually put a lid from a can or a small ceramic plate under the candle.  Candles can create enough heat to melt through the ice below them.

With multiple freeze-thaw cycles, the metal
lids under the candles have melted through
layers of ice and have been frozen over.
Three lids are seen stacked within this
aging ice luminary.

A candle sinking into the ice.  The next time
 this lantern was lit, the hole was covered
with a ceramic dish to keep the candle
from sinking deeper in.

Enjoying the transformation

When there's no way to prevent the melting, enjoy the beauty of the transformation.

Cracks spread through the clear ice,
the upper edges melt, and the
walls grow thinner and thinner.

Even an amazingly thin remnant of ice can support a load -- until it suddenly collapses.

This increasingly lacy ice
lantern tower burned on
two levels for several nights
before it finally fell down.

More photos of melting ice lanterns, on Flickr.

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