Single-bucket ice lanterns

Single-bucket ice lanterns

Two types of single-bucket ice lanterns are covered separately -- the Arctic Ice Lantern commercial mold and the Nonni's biscotti bulk package, which makes the easiest ice luminary.  

Many other containers can be used to make ice lanterns, as discussed in the introduction.  

The "bucket" is filled with water and left to freeze.  If the opening is to be in the side that is down during freezing, it should be set on the ground, preferably on snow.  If the opening into the luminary will be at the open end (the top during freezing), the bottom will freeze better if sitting on a cold surface like a tabletop.  

The uneven surface that tends to develop on the free side when water escapes from the core can be reduced by poking or drilling a hole in the thin ice during the freezing process.  This relieves the pressure inside.  Besides making the surface smoother, it reduces the chance that the mold will break.

Unmold single-bucket ice lanterns when the wall is around an inch thick.  Letting it freeze too long can result in a broken mold.  To remove the ice lantern from the mold, I like to set it upside-down in a bathtub or laundry tub with bubble wrap under it.  The lantern will drop down within 5 or 10 minutes and the mold can be lifted off.  The process can be speeded up by gently pouring hot water over the mold.  

The water inside the ice lantern can be poured out, but I like to pour it back into a mold and use it for another luminary, because it is already chilled.

Below are a couple specific examples that have worked well for us.

Ikea "Fniss" wastebasket.  

Fniss wastebasket from Ikea

This can be used to make an inverted truncated cone to use as a base for other ice lanterns or as a wind-resistant ice lantern on its own.  The inverted form is appealing because irregularities in the surface at the open end of the wastebasket don't matter much when that end is down -- and the small end tends not to freeze very solid when the mold sits on the ground, so it is easy to use that as the opening.

The Fniss wastebasket luminary
decorated and used on its own

A Fniss wastebasket as a base
for a globe ice lantern.

See the page for constrained balloon ice lanterns for the next example:

A constrained balloon luminary made
in an Ikea Fniss wastebasket and
decorated for Valentine's Day

We found a simple plastic storage bin at a surplus store.  (AxMan)  Its ridges make the ice lanterns look like Greek pillars, and since the molds were inexpensive, we could make many at once.  These containers have several important features that make them suitable for freezing ice lanterns.

All of the ridges on this container
are oriented so that they do not
interfere with unmolding.  At
each point, the container is
wider, rather than narrower,
toward the upper end.

The inside is smooth, without
anything that would interfere
with unmolding.

There is a slight indentation in the
bottom of the containers, so that
freezing is delayed there, making
it easy to pour out the water from
the core and producing a nice rim.

A simple column made in a
plastic storage container.

Thirty of these columns provided a "grand entry" to the Middlemoon Creekwalk

Ice lantern column lining the entry to
the 2016 Middlemoon Creekwalk

Day-after "ruins" of a row
of columns from the
Enchanted Forest at
the Luminary Loppet

Return to the introductory page.