Thread: Is It 9 Degrees Farenheit Outside?

If so, excellent!

Let's make Lumières. I've been doing this for a few years...

If it's cold, and going to be cold for a while, get yourself some old 5 gallon plastic pails and fill them with water. Leave about half an inch at the top.

Set them outside.

Wait.

If it's really cold (single digits), wait about 24 hours. If you're having a heatwave and it's only about 23 degrees, two days may be needed.

The tops will freeze first. Then the sides will start to freeze. The center of the bottom will freeze last - but we're not going to wait that long. If you set them in a sheltered space, the top will stay relatively clear. You can peer into the bucket and see how thick the frozen sides are. The longer you wait, the thicker they get. Also, as they freeze, the bottom of the plastic pail will distend (the water expands as it freezes). If your water is well aerated, bubbles will collect inside the still-liquid part and you can judge how thick the ice is by moving the pail and watching where the bubbles go.

When they're frozen enough, bring them inside and let them warm up for about 10 minutes - just long enough for the ice that touches the pail to melt. You can tell when it's warm enough by quickly twisting the bucket - the ice will move independently of the bucket. I just did two more. Looking down on them you can see an arc inside the ice - that's the border between the ice and the still-liquid core:





In the pic of the orange bucket you can also see the bubble. Tip the bucket on it's side and the whole thing will slide out. There's still a fair amount of water left, so do it in a place that can get wet - all that water is just at the edge of freezing and if you dump these on your driveway you'll have an instant sheet of ice.



... and there's your Lumière.

If it's very cold and freezes quickly, or if you let it get very thick, stress builds up in the ice. Those stresses produce a crackle effect:





Under some conditions, they come out almost clear. You can mist them with water for a frosted effect. If the wind is up when you dump them, blowing snow will auto-frost them by sticking to the outside during the 8 seconds it takes them to freeze dry.

Arrange them for effect, and then go get some votive candles or some LED throwies.

That is a great craft thing to do, thanks for posting it up.

Originally Posted by AetheLove

FWOOOSH!

I love that one. :)

Was out running errands and the Rite-Aid had 75% off all their Christmas crap. I picked up a string of 50 outdoor LEDs w/ Solar Charger and light-sensitive switch for $3.69 - and also got a bag of balloons. I just filled a dozen balloons with water and set them outside. Tomorrow eve I'm figuring to drill a hole in the bottom of each frozen globe and shove an LED up each one. If it works I guess I'll do the balance of the 50.

Finally got a chance to play with these.

Peeled the (cracked) balloon off of 5 of these, drilled a hole in the bottom of each ice chunk, and shoved 8-ish LEDs up each one. Set the solar charger where it'd get some light.





The spacing of the lights on this string was problematic. It'd be better to have 7-10 lights close, and then a good distance to the next group. Also, the battery keeps them bright for about 2 hours and then they fade noticeably. I might have to make a custom light unit.

Still, they look good and would work well to line the walkway or driveway of a winter-bound home.


Æ