Wishing you all a warm weekend!
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CherryWillow’s ‘No-Filter Friday’; post a photo on Friday that you’ve taken that has only ‘sizing and adding a copyright’ being the only editing/filtering done to it.
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Tag Archives: ice
2017 WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge – Temporary
2017 WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge
~Temporary~
“This week, show us something you appreciate
despite —or even because of — its short shelf life.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I appreciate snow and icicles as long as they’re temporary.
We haven’t had a major snowfall in awhile, so
I went through my photos in search of snow and ice.
These 2 photos are a couple of my favorites from 2010.
Wishing you all fun with the WP photo challenge!
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Wildlife Wednesday – Mockingbird
This is our resident mockingbird.
It’s like a round glowing like when the sun hits it’s chest feathers.
Sorry about the low quality of this photo.
I tried to take a photo through our kitchen window of our
resident mockingbird sitting in an ice covered tree 2-17-2015.
Wishing you all a warm & happy Wednesday! 
Distracted – ice & snow
Let me start off with a disclaimer: I realize that there’s regions snowed totally under and you are free to snicker at my snow & ice photos. My warm postive thoughts are with you all. 
Please remember though, that for us, this below zero icy cold snowy weather is still miserable, dangerous and beautiful.
It iced earlier this week and it’s snowed for a couple of days. I find it a bit ironic how I started buying seeds and posting about deciding to have a garden this year and then this crazy weather hits… ~bummer~
Our electric and internet has been blinky, I’m working on crafts and trying to keep myself distracted from not being able to blog or surf and stuff.
I wanted to try and make a post to let you all know that I’m still around. I’ll be by to visit and comment whenever I can.
I hope you all are keeping warm and safe during these freezing days of winter.
Cool looking craft – DIY Fake Ice
Updated 7-14-2017
I learned how to make ‘fake ice cubes’ by melting clear pony beads.
The tutorial I followed was on flickr.
Unfortunately that tutorial is now gone. However, I’ll look around and see if I can find another tutorial that is easy to follow… or I may make one myself. Either way, I’ll update this post in the future.
It took a few tries for me to get the hang of it. I really like the results.
I’m amazed at how real the fake ice cubes look.
I can think of several projects to use the fake ice cubes with.
Have you ever made fake ice?
I hope you all Have a cool day!
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IMO – This craft is Not for children!
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The tutorial I used is now gone. But here are a few things I did that made the process easier.
There’s a few things I adjusted, added or did different.
*I used balsa wood to make my ice cube form.
*Keep the area well ventilated: I opened my windows and turned on ceiling fans and ran the stove-hood fan.
*Apparently my oven doesn’t heat as hot as the author of the tutorial’s does.
I had to bake at 400° to get the beads to melt successfully.
*I also had to bake them longer: I’d put half the beads in the form and bake them for 15 minutes then put the rest of the beads in and bake for another 15 minutes.
*Keep a close eye on these as they bake to make sure they don’t burn.
*Let the cubes cool before trying to unwrap the aluminum foil.
*To give the cubes a shiny finish, after I peeled the aluminum foil off my ice cubes, I trimmed off the shards and rough edges and then put the cubes back on the pan and in the oven for about 3 to 5 minutes. I was careful to watch so they wouldn’t melt too much.
*I took them out of the oven and let them cool.
Using a battery operated tea light
I made a fun little icy temporary tea light.
edited in 6-11-2014:
I made this tea light by gluing the fake ice cubes together with E6000 glue.
end of edit…
There’s a few tutorials on the web on how to make fake ice by melting beads in metal ice trays.
I apologize for the missing links to the tutorial.
I’ll try to do an update soon. with either my own tutorial or a link to one.
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Iceball Decor
Here’s a simple craft I’ve been wanting to try since a couple years ago when I heard about it from one of my nieces. The reason I didn’t try it is because up until this year, we didn’t really have a decent snowfall (and also I forgot. lol)
But this year, we have a fairly decent snowfall with single digit temps, I thought it was a perfect time to try it.
All you need to make these cool looking ice-balls is:
balloons
food coloring
water
The only actual food coloring I have is the gel kind and I doubt it would do very well. However, last Spring I bought some Easter egg dye kits because they were 50¢ and I thought I might use them someday. I decided to use the dye tablets.
I mixed up the dye tablets in water
then poured it in a flimsy water bottle
I put the balloon lip over the rim of the bottle
Holding the bottle over the sink
I held my fingers on the bottle and balloon to keep the balloon
from popping off and spewing the water everywhere.
With my other hand I crushed the bottle
and the liquid went into the balloon.
This worked like a charm, but it was messy.
I surfed around to see if other folks might have a less messy way to make balloon ice-balls. And of course they did:
Several of them tell to fill the balloons with water and add the food coloring…
Do Not try it that order or you’ll wind up like I did with a big mess…
Do it in this order instead:
*Put the drops of food coloring in the balloon first and then put the balloon over your faucet, hold the lip tight and add the water.
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I decided to try it their way and Since I only have the dye tablets I crushed one up and put it in about a tablespoon of water and used it like regular food coloring.
I used yellow, so I suspect that my balls of ice won’t be very brilliant, but may look okay anyway.
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I sat the balloons outside on the porch and left them over night anf they froze solid.
I like how the balloons cracked open but were still holding their shape to the ice balls. 
I peeled of the balloons then set the ice-balls out in the snow.
I still have a few dye tablets left, so I’ll be able to make more of these sometime.
This is all for me at the moment.
Keep warm and snug during these cold winter days.
Remember to ‘Keep Calm and Craft On’
🙂
Joys Of Creating 