Sweet September: Festive Ice Luminaries

Look how beautiful this is! Today I'm sharing how super easy it is to make these luminaries. And now I want to spend all my time in this freezing weather outside staring at these little balls of Christmas cheer!

I found this idea on Pinterest, and the original idea was to use faux berries and greens. But I thought, why stop there?? I got real cranberries and some cedar and silver tip pine. I'm a floral designer so I have easy access to lots of fun things like pine, BUT you can just go snip some from outside!

I made 3 luminaries. I used 3 larger cans (I bake with pumpkin alot okay??) and 3 smaller cans. Two of my cans were like canned fruit, and one was soup. The soup can was smaller and I wanted to see what difference it would make. I actually liked using the smaller one better, because it gives you more room for berries! I picked out the smaller berries to put in the other two and they were fine, but with the smaller soup can I didn't have to worry about that. So next time, I will use the smaller ones for all of them!

I somehow missed taking pictures of the second step (sorry!!) but I filled the big cans part way with water and set the smaller ones inside. PS- I boiled my water to make it freeze super clear, but I don't feel like it looks super clear. So do what you want.

They float, so I put stones inside the smaller cans to keep them down. You can weigh them down all the way to the bottom, and that will give you a frozen cylinder to put around your candle like a hurricane, but I chose to leave about an inch of ice to set my candle on. I played around with how many stones to use until I felt like they floated where I wanted, and then used tape to secure the inner can to the outside can right in the center.

Once I was happy with the shape it would freeze into, I got my festive on!

You definitely don't need as much as I have in this picture. But now I can make a bazillion more if I want to!

I broke off small pieces of both the cedar and the pine and shoved them down the sides between cans. I discovered the the berries FLOAT, so you can put a berry in and then force pine down on top of it to keep it from bobbing up! And then put some on top, of course.

Keep track of where you put things, since you can't see through the sides and you don't want to end up with one side packed and one side just ice! I happened to put three pieces of tape on the cans to hold them in place, so I could make sure I took turns doing each section.

Put these in the freezer for A LONG TIME. Like a whole day. I thought "oh great they'll be done in five hours!" but when I started taking one apart, the whole bottom half was still liquid!

These are super easy to get out of the cans. I did it one at a time and left the other two in the freezer, cause you know, ice. I poured hot water into the inner can and let it sit for a few seconds until I could start to wiggle that can up and out. Then dip the whole thing in a big bowl or pitcher or sink of hot water, and then I dumped it into my hand. WAY easier than I thought! We were having freezing sleet the night I did this, so the temperature was great for them outside! Stick some tealights in them and you're done!