They Can't All Be Winners: Snosaic Edition

After finding and using those ice marbles from the freezer, I remembered just how much I like having those bright colors outside among the beautiful, but stark winter scenery.  So I decided to try an experiment with colored ice cubes.  Of course, I couldn't just go with rectangles what with all these quirky silicone ice trays, plastic candy molds and even that tree-shaped muffin tin!  I had big plans for a woodland scene with two sizes of trees in 3 tones of green, blue skies and even some Bigfoots* interspersed all into the side o f the cylinder that form atop the birdbath we can see from the kitchen window, BUT that didn't work out. The neither size of tree would stay in place and most of the Bigfoots wouldn't either.  Oh, well.

It's still nice to see a spot of color out the window while doing dishes or just watching the snow fall while making coffee or when walking around the house with the dogs or plowing the driveway.  I want to think about what didn't go as expected and see about trying again some other time. I have LOTS of ice cubes left over, too.  If you want to try, here's how I got as far as I did.  I think if you have wetter, more packed snow you'll have better luck out of the gate.

First I gathered my ice cube trays, candy molds, etc., as well as a liquid measure and food coloring. I didn't realize that I was out of blue, so I used some blue sugar sprinkles that I dissolved in water.  It turns out that the color stayed more evenly dispersed in the ice than with just the food coloring.

I made blue and then green ice cubes in various trays.  That's when I decided to give my Yeti ice cube tray a try for making Bigfoots, I used equal parts red and green food dye to get brown.

I froze them for about 2 days, but I'm sure they would have been ready before that.

It's not always lucky that our enclosed-porch-cum-mudroom is not heated, but for this project it worked out as I was able to take my time emptying the trays and molds into containers to take outside.

I started with the big trees, but they just wouldn't stay put.  So then I just started stacking blue cubes like bricks in a running bond pattern and finally starting varying it a bit and then realized that fingerless gloves are NOT the right way to save your gloves from getting stained by food dye, because when it's 18F outside playing with ice and snow is REALLY, REALLY COLD. Really.  Next time dishwashing gloves over regular gloves.

I was able to stick some trees in the top and two Bigfoots in the bottom row. Not the most attractive or satisfying design, but I think I figured out a few reasons why it didn't work, so hopefully I can come up with ways to make it work. Look out Winter 2015, I'm going to snowsaic you like you've never been snosaiced before!

And this is what it looked like after another several inches of snow fell over the next couple of days.  Oh, well!

The right hand Bigfoot seems to be feeling victorious, at least.

*Without having researched it at all, I am convinced that "Bigfoots" and not "Bigfeet" is the plural for "Bigfoot."  Plus it's funny to say.