Anyone else out there been tempted to try the idea of freezing colored water inside balloons to make colorful globes for outside?
I so got sucked in on the idea.
Headed right out to buy some water balloons only to learn that no stores around here sell water balloons in winter.
Eventually I just went with full sized balloons.
I filled them all the way up and stuck them outside in the snow to freeze in our below twenty degree temperatures.
The next day I skipped out the door eager to peel off the balloon skin to reveal a beautiful marble like globe.
The first balloon I picked up immediately gushed out clearly non-frozen water.
What the heck????
But at least there was still a hollow frozen form.
The next balloon was so unfrozen that the thin bit that had frozen promptly shattered.
I finally peeled the remaining four balloons only to discover that they were still not frozen solid.
Also discovered that the red food coloring looked distinctively orange when frozen.
I couldn't figure out what to do with the globes so I stuck them on our porch until I could round up some water balloons and make more smaller globes.
I was curious as to why the food coloring didn't disperse evenly but not so curious that I thought about it for very long.
Instead I put my mind to trying to identify places that might still sell those tiny water balloons that would work better than the big balloons.
About an hour later, after walking around a few major stores and having store personnel repeatedly direct me to the party supply areas where only big bags of large sized balloons were to be found, I finally gave up the search for water balloons.
As I was stomping across the frozen parking lot back to my car I had an "ah HA!" moment.
Can you guess what it was?
It was SUCH an amazing thought!
I could just NOT FILL the big balloons all the way up!
(You thought of that right away, right?)
Oh yeah,
I so smart.
Back home I pulled the first balloon out of the bag and after putting several generous food coloring squirts into the balloon, I attached it to the faucet.
Turned on the water as my oh-so-smart brain mused
"Boy it sure would make a mess if one of the balloons had a hole in it."
At that same moment the rapidly filling balloon sprung a leak.
Brain was smart; a balloon with a hole did make a mess.
After that I puffed a bit of air into each balloon before attaching it to the faucet.
I lined up the eleven remaining balloons along the edge of our walkway.
It was to get down to like six degrees over night...
I was excited!
The next morning I peeled one of the balloons.
It leaked all over me.
One half of the balloon was frozen solid, the other half was still liquid.
What the heck???
Back inside I complained to Bernie about how the balloons still had not frozen solid.
He pointed out to me that the water wouldn't freeze any place the balloon touched snow because the snow would insulate the water from freezing.
My So Cal blond girl brain just could not accept that.
Snow is frozen water, right?
How could it keep water from freezing then?
I moved the remaining balloons out away from the snow to test this.
Guess what?
Bernie was right.
At first I plopped all the globes on the concrete porch.
Sprayed them with some water to attempt to make them more glassy looking.
Then I realized that since the porch faced north the globe would never sparkle in the sunlight and look like glass.
I went to move them...
Too late.
Five of them were already glued in place with the frozen water spray run off.
The rest of the globes got put around the base of the lamp post.
I had attempted to make a frozen hand using a latex glove.
It froze nicely but the thumb and three fingers broke off as I peeled the latex free.
The remaining intact finger on the frozen hand was the upright middle finger.
Wouldn't you know it....