Rose in a heart of ice

Step 11 Outlook

There are a lot of possible modifications to this instructable.

The most obvious ones are not to make a heart but another form, and to enclose something other than a rose.

The technique of carving using the rasps the ice is probably not optimal. How do professional ice sculptors do it?

In my humble opinion, the most interesting variant would be to make the ice transparent, so that the rose is visible in its full beauty when handing over the present. However, I am not sure how to achieve this. I suppose that the ice is intransparent because the air gets out of the water, but cannot get out of the ice, because the upper layer of the water is already frozen (the uppermost 5-10mm of the ice where transparent). I see two possible approaches to solving this problem:

• While freezing the water, we could stir the water constantly. Then the water will cool down more homogeneously, and the air will get out of the water before the upper layer starts to freeze.
• We freeze layer by layer: We fill in 5-10mm of water at a time, and only when it is frozen, we add the next layer.

Both approaches are of course much more work than simply putting a bowl full of water in the freezer. I have not tried out either of the approaches, but I would be interested in any results in that direction. You might also have a look at the following instructable where clear ice is successfully produced.

Comments

[mikesnyd]

You could make a quick silicone mold of a heart you have found or made already the size you need. Then instead of using a bowl just dangle your rose centered in your silicone mold. Fill with water and place in freezer. Can be done really quickly.

[rlee8807]

Remember that "Instant Ice" stuff that actually is like a plastic. As far as I know, that doesn't melt, so if it came out clear, you could actually mount it.

[mariana.rodrigues]

This looks great!! I plan to do one using a silk rose. The ice seemed to have burned the rose somewhat. A silk rose will look the same, regardless being frozen.

[sunkist3208]

To make the ice crystal clear, you could boil the water, let it cool, boil it again, let it cool again and THEN put it in the bowl to freeze. It's always worked for me.