Repeating the Experiment {Colorful Ice Balls, Take Two}

I haven't been making much time this week to blog.  My excuse has been different every evening; tonight I'll mention that I didn't have much time for blogging because I was busy tackling a mountain.  A paperwork mountain, that is.  It was getting higher by the day and was threatening to topple over and attack me--if not my body, at least my mind.  Isn't it something how peace of mind can be so easily stripped away by nagging, undone tasks?

I didn't succeed in dismantling the mountain entirely, but I chopped it down to size and will (hopefully) make more time tomorrow to pound away at it, one piece of paper at a time.  But now, on to happier, more cheerful thoughts!

It's been cold here recently, like single-digit cold, occasionally even 0-degree cold.  A couple of days ago, God gave us a gorgeous snowfall, and now our ground is beautiful and white--my favorite color to see in the wintertime.  :)  This cold snap reminded me of something we did in the last cold snap, a couple of weeks ago by now, I guess.  The boys reminded me of our ice ball project that we first attempted last winter; and since they were so eager to do it again, I said, "Why not?"  We learned a few things from that original endeavor--first, to use a lot of food coloring if we wanted the colors to be dark, and second, to leave the water in the balloons for a very long time before cutting off the balloons because the water takes much longer to freeze than we first thought it would.  What I SHOULD have learned, but DIDN'T, was to use rubber gloves when doing this project.  I can't believe I FORGOT, but indeed I did, and my wildly colorful hands (even more vivid than the last time!) bore testimony to my mistake.  Tsk, tsk.

Stained hands aside, here are the results of our cold-weather-is-good-for-something project!  :)

After the balls had been laying out on the grass for a while, I went out to check on them again and noticed that, similar to last time, the color was beginning to drain from the top.

I had a little helper with me.  :)

We enjoyed looking out the front window occasionally at the ice balls to see how pale they were getting and how much they were shrinking.

And then they were gone.

But I wouldn't be surprised if, come another cold spell, we make them again.  After all, they're so easy, even Miss I-Am-Not-a-Crafter-AT-ALL (uh, that would be me) can do them!

I just have to remember the gloves...  :)