Ice Candle Holiday Centerpiece

"Ice Candles" make beautiful centerpieces for your holiday dinner table, and are very simple to make. Today I'm going to show you how to create your own unique and pretty ice display for a candle.
You will need:
A large empty paper-based coffee can, with a small empty paper based coffee can (or large plastic cup) Carefully cut off the aluminum rim from the tops of the coffee cans with a box-cutter.
Or-A 42 oz plastic container with a smaller plastic container (or large plastic cup)

 I filled the center cups with heavy doodads, nails, and coins to keep them weighed down. In the space between the two containers, you put leaves, flowers (real or synthetic), foil decorations, whatever you want. There are many possibilities! I plucked some yellow/green/gold leaf branches from the trees neighboring my house, and cut them, standing larger pieces on end around the sides of the coffee can one-making sure to face the brighter sides of the leaves outward. Once you have your decorations in the space, carefully fill it with water. I was a bit short on decorative confetti stuff this year, so I cut up some scraps of metallic red and green fabric for the other one, and added glitter in blue, white, gold, and green. The cap came off as I was sprinkling the green glitter, and the entire bottle dumped in...

All set! Carefully place in the freezer, making sure your weighted center stays in the center. Once frozen solid, you can dump out the heavy stuff and dip the bottom of the container in hot water to remove the plastic mold. For the center, carefully pour in hot water and wiggle until it slides out. On the coffee can deal, I just used a box cutter to slice the side and peel the cardboard away. Place your ice-ring in a dish just deep enough to hold the water as it melts (it's slow), and put in a candle that's shorter than the ice, for the best effect.

My camera didn't catch the full 'glistening', but you get the idea! These are so pretty. As the top melts down, it starts looking really interesting:

This photo looks sort of muddy, but it was actually quite lovely. I've been making these every year, and they're different every time. It's been added to our family traditions. Can't wait to see how the glittery one turns out!

Follow Up on Salt Dough Ornaments-Do Not Eat

Finally finished cutting, baking, trimming, and cleaning a second batch of ornaments. Better ones, too.  I let the cut-outs dry overnight and only popped them in a 300 degree oven for a few minutes. They kept their smooth, flat shape this way, and their virgin dough color. The bright paint will pop on the pale surface, and the shorter baking time means no bubbling or disappearance of the pattern lines. Here is a glittered star from years past:

 Here are some from the latest batch that have not been glossed yet:

If you try these, and want to glitter the edges, DO NOT spray gloss on them prior to glittering-the glitter will stick to the gloss even after it's thoroughly dry.
The formula is 1 cup of salt to every four cups of flour. (A good way to make use of old, rancid flour)
 Partially dissolve your salt in some water before adding it to the flour. The salt will continue to dissolve and the dough will get a lot smoother as you knead it.

Twelve Days of Christmas in July-Tree Ornaments

I had these already baked, just unpainted, from last year. They are made from a dough of flour and salt. I recently found out that Artfire was doing a Twelve Days of Christmas in July promotion. So I dug these out and got busy painting.

Now I had only discovered, during the roll out of the last batch of dough, that you get better results if you let the cut-outs sit and dry overnight before baking. They puff up and bubble less if you do it this way, and result in more defined pattern indentation, nice and flat with a clean, professional finish. (It's still cute for the santa bellies to puff out though, lol). So I can do better, but I'm dreading baking when it's already +80 degrees inside, and 90-100 out.

These get painted and then sprayed with high gloss enamel. I did up a batch of stars, too, with a heavy layer of fine glitter glued to their 1/3 inch thick edges. But I made the mistake of lacquering the stars, when I should have left them matte-because, even when dry, the glitter sticks to the gloss and spoiled my 'edges only' design.
Ugh, it's hot. Need I say, "a crafters work is never done?"