One of the upsides of living in the northern hemisphere is that you can make ice lanterns in the wintertime. My neighbour beat me to it and already had three ice lanterns with candles burning inside by the time I was starting mine.
It’s only a few degrees below zero but consistantly, so while it takes a good few days for a bucket of water to freeze, it’s very doable. I was thinking of making only a couple buckets where you don’t let it freeze completely through so I can but a candle inside, and then a huge amount of cubes to form a big circle.
I might even make a castle or something insane because if I start now and make new ones regularly for the next few months, I’m gonna have a lot of building material. Here most grocery stores give away these candy boxes for free and I need to pick up more so I can make bigger batches at once. Patience is not my strong suit.
On the topic of patience, I was too quick to tip over the first bucket and ended up with a very thin lantern. It was quite pretty though and the candle burned surprisingly all night in it.