We picked up another fantastic book from the library. Nature’s Playground by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield has loads of wonderful games and activities that can be done outside. The book works though the different seasons, inspiring us to get outdoors throughout the year.
When I saw the idea for ice mobiles I was desperate for the temperature outside to get super cold. Well its been that this week, so here goes…
We had bought some tin can lid covers which are made out of a soft plastic. I thought we would be able to get the ice out of these easily without the ice breaking. If you are using lids, you need to make sure there are no ridges in them which will be hard to pop the ice out of. We laid out some string over our lids and poured in water.
Back in June we had popped some flowers in the flower press and they have been sitting there ever since. Click this link to see our flower pressing in June. It would be great to make our ice mobiles super pretty, so we added these buttercups and daisies, and enjoyed two seasons at once!
Well we cheated a bit, rather than putting the water outside to freeze naturally, we used the controlled environment of our freezer.
I did want to wait for a day when the temperatures weren’t too far off freezing, today looked like that day.
I took our mobiles out of the freezer, left them for a few minutes and carefully extracted them from the plastic lids.
I was really pleased with the results and loved watching them glisten in the sun. The little munchkins liked them too. Then they melted!!
Have you made any art out of ice? What outdoor activities do you love when its freezing cold?
What a lovely idea, I’ve often thought of doing this but never with the string to make a mobile. A lovely idea. It might be fun to add some food colour drops too and see the colour effect as it freezes and melts. A lovely winter craft for #CountryKids and a #Trash2Treasure too if you want to linkup there aswell.
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We really enjoyed this one. I love the idea of food colouring. I’ve got one in the freezer with leaves in but the weather has changed!
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What a fantastic idea! And they look so pretty, a really simple but effective idea 🙂 #countrykids
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Thanks. Yes they are v simple but lovely 🙂
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What a really simple but lovely idea, my girls would love this
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I love the pressed flowers, just a bit sad that it melted 😦
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Wow! So wonderful! I love how he is loving the making of it too! I pinning this! 🙂 x
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#CountryKids
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I think we all enjoyed it!!
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They look fantastic! I love that you saved pressed flowers for summer to use for these, the flowers make them so pretty. We made some today too, it was on our calendar bucket list this month. I’ve put them in cake cases and used foliage and shells as we have no flowers arm. I hope they look as nice as yours! Thanks so much for linking up to #howtoSunday. 🙂 x
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Ouuu I’d really love to see your pics of them. Let me know where I can see them 🙂 I bet they look fab x
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Oh these are brilliant what a great idea, will be looking for that book too – thank you so much for the inspiration 🙂 #CountryKids
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Thank you. It’s a lovely book with so many ideas 🙂
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This is clever and so sweet! #FabFridayPost
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Thanks x
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I love this idea and cannot wait to try it with my Little and Big this weekend. The cousins will be in town too! Fabulous! Thanks for hosting this linky too! ❤ #FabFridayPost
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I’d love to see your pictures. Have fun with it 🙂
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These look gorgeous, really effective! Sarah #fabfridaypost
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We think so too!
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Sadly I’m not really one with nature especially when it’s really cold but these look pretty and it sounds like you all had fun making them. Luckily my kids hate the cold as much as I do 😉
#fabfridayposts
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Well we did cheat by making them in the freezer!
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What a fun idea! We press leaves in the fall. It’s fun to open a book and have a leaf fall out. We usually write the date on the leaf with a sharpie so we know when we collected it. We get plenty of ice here in Canada!
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i love what you do with your leaves…a lovely keep sake. 🙂
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What an amazing idea! My kids would love to make these, thanks for the inspiration! ‘#fabfridaypost
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Thankfully it’s too warm now for more ice mobiles 🙂
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These look great. Whilst our boys have never made these, they like freezing things in their cups and then turning them out to look at how they look. It’s been mostly trashies, moshie monsters or lego men, but we did once experiment with marbles and they looked quite nice.
Thanks for hosting #FabFridayPost
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That sounds like heaps of fun. I bet the marbles looked real pretty 🙂
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That’s a fab idea, I so look forward to doing things like this when my little ones are older. Post to save for a rainy day for sure xx #fabfridaypost
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It’s lovely to be able to do more stuff with them as they get older 🙂
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My daughter made these once at forest school. So simple yet very effective! Love it. #FabFriday
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Sounds like a fun thing for forest school x
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Wow, what a cool idea (see what I did there). My eldest has always loved ice, he stamps in frozen puddles and we’ve taken chunks home because he wanted to watch it melt. He’d love making these. #FabFriday
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Ha Ha I see! Hope your son have fun doing more ice exploring! Maybe a trip to see a glacier or a ice burg!!
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What a cool idea! They are gorgeous with the flowers inside.
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Thank you x
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Oh these are so cool! I’ve never seen anything like this before, I’ll have to keep this in mind x
#FabFridayPost
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Fun but short lived…I’m almost sad it didn’t stay colder for longer!!
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These look stunning – what a really great idea! 🙂 #FabFridayPost
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Thanks to the book!
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Awesome idea! I’m always up for anything which makes the cold more bearable! x #fabfridaypost
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It certainly help me deal with the freezing weather!!
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This is such a great idea, they look fab with the flowers in too. Will try this when the temperature drops again. #FabFridayPost
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Something to look forward to if it gets really cold…personally I’m ready for the spring now!
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What a great idea, and so effective. I love that it involved so many crafty skills 🙂 #FabFridayPost
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The nature playground is full of great ideas 🙂
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So pretty! I’ve never heard of anything like this before. I love that you improvised with the weather #FabFridayPost
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Thanks Charlene…my Son is always going on about the weather!
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Good way of getting the kids outdoors!! Not easy this time of year! We’ve been trying to seal spot today in a river near us. No luck though! It did get us out though!
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Seal spotting sounds fun. Yes I find having activities encourages outdoor fun!
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Love the idea of these types of crafts, so simple and less messier than painting! Plus it gets you outdoors – book sounds good.
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Yes, this one was so simple 🙂
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