Ice Candles

I've been promising my parents and sister that I would be posting a picture of our luminaries made from ice. With our warm spell, I thought we were going to loose them, but they survived...barely. The temps are starting to fall and the streets are getting cleaned up, so with any luck, I'll start making some more luminaries soon. They are easy to make and really look good lined up around your yard. I made this one with a 30 gallon garbage can that we were using to store my fishing boots and other gear. I filled it up with water and left it outside to freeze; a few days later, I used my ice auger to cut a hole down the middle. But, if you keep a close eye on the freezing process you don't even need the ice auger, just chip through the top of the ice every morning and night until you have the thickness you want and then dump out the water from the middle of the luminary. You should leave a few inches of water in the bottom to freeze overnight as the bottom of the container will be the last part to freeze. Then bring the whole thing into your garage to thaw for an hour or two. You can then turn your container upside down and dump out the luminary. For one of this size you should use two or three people to move it around. You can either place a candle in the bottom and light it, or invert it over a bunch of Christmas lights or maybe over a landscape light.
With all the rain we were having I had to invert them over the Christmas lights to keep it from filling up water. A friend of mine used 5 gallon buckets and ended up making 30 of them to go around his yard last year, he just used the 8 hour candles to light his, they were pretty spectacular!
My parents make something similar out of round jello molds that they freeze in their freezer, they then stack a few of them together and take them to the cemetery to place on my brothers grave site with a candle in the middle. I hope this gives you an idea of something you'll try at your house to brighten up the dark winter nights, or as a nice way to share your light with a loved one who has passed on.
-Jeremy