Champagne and Flowers on Ice

As you know, I think everything is better with flowers. Even wine. Even champagne.

Just when you think you can‘t make something better than the perfection that it is......

I recently made an ice bucket with blooms from the garden frozen inside and it turned out beautifully. Easy and perfect for entertaining in the garden. My friends asked for a step-by-step tutorial so here it goes!

Here is what you will need:

*A champagne bucket

*An empty 2 liter bottle

*Rocks or gravel to weight the 2 liter bottle

*Water

*Fresh flowers

Thats it! I’m guessing the only thing you might not have on hand is the 2 liter bottle. So by buying one bottle of soda, which I personally promptly poured down the sink, you can make this beautiful show stopper. Total time- 24 hours of freezing, 15 minutes of hands on arrangement.

Here are the step by step instructions-

1. Add 2 inches of water to an empty champagne bucket and freeze. You can do this

overnight or wait 2-3 hours. I created mine in one day, so I just waited the first couple

of hours

2. After you have frozen your base, place the 2 liter inside the bucket. You will need to

the top off the 2 liter and weight it down with a few rocks or gravel. The reason you do not simply place a full 2 liter in is because the water is going to freeze to the bottle. Having an open top will allow you to pour warm water in, melting the surrounding ice a bit so you can pull the bottle out with ease.

Slide your flowers around the two liter bottle form. Just shove them in. I have found that having a small bit of a stem behind the roses helps make it stick in place easier and the green foliage looks really pretty. If you are using smaller flowers that float up, that is fine. You will need to freeze with smaller layers to cover up your floating flowers mid way.

Add water. I did two layers of flowers, so I repeated this process. I added water up to the flower line and froze for 3 hours. Once this layer was frozen, I repeated the process with a second layer.

FLOWER TIP- I have found that white flowers do not look as pretty. They turn a bit beige and do not have the same pop in the ice. I have also found that some of my garden flowers like pansies and voilas don’t freeze well either. They bleed and look like scary purple lettuce. I’m sure you could press and dry them first, but that is way to much work for Shefollowsflowers. This bucket with roses took minimal time- my favorite kind of project. Roses that have opened but are about a day from death and are about to lose their petals, like the bouquet in a vase that you are sadly about to throw away, are perfect.

Second layer

I let it freeze over night. Pour warm water inside the 2 liter bottle and it will pop right out. To remove the entire ice bucket, just run warm water over the outer champagne bucket and it will slide out into your hands.

Perfection! Now, put some champagne in this beauty and have a garden party!

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