"Flowers of your December"

Sometime in January I posted about my family Christmas'09. As I looked over the post today, still gutted by those decoration mis-haps, I realised something. That Pohutukawa Champagne holder is pretty darn cool. At least my friend Mariah thought so.







Here is how I made it....





'Champagne/Sparkling Grape Juice Decorative Cooler'

1. Pick your Flowers of choice. You could also use fruit (lemon & limes would be cool!), shells..or anything really! I've seen it done in NZ House & Garden, with Pink & White roses, and it looked amaaaazing.

2. Select a plastic bowl or bucket. This will give you the shape of your cooler, so make sure you don't choose a bowl that is too big - or too small to accomodate your bubbles.

3. Get a large based glass carafe jug or even better...a 2.25L Coke bottle with some rice or sand inside. Place it inside the bowl. It's important to remember that the base of your anchor needs to be slightly bigger than your bottle of bubbles.

4. Arrange your blooms around the coke bottle or jug, and fill the bowl with water so that it just covers your blooms, but doesn't quite fill your bowl.  

5. Place in the freezer overnight.

6. Once frozen, remove from freezer and rest for 20-30mins. Wipe the outside of the bowl with a hot dishcloth. You should be able to bend the plastic away from the ice from here. 

7. To remove your anchor, carefully bend the coke bottle plastic away from the ice. If you used a glass jug, carefully pour some warm water in to the jug, and carefully wriggle to release.

8. Carefully turn out on to a platter, or even a shallow dish to use as a centre piece. At this point you can return it to the freezer to keep it nice and frosty.