Last Updated June 14th, 2019 at 10:00 am by Lisa
A Garden Party Frozen Floral Ice Bucket is the perfect way to keep wines cool for Spring and Summer entertaining! A stylish and pretty way to serve icy cold bottles of sparkling water, wine, or champagne outdoors.
These ice buckets are so much fun to have at a backyard party or celebration. We just put one out for a family birthday party, and it lasted about 3 hours.
Place it somewhere where the melting ice water can neatly drip into your backyard or garden. Have fun and get creative using flowers, fruit, greenery, or decorations that fit your theme or event.
How to Make a DIY Garden Party Wine Chiller:
Materials you will need:
- 2-gallon plastic pail (hardware store paint section)
- 2 1/2 quart plastic pail (hardware store paint section)
- 2-gallon bottles of distilled or boiled water (freezes clear)
- flowers, greenery, or sliced fruit
- clear tape
- frozen ice-pack or weight
- 2 chopsticks
- silver platter or large plate (to serve it on for your party)
I used flowers left over from making my Garden Crostini recipe and flowers from my garden, hibiscus and nasturtiums are very bright and fun in ice!
Okay, let’s do this!
Time needed: 1 day.
Garden Party Wine Chiller Step-by-Step Instructions:
- Clear Freezer Space
Clear a large enough space in your freezer to fit your bucket. (this was not easy for me as my freezer is always packed!😜
- Filling The Bucket:
Next, pour 3-4 inches of distilled water into the bottom of the bucket and place a layer of flowers (or fruit) in the bottom. This is the base of your ice bucket, pop into the freezer. Freeze until solid about 4 hours. Tip: Distilled (or boiled tap water) freeze clearer than plain tap water!
- Build The Mold:
Place the smaller container inside a larger container, rest on ice base and tape small bucket inside the large bucket to hold in place.
Weigh down the smaller container with a small frozen ice pack or a weight. Add more flowers, push them down or position with chopsticks in the outer ring. Freeze this layer for 2-3 hours. If your flowers are quite large, they will hold in between the outer and inner bucket. - Add another Layer of Flowers and Greenery:
Fill with another 3 or 4 inches of water and place flowers down into water.
Sometimes the flowers float up, use a chopstick to push down into the water. - Final Layer of Flowers, Greenery, and Water:
Repeat and freeze in 3-4 layers depending on bucket size. Freezing in layers allows flowers to be all the way through the bucket. Otherwise, they float to the top.
Freeze overnight before taking out of plastic bucket. - Un-mold Your Frozen Bucket:
When you are ready to unmold your Garden Party Wine Chiller, pour warm water into the center small bucket which will release the small pail from the center.
Next, run the large bucket under warm water until the bucket releases. - Return Ice Bucket to Freezer Quickly!
Once your ice bucket is out of the mold, return it to the freezer until your party begins, place out after guests arrive on a pretty silver tray with a napkin underneath to keep it from sliding with a bottle of sparkling water, wine, or champagne. Of course, it melts, so place it somewhere so it can drip into your garden!
So pretty…and by the way, I kept this in my freezer for a couple of weeks before using, so this project can be done well in advance of your party.
Garden Party Wine Chiller Ideas and Tips:
Place your ice bucket on a beautiful silver tray on top of a napkin, this helps it not slide.
You can use the same technique freezing techniques to make small bowls to serve shrimp cocktail and sauce, wouldn’t lemon slices be gorgeous frozen in ice bowl? Just use two different size bowls as your mold and the same instructions in this post. You could make one for shrimp, and one for the sauce.
Creative Things To Freeze:
- Try lemon, lime, or orange slices.
- Fruit like strawberries or blueberries
- Use flowers and greenery from your own garden.
- Herbs from your garden: mint and rosemary
- For Winter or Fall, try leaves, cranberries, greenery, pine cones, or cinnamon sticks!
How To Use Ice Chillers and Bowls:
- Serve a cold dip in an ice bowl with cut veggies chilled.
- Or serve pretty ice cubes for drinks using edible flowers, fruit, or herbs using an ice-cube tray.
Wine Chiller Serving Tips:
- Pre-chill your wine bottles so they are nice and cold before your party.
- The ice bucket will begin to melt very fast so place it out at your party just after guests have arrived.
- Before your party, remove the frozen floral ice bucket from the plastic pail, and keep in the freezer.
Having a garden party? Try these ideas:
Have fun, create and share something you put your heart into with your guests, that is truly entertaining in style and your guests will love it!
All the Best,
Lisa
XO
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