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DIY Ice Bucket

DIY Ice Bucket

Our favorite DIY projects are the ones in which materials cost next to nothing and that requires no skills. This chic ice bucket made by Kim Fisher captured by Anne Liles Photography, is just that. Perfect for winter weddings, refreshing in summer soirees – just add berries or flowers instead of eucalyptus! I will let Kim take it from here:

DIY ice bucket

This is a really easy and inexpensive way to add a wintry touch to cocktails. For our insert bottle we cut the top off of an empty 2 liter plastic Ginger Ale bottle (Ginger Ale bottles have straight sides which is what you want plus a two liter bottle allows you to use the ice bucket for larger champagne bottles as well as still wine bottles), and dropped several small rocks in the base to weigh it down and placed it inside a straight sided 2 gallon plastic bucket (found at any paint store). You will sandwich the two containers like in this project.

We poured tap water into the 2 gallon bucket around the inserted plastic bottle( if you want a clearer finished product use distilled water but I prefer the smokey look for winter) making sure there was a good 2 inches of water under the inserted plastic bottle for a good base of ice. We then used heavy duty florist tape to tape off (simple criss cross) the top so the plastic insert bottle stays firm in place.

ice shot glasses diy

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I used cut seeded eucalyptus branches and tucked them down into the sides – keep in mind that if you do this with flowers anything that pokes up from the water will discolor during the freezing process, vines and greenery tend to be the better choice for this project.We then plop the whole thing(carefully) into our freezer and leave over night.

Once it’s all frozen you simply remove the tape and rocks from the plastic insert bottle and pour warm water inside to loosen it, work and wiggle the bottle a little and it’ll pull out nicely. Turn the 2 gallon bucket on it’s side and run warm water around the outsides to loosen your ice bucket creation, it needs to be coaxed a little but eventually it slips out. This project easily lends itself to DIY ice shot glasses – instead of a plastic bottle and a bucket we used a large and small size of clear plastic cups. Same instructions, smaller scale, perfect for cranberry infused vodka shots.

View more images from this icy winter inspiration!

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