After my son’s birthday, we had a TON of left over balloons. What to do with them all!? Ice marbles (for lack of a better description, they were basically frozen water balloons with food coloring). Sounds fun, right!? It was! But VERY messy to prep.

First things first. We gathered a few balloons, stretched them out a bit, added a few drops of food coloring, and then went about filling them with water in the bathroom sink (over the faucet). TIP: Fill it up just like you would a regular water balloon. VERY SLOWLY. And remember, there’s food coloring in there and you will get a few leaks/a few squirts here and there. We did. And actually, it was probably more than a few. It was a lot. A big mess until they were all tied and ready to go. Clean up: I used a baking soda/vinegar paste to clean off any stains that made their way to my sink/wall tiles. It also worked great to take the food coloring stains off my hands. Next time I’ll wear gloves.

Next step. Time to freeze! Normally we would place them outside in the snow to freeze up, but it’s been unseasonably warm, so off to the freezer they went. It took about a day for them to freeze solid.

We unburied our bag of now frozen water balloons and brought them outside to inspect. I used a pair of scissors to cut the balloons off and then quickly rinsed the ice balls off with some water to get rid of any extra food coloring residue. I wore gloves during all of this. Lesson learned.

Once they were rinsed off, the boys thoroughly enjoyed holding them, inspecting them, touching them, rolling them down the driveway, covering them in snow and then…since it’s was nearly 70 degrees outside on this day…watching them melt.

Overall, it was a fun activity but not sure I’ll do it again. The blue, green, yellow and pink stained tile in my downstairs bathroom agrees. But hey, I’ll try everything (most things) once and you should too.