Ice Marbles

Have you seen that pin where you can make big ice marbles? You are to fill balloons up w/water and let them sit out in the cold. After they freeze you break the balloon and have big round ice marbles for your kids to play w/in the snow. I thought this sounded like a perfect project for my two boys this winter.
I snagged some balloons and began to fill them w/water. I had forgotten how hard it was to fill balloons with water under the faucet. Water water everywhere! I wanted to have different color marbles so I filled a few of my balloons w/food coloring. I put the food coloring in first then the water.
The first thing I realized was that the balloons were not round once filled w/water. They were more like ovals. Hmmm?

Frozen Water Balloons

We were having below freezing temps so I put the water balloons out in the snow. I left them out for two days. We were having another snow storm and I was excited to break these out for the boys.
To my surprise two of the five balloons were not frozen. The smaller ones I had done were still completely liquid. I brought in the other three balloons and started to get to work.
I cut the first balloon only to realize I was having liquid spill out. (Thank goodness I was doing it over a bowl.) It was obviously not completely frozen. I kept going to see what I had...
The whole balloon did not freeze. I figured after two days in 10 degree weather they would have frozen! Luckily, there was still enough frozen water to keep going.
I was unhappy w/the shape. The pin made it look like you could have these beautiful circular glass looking marbles. But even if they weren't circular they also had a flat bottom from resting on the ground.

"Ice marbles" sitting in all their unfrozen liquid.

I ended up cutting all three balloons open and having so much liquid spill out into the bowl. I was nervous the whole project would be a bust. 
Once I cleaned up the mess of the colored water I put the now "ice marbles" in a clear bowl to deliver to my boys playing outside.
In the long run these did not turn out anything like I expected, but the boys still thought they were cool. In fact, they buried them in the snow and played a treasure hunting game w/them. I was happy to see them still get played w/even though they were far from perfect. I'd like to try again but I'm not sure what to do differently. I could try it w/different shaped balloons and maybe just put them in my freezer for a few days instead of outside?
Either way, it turned out to be a fun experience for the boys and a messy project for me! Seems like that is usually the way it goes though. ;)

Final product

The boys burying the "ice marbles"