When I was a small kid, I lived in the north of Sweden. Wintertime we kids used to compete between families on how to make the most beautiful snow lantern. Today I had a day off work, and the snow held just the right quality to make snowballs – so I decided to make a snow lantern, grown-up version.

I used the summer bird bath that I had long ago stored away for the winter. This little round and shallow bath on a rack, will make the lantern come out of the snow, and sort of float in the air when darkness fall and the candle light inside is glowing…

So I started building a circle of tightly packed  snowballs. The weather was gloomy, grey, so some of  these photos nearly look like black-and-white ones.

I started on the second row, on top of the first. To help them get “glued” on to the first row, I dipped the bottom of every snowball real quick in some water – that made them freeze to the snowballs beneath and beside.

The most beautiful structure is if you can build the second row a little to the left or right of the first snowball, it makes like a zig zag pattern from the outside when the lantern is lit.

When you continue building, see to that there is a slight tilt inwards, like an eskimo hut.

Finally, after a long time of building, the lantern is ready. By the time I had come this far, the dusk had closed in, which made it a perfect timing to light the lantern.

I used one of those memorial candles, because they are contructed to burn for 50 hours, and are not affected by wind and damp weather.

A rather shaky photo (below), my camera is not a good one in complete darkness. But i think you can imagine the feeling. In the middle of the darkness, something is floating out, glimmering, glittering.