I was REALLY hoping that the arrangement would have some pink so that it wouldn’t clash with my color choices for the lettering and interior flowers. Whew π
wouldn't it be more helpful to post the Mother's Day ice vase BEFORE Mother's Day?
Ok, here’s the deal: same story that you’ve probably heard before. I didn’t have time to add this design (also, same for the Mother’s Day rose and the color stiletto heel) BEFORE Mother’s Day, so I’m adding them now, ON Mother’s Day, so that I don’t forget and I don’t lose track of all the pics and stuff. Sorry! You can get a full refund on all the monies that you paid to see all 3 of these designs. Just email sorrynotsorry@icesculptingsecrets.com π
It’ll be useful next year. You’ll wait π
how I came up with the Mother's Day ice vase
My country club client simply asked for a Mother’s Day ice vase, no specifics. I actually didn’t want to make a vase, since it takes more ice than some of my other recent Mother’s Day designs, like my new high heel piece. But whatever, I’ll charge them for it.
I also don’t like vases as much anymore because they’re heavy π I’ve lifted tons and tons of ice in my career and if I’m going to lift more than I need to, I want it to be worth it. Did I not feel like this vase was worthy then? Let me move on, lol.
Ironically, I was right. I should have done something else. After I finished, I lifted the vase to move it out of the freezer and wrap it. And oops, it started to slip as I went through the door. I didn’t have much choice other then let it go down. I just had to make sure it did gently. I went down with it and it didn’t feel great. Fortunately, all of this was over a foam sheet at my freezer’s entrance. So, no biggie. But I really need to rework how I move my sculptures out of the freezer π€
I digress, as usual. The country club wanted a vase and I started thinking about what kind of vase I wanted to do. Somehow, I got stuck on my ionic column vase design and didn’t consider some obvious and less awkward choices, like the diamond vase or the circle vase. This piece was the last sculpture that I had to do for Mother’s Day this year, so it was, at that point, just a crank it out and get it over there piece.
I COULD have used more flowers inside my Mother’s Day ice vase. I kind of like using just a few though. Also, I have a sculpture coming up where the bride requested these particular flowers. (I’ve used them before.) So maybe I was a little stingy with them, since I wanted plenty for the upcoming sculpture. But I like it with just a few, so there.
However, once you start doing most of your ice sculptures by CNC, it gets addictive. Ok, maybe not addictive, but your expectations change. I could certainly have banged out a decent vase in about 30 minutes. The client would have loved it and I would have gotten more sleep.
But I wanted a cleaner piece and I’d never tried a vase on my CNC. I do like pushing myself to try new things with my ice. I did some champagne displays a few weeks ago and the client asked for flowers to be frozen in. Unfortunately, they asked too late. I didn’t have time to freeze them into the blocks. However, I was able to get some in there by using my CNC to make a thin space inside the ice. I did the same thing with this vase, plus I added the color lettering.
oops, this template for the Mother’s Day ice vase is wrong, sort of. Maybe I’ll fix it later, but it’s shows one of the nice features of symmetrical sculptures. It’s actually a combination of 2 templates, both the front and back slabs of the vase. The front slab has the lettering and the back slab has the inset.
so even though time was tight, I ended up making the Mother's Day ice vase with my CNC
I had enough time, barely, to create the design and run the Mother’s Day ice vase on my CNC. I’d never tried a vase or added flowers to one this way, but I knew all the techniques were solid. I wasn’t trying anything untested; I just hadn’t put these methods all together in this particular way before.
As I usually do, I came up with a design in Adobe Illustrator. I used my old ionic column vase design as a guide. Once the design was done, with all the vectors created in a way that makes sense for a CNC, then I imported it into VCarve Pro. VCarve Pro is the software that converts vectors in CNC-speak. It also lets me set the depths of my cuts, turning my 2D Illustrator design into a 3D ice sculpture.
Below, you can see the Mother’s Day ice vase in VCarve Pro. If you look at the tiny “toolpaths” in the right bottom box, you can see 3 sections. 2 of those sections are toolpaths for the front slab, while the last one, “h-icvb,” is for the back slab. The “h” tells me the bit to use, the half inch end mill. “icv” means “ionic column vase” and “b” refers to the back slab.
this is what the design looks like in VCarve Pro, the software that I use to tell my CNC machine how to cut the ice. Now the Mother’s Day ice vase requires 2 slabs of ice to make. Like in the template earlier in the post, BOTH of the slabs are here. That’s because it’s a symmetrical design, so even if you flip it, the outline is the same. That means I can do all the programming at once.
making a full thickness ice sculpture with a low gantry CNC machine
If you’ve seen my entry on my new CNC machine (It’s not so new anymore βΉοΈ), then you know that I went with a small Laguna machine with a relatively low gantry for an ice sculpting CNC machine.
With most ice sculpting machines that can handle full thickness ice blocks, you have gantries that are at least 15″ high. Mine is only 10″. So when I’m using a long bit, like a 1/2″ end mill, to cut the outline of my sculpture, I can only use ice slabs that are at max about 5″ thick. (With smaller bits, I can use thicker slabs.) Otherwise the bit will crash into the ice when I’m trying to make the machine move above it.
Annoyingly, I can’t make a decent Mother’s Day ice vase with a 5″ thick slab of ice. How do I fix this problem? I use TWO slabs. (And actually, I used two 4.5″ slabs in this case.) Then, when they’re off the CNC, I freeze them together.
As I’ve done with other sandwich designs, like the egg bunny and the new stiletto high heel, I put all the detail in the center of the sculpture and froze the two slabs together. The difference with the Mother’s Day ice vase is that I use two relative thick slabs, while with the egg bunny and others, I used slabs that were only 2.5 and 2.0 inches thick.
In the end, I didn’t make the Mother’s Day ice vase solely with my CNC. As usual, I had to do some sculpting by hand. I rounded the edges a bit and tapered the bottom some on the front and back. But the hand sculpting was fast and minimal.
adding floral to my Mother's Day ice vase
Alright, so I got the whole ice vase all carved and put together. It was three pieces, the 2 slabs, plus an extra wide flat slab at the bottom, since ice vases are tall and a little top heavy because of the floral arrangement.
But how do I add the flowers? Well, especially since I was using my CNC and making it from 2 pieces, I could have cut a hole into the top of the ice vase. That’s too much work and looks like π© though. So I made the top flat, like I usually do for “vases.”
Then I just put the arrangement on top, with a napkin underneath to keep it from sliding around and falling off. You can see how this whole process works in my post on combining floral and ice, complete with a video. If you’d rather just watch the video, featuring Joe Rimer from Ice Pro, see below.
links and stuff
Besides the Mother’s Day ice vase, I have a bunch of other designs for Mom. Here’s the roundup. Also, check out the high heel for Mother’s Day and the rose for Mom. Like this vase, I came with both of these designs for Mother’s Day 2024.
And about designs, check out the design usage guidelines.
Finally, you could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. ice sculpting secrets is also on TikTok, although videos there aren’t really tied to posts as much. You can comment on IG and fb as well as below. Since this is a newer post, you probably can comment below. But if not, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
