If it’s November, for the professional ice sculptors at Sand In Your Eye, it must be Nottingham Winter Wonderland! This is the fourth year in a row we have been asked by the lovely people at Mellors Group to make an ice bar for the annual Christmas extravaganza in Nottingham city centre, it’s always a pleasure to make the trip down the M1 from Yorkshire to make our ice sculptures.
Previously we have made Nottingham themed ice carvings, Christmas ice and snow sculptures and one year, inspired by the chilly sub zero surroundings of an ice bar we had an arctic theme. This year, we raised the temperature ever so slightly and imagined ourselves after a busy day on the slopes, in an Alpine apres ski bar, getting toasty on the sofa by the fire and drinking warming Jagermeister at the bar.
This years ice bar has even more interactive ice sculptures than in previous years. You can pose for photos in the giant ice stein, join your friends in the carved ice bob sled for a trip down the Cresta Run, play a game of air (or should that be ice) hockey and chill out with a grizzly bear on the sofa by the fireside.
There is an ice sculpture of a snowboarder catching some air to inspire you for your winter holiday and the bar is decorated with carved ice logs, a stags head above the bar staff and bottles of Jagermeister trapped in ice blocks, just in case you can’t decide what to order.
This is a really cool idea and easy to do. Almost anything can be trapped in ice; objects, photographs – we’ve done the Sand In Your Eye logo before.
It’s always a big team of ice sculptors for the ice bar in Nottingham, this year Jamie Wardley and Rich Spence were joined by Mark, Tom, James, Rodrigo and Jussi. It’s always a great experience carving the ice bar and we hope everybody who visits has as much fun as we did making it. Special thanks to Edward and Kirsty at Mellors for inviting us back.
Nottingham Winter Wonderland is now open from 15th Nov – 31st Dec, you can buy tickets for the ice bar – you can even hire it out for your Christmas Party!
