Ice Luminaries & Winter Noticing

This is the time of year when the world grows quieter, and because of that, the smallest things begin to speak louder. I’ve been thinking a lot about whimsy — not the loud, glittery kind, but the kind that arrives in the corner of your eye and makes you pause.

This year, I began taking pictures of things that looked like other things. A tiny personal mission.  It started with a perfect moment of accidental art: a bird pop on my front window, and when the light hit it, it looked exactly like a bird in mid-flight. I laughed, then I grabbed my phone. Something in me recognized it — the spark of a childlike kind of wonder I’d been missing.

The more I paid attention, the more I found. Shapes in shadows. Patterns in branches. The way frost grows into soft ferns on a window and looks like something drawn by a careful hand. Winter is full of that kind of magic. It asks you to slow down enough to notice, and when you do, it rewards you with these quiet, whimsical surprises.

The Season of Small Discoveries

Frost is the perfect medium for this sort of looking. It transforms the ordinary — a railing, a pane of glass, a parked car — into something that feels touched by story. You turn slightly, the angle of the light shifts, and suddenly there’s something new written there.

This kind of noticing doesn’t require a plan. You don’t have to go out of your way. It’s more like keeping a soft focus, an openness. Winter gives us this pause, and inside it are tiny invitations waiting to be found.

A Simple Winter Craft: Ice Luminaries

One of my favorite ways to lean into the season’s quiet magic is through a small craft that feels like part art, part nature — ice luminaries.

They’re incredibly simple:

• fill a muffin tin with water

• add a cedar sprig or a handful of cranberries

• freeze

• and hang them with ribbon from a tree branch – be sure to either put the ribbon in before it freezes or have some plan for making a hole afterwards.

The result is a little moment of enchantment — winter light passing through frozen leaves and berries. They feel like nature’s ornaments, catching the sun the way frost catches light on a window.

Use them as décor, use them as a moment of pause, or simply make them as a reminder to notice more, I bet your neighbors will notice them too!

“The small noticing becomes a kind of prayer — a way of saying, I am here.”— Rosie Steer, Slow Seasons

Winter gives us space. Not emptiness — space. Enough room for wonder to slip in. Enough stillness for whimsy to be seen.

May this month bring you one small discovery that makes you smile.

With warmth and wonder,

Jenn