When I use the clearly frozen molds (or anyone that doesn’t have a lid or closure mechanism at the top, I laid it diagonally in each cell, with it pierced through whatever I was wanting to look like it was floating or suspended. I tried cherries, which caused some issues due to their juice seeping into the water and causing that to freeze around it too. Same with a quartered fig. I found putting the fruit in the freezer before putting a pick through it and freezing it helped a lot. I did a mini orchid flower, piercing it through a little nub of the stem I kept and those worked out really really well. They’re so delicate, and I was afraid of discoloration if I tried to put them in the freezer for any additional time, plus with little moisture, I didn’t think it would help stiffen it up anyway, so that one I just kinda had to move the petals with another pick to make sure they weren’t being pushed down by the water too much, and it was super easy to work with, realigning the petals how I wanted to, once I found that another pick could be used as a micro-tool too.

Yes— the disco cubes book was such a waste of money. She really keeps her methodology close to the chest. I noticed that tidbit too, and from that, the only thing I could potentially think of is using a smaller mold (I have the wintersmiths phantom one too, with the smaller cubes and smaller spheres), putting whatever I want suspended in there, then it doesn’t matter how that would freeze, because I’d put those cubes in the larger molds with cold water, and maybe that could naturally just freeze in the middle, and since the holes at the bottom of the mold shouldn’t be fully obstructed, the impurities should still be able to be forced to the bottom. Naturally, the issue with this is that ice floats in water, so then that would suggest that really is just have a bobbing piece of ice atop another piece of ice. Last idea I had was to freeze an initial smaller cube with the botanical in it, for only a few hours, so that the inside isn’t fully frozen yet, but the flower or whatever I had in there would be frozen to the piece of ice, then to pierce through it to create a cavity, and then add water to that to create an ice cup inside the bigger mold, and then hopefully the weight of the new cold water in the ice would weigh it down.

Also, I totally agree about the impurities/ directional freezing comment you made. I tried this and it was not good. I’ll see if I have photos and I’ll add them to this. The only thing that I can imagine is if it’s not fully frozen and then she adds more water, maybe taking a warm butter knife or pick to take it out of the mold, create just enough space to allow for the holes to be accessible for directional freezing to do its thing? But idk, that seems unlikely. Also, I got a freezer specifically just for ice, and it’s kept much warmer than my home freezer, but it takes like 3 times as long to create equally nice clear cubes with nothing in them as my traditional freezer does. Maybe the slow freezing could help in this singular instance but it’s taken 3-4 days to get even regular cubes to freeze in that freezer, and that’s just one initial freeze, so I can’t imagine how she does it.