I like the idea of the frozen soap bubbles! Here in the Washington DC area it probably won't go down to the low 20's for another month, so I have time to have a jar handy.

Your post reminded me of the time when I lived in Western NY, a few blocks from a lake that froze over every year (thick enough for ice-fishing and for small airplanes to land on). One of my favorite things was in spring when the ice cover began to melt, and it would break up into zillions of shiny, beautiful 3-inch "sculptures", where the sun had softened the edges into clear and interesting shapes and the wind would push these on shore into piles several feet thick. You could walk on these heaps of ice, and it sounded like tinkling crystal chandeliers. I would collect and bring home some of these frozen shapes to keep in my freezer to take out and look at later. Sometimes I would walk around looking through one. It never occurred to me to try to use them for photography.

Summer visitors from New York City would often wonder aloud "What do you DO here all winter!?!" Answer, "We watch the lake freeze ---- we watch the lake thaw....."