Make Your Own Ice Cream Parlour Play set DIY

Ice Cream Parlour Play set DIY

Would you like sprinkles with that? I made this Ice Cream Parlour Play set for my friend Fiona’s daughter Jessie, who is four.

Jessie was playing with a fantastic wooden ice cream set the other day at school pick up time. She had borrowed it from her adorable best friend Marnie (also a daughter of a fab friend). It is gorgeous, but I thought I could have a go at rustling up a less spendy (ie cheap as chips) version for Jessie to have of her very own for her birthday. In the beautiful french set, you get a scoop, 6 flavours, 2 waffle cones, and the box…….

My own children, are well used to my attempts at making things from papier mache, double sided sticky tape, and general junk from around the house. My daughter was very enthusiastic about the project, and how it progressed….my son on the other hand suggested I just buy one for Jessie (somewhat missing the point).

Materials Needed:

6 Styrofoam balls
Paint – 6 colours for the ice-cream, and a further 1 for the box.
Tinfoil
Mini wooden spoon
Masking tape
Glue & newspaper (for papier mache)

The balls were 20p each, and the only items I had to buy. The rest was stuff I had around the house.

Step1: Make the ice-cream balls

Simply paint each of the styrofoam balls a colour representing an ice-cream flavour. We did:

Pink – Strawberry;
Brown – Chocolate;
Cream – Vanilla;
Light Green – Mint;
Orange – Orange; &
Yellow – Banana.

Make sure you use toy safe paint.

Step 2: Make the ice-cream scoop

The first thing to do is make the cup element of the scoop. Mould tin foil around half of the styrofoam ball to get the right size and shape. Add a few layers for rigidity.Apply masking tape to the whole of the tin foil surface.The handle of the scoop is a disposable wooden spoon, bulked up with tin foil. Cover it fully in masking tape before painting. The “scoop” painted silver, and the handle pink.

Step 3: Make the icecream parlour

Disposable coffee cups, tin foil and newspaper create a framework of dents that the ice-cream balls can sit in. The whole lot fits inside the a lidded shoe box.

The disposable cups are too big for the box lid to close, so the bottoms were chopped off. More tin foil and masking tape made a frame for the inside of the box. Not pretty, but gives you the gist. I packed in between with newspaper and tissue, to make sure completely rigid between the cups.

Use packaging tape to block any gaps before putting inside the shoe box. Half of the cardboard tube from a kitchen roll was used tomake the ledge for the scoop. Any gaps can be taped up, and then the whole thing papier mached with 2 or 3 layers before painting. Print out a “menu” and attach to the top of the box.

I have to be honest, I’m questioning my own sanity by this stage (I’m sure you are too). But we are on the home straights.

Step 4: Make the icecream cones

My initial plan was to use light brown felt, and add the waffle stripes in either darker brown thread, or dark brown sharpie. I couldn’t however find any of these in our local crafts store, so had to improvise.

This geometric fabric was in my remnants pile. The pattern is slightly waffley. I think any small geometric print would give the same effect. The fabric is thin, and won’t stand up on its own. If you are using similar, add iron on backing to stop the cone fraying, and make it more rigid. For the cone shape, cut a quarter circle of the backing and the fabric.

Sew zig zag stitch on the curved edge before folding the fabric back on itself, and a seam up the long side to make a cone shape. Turn the fabric so the battery is facing outwards. It should be cone shaped. For more texture, add some puffy paint cross hatching. This would look much better if I had dark brown buffy paint (but luckily 4 year olds are not such purists as me).