This week we’re making a giant ice cream cone – and one that never melts! This is a great summer craft to do with little ones, and one which they can play with afterwards. My kids absolutely loved making this craft and choosing lots of different flavours (even the 8 and 9 year olds I teach!), although they did need a little help with the cone.
A note before starting: if your glue stick is a bit old and hard you might have some problems sticking the tissue paper. You can rehydrate old glue sticks following this handy trick.
Supplies
- Brown card (construction paper)
- 20cm x 20cm squares of coloured tissue paper
- An old plastic supermarket bag or a large piece of tissue paper (preferably white)
- Scissors and glue (glue stick and PVA craft glue)
- Sticky tape and masking tape
- Confetti, small beads, sticky gems and/or sequins to decorate (I used stars, heart sequins and small beads)
- A red pom-pom if you want to add a cherry!
How to make the Ice Cream Cone Craft:
1. Print the FREE cone template provided onto brown card (see end of post for download box). Cut out and join the ends together to make cone, using sticky tape to fix. This is a little bit tricky, and young kids will need help with this. I suggest you hold the cone in position while your child fixes it with the sticky tape!
2. Screw the plastic bag or large piece of tissue paper into a fairly loose ball. Check the ball sits nicely in the cone, then wrap some strips of masking tape around the ball so it keeps its shape. (I find masking tape is good for this, because you’ll be putting glue on the ball, and the masking tape takes the glue well. However, normal sticky tape will do if that’s all you have.)
3. Sit the ball in the cone and fix it in place with tape.
4. It’s already looking like a great ice cream, but we’re not done yet! It’s time to choose the flavours! Choose one or more squares of tissue paper in whatever colours (or flavours) you like. You can cut these into rough circles now, or leave them as squares and trim up after you’ve stuck them onto the ice cream ball.
5. Take your glue stick and apply glue liberally all over the ice cream ball, including the sides and the top part of the cone. Lay a tissue square on top and press to stick all round. If you want to add more flavours, simply repeat this process. If your glue stick is a bit old and dry it may tear the tissue paper when you apply the glue, although this doesn’t matter too much as you’ll be covering it with another layer.
6. When you’ve added as many tissue paper layers as you want, trim any that are a bit big and crumple and ruffle up the edges of each.
7. Now it’s time to decorate the ice-cream with “sprinkles”! This is fun, but a bit messy. Sit the ice-cream in an empty toilet tube, and place on a large tray or inside a large plastic bag (if you do this in a bag, hold the toilet tube so it doesn’t fall over). Squeeze some craft glue onto the top of the ice-cream, then scatter on the “sprinkles”.
8. Add a pom-pom cherry if you want, and leave to dry fully before playing with the ice cream!
Advice for small group classes:
This is a straightforward craft, but young children will need help making the cone.
Other tips:
- Set up an ice-cream shop! Arrange the tissue paper “flavours” on a table and have the kids queue up to pick which flavours they want.
- To decorate, I sat the ice-cream in a toilet tube and placed it in a plastic bag (holding it at the base so it didn’t fall over). I then squeezed on the glue and the children shook on the sprinkles. They really loved doing this, and keeping it within the plastic bag meant the sequins and beads didn’t go absolutely everywhere!
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PRINTABLE HERE:
ICE CREAM CONE CRAFT TEMPLATE:
If you have a problem with your download, please read the FAQ. If the problem continues, contact me here so I can fix it.
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This is a free printable, but please read the FAQ for full info about how you can use my materials.
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