SUMMER is upon us and the semesters lessons are wrapping up. This potentially leaves time to fill! I’m not making these with my students, I’m making them as decor for summer camp (well, that’s the current plan) but I you could definitely adapt this activity for the classroom. Let’ face it, who doesn’t like ice cream! Whats more, this way none of us have to suffer the consequences of calories. It’s a win-win!

Ice Cream Summer Bunting

MATERIALS

• Ice Cream print out (I laminated mine): Ice Cream Bunting Template
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Felt
• Embroidery thread
• Needle
• Lollipop sticks
• Glue gun
• String

INSTRUCTIONS

I started with a print out of my ice cream drawings which I first laminated, and then cut out my four shapes.

I then marked and cut out all the pieces I needed for each type of ice cream.

FIRST up the watermelon. For anyone reading this who may not be in the know, these are inspired by this ice lolly (ice cream, ice cream bar… I don’t even know anymore):

FOR the watermelon you need two mirroring red triangles and one strip of green.

THEN we have the traditional ice cream. For this you need two mirroring cone coloured pieces and one piece of ice cream.

Following that we have the basic ice lolly. The easiest of all, you just need two mirroring pieces.

AND finally we have the three coloured fab-esq lolly (I miss fabs, I intend on having many in August!) For this you need two mirroring “base” pieces, one middle piece and one top piece.

So now you should have something like this:

ONCE all the building blocks are done, it’s time to embellish the front of the ice creams and glue a few bits down.

For the watermelon, this means gluing the green edge down, and then adding the seeds with black thread.

For the ice cream, I first add “sprinkles” to the ice cream itself. This is great for using scraps of embroidery thread. I then glue this ice cream to it’s cone. once this is done I sketch on the waffle lines of the cone and then stitch over them. This is the most time consuming one, but it’s worth it!

For the basic ice lolly, I sketch on two lines that show some kind of shading, and then stitch over them.

For the three coloured lolly, the top layer is peppered with hundreds and thousands, like the ice cream, and then the middle section and the top are glued down.

With all the stitching it is important you keep the tension gentle and don’t warp the shape by pulling the thread too tight.

Now it’s time to glue them together. For the ice creams with lolly sticks, sandwich the stick between the front and back pieces, applying the glue only to the stick itself.

For the ice cream, only apply the glue to where the waffle lines have been stitched.

AND voila. Ice creams ready to be used as you will. I made a ton of them in all sorts of colours, attached them to some string, and hung them up in the classroom. They really brighten the place up!

I decided to take the watermelon idea a step further and made lemon, lime and orange wedges, and then I decided to have a go at Neapolitan ice cream!

HERE they are in action:

DON’T be limited by colour – create any combination you like, string them up, and soak up those happy summer vibes.

If you make these, drop me a line here or on my instagram: @thisgeekyteacher. I’d love to see how they come out!