So, I apologize… I teased you all with Sophia’s cute new Ice Cream Shop a few weeks ago on Facebook and promised a tutorial soon after but never fulfilled! Well, better late than never – right!?
We bought a double jogging stroller and a bike trailer at about the same time, so I had 2 big cardboard boxes that I hated to just throw away! So, I went to Pinterest for some inspiration. I got some great ideas from here and here – and made up my own! Here’s a tutorial to make your own cardboard ice cream shop!
1. You’ll need a big box!
2. I taped the flaps up, to make the shop taller. I reinforced the flaps with smaller pieces of cardboard, taped in the creases.
3. I chose to cut out the back of the box, leaving a bit of the sides intact to keep it sturdy. One of the tutorials I saw cut one of the sides out instead of the back. I also reinforced the floor with tape.
4. I think the funnest part of the shop is the cute, striped awning! So, luckily both of my cardboard boxes were from Schwinn, so they were the same width. I used the top flap and cut it out just below the fold on the box. You could do this a variety of ways, but this seemed the easiest to me.
5. I made the scallop edges with a half circle by tracing my Earth’s Best Nursery Wipes container! Make sure you have a super sharp pair of scissors to cut the scallops out of cardboard – it was a bit tricky.
6. I used Painters Tape to line out my stripes.
7. These nifty little boxes held hardware in one of the boxes, so I opened them up a bit and reinforced them with some tape. I thought they would make great little holders for some fun things in the end project. I spray painted the pink first.
8. Once the pink was dry, I took the tape off. Then, I taped over the pink {make sure it’s dried for at least a day} so I could put the white stripes on.
9. Sophia wanted a blue Ice Cream Shop – she wants everything to be blue. It took me a whole can of spray paint and the box really could have used another coat, but I didn’t want to put that much money into it. My camera showed these spots in the sunlight, but when it’s inside, you can’t see them. I covered a small rectangle with paper to make a fun little sign later.
10. Once the blue was dry, I taped around the rectangle to protect the blue and painted it pink. I bought decorative duct tape to spruce up the shop a bit. I loved the colors – and the tape also helped to reinforce the box on the creases.
11. Every Ice Cream Shop needs a good counter top! I made this one by putting two rectangles of cardboard together with double-sided tape {this made it more sturdy and thicker}. I spray painted it white, then added the decorative duct tape around the edges. To affix it to the box, I put another couple of rectangles together with double sided tape the exact width apart as the width of the shop window. It stayed pretty well on it’s own, but I did reinforce it with some hot glue.
12. After putting on the counter top, I attached the small boxes to the inside of the shop with double sided tape. They’re labeled “Spoons”, “Cups”, and “Sprinkles” and sitting on the counter top is the all important one… “Tips”!
Now you know how to make your own cute Ice Cream Shop… but you’ll have to add your little Beauty inside – no tutorial to make one of those! 
This was a fun project that I worked on for a few hours at a time over a couple of weeks. It could probably get done in a couple of days, if you had more time to devote to it! I just loved re-purposing a cardboard box that would have normally just been thrown away by others! Sophia is LOVING it too… she sells ice cream to anyone who visits!
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